“Crash cart!” someone yells.
Pads slap onto his chest. Gel smears. My fingers hover close.
“Clear!”
His body lifts and drops.
Monitor—flat.
“Again!”
Shock tears through him. My tears fall onto his skin, hissing under the pads.
A beat.
Another.
A flicker—A rhythm returns.
Weak.
Unstable.
But alive.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, collapsing over him for a heartbeat before snapping back to the work. “Not leaving you. Not fucking leaving you.”
Fluids. Epi. Gauze. Clamps. I work until my arms are numb, until every breath is a sob, until the surgeon barrels through the flap shouting for OR prep.
“No,” I rasp when they try to move me. “He’s not going without me.”
“Cass—”
“I said no!”
My scream rips through the tent. “You want him alive? I stay.”
The surgeon hesitates—then nods. “Fine. Don’t move.”
We wheel him across the compound, floodlights blazing, men shouting for room, dust whipping around us in hot gusts. My hands don’t leave him. Not once.
Inside the OR, they cut around me. Work around me. Slice deeper, clamp harder, cauterise bleeding vessels while I hold the pressure keeping him alive.
Time disappears.
Seconds or hours—I can’t tell.
Until finally?—
“Clamp’s on.”
“Flow slowing.”
“Pressure stabilising.”
The surgeon exhales. Looks at me.
“He’s holding.”
