“How the hell did this happen?”
“Where’s the fucking nurse we have?”
“It was like they knew we wouldn’t suspect a thing.”
“Shit, man!”
The cries... the screams... the shouts... it was all... it was all...
“Do you need help?”
I turned around in my surprise to see someone I never expected to see.
Kaitlyn had followed me.
“Ask someone else,” I said. “I can’t…”
I was in no condition to advise her who to help. I was beginning to lose my mind... the parallels of this to the last time I’d gotten ambushed and seen people die...
“Michael?”
“Just fucking help!” I snapped, but then I tried to lower my voice. “Just ask around. I can’t... I can’t...”
Kaitlyn finally seemed to get it. I watched her run toward the wounded, just as I had seen nurses run to the wounded we had evacuated from the battle. Medical triage, they called it, when they had to decide who would get service and who would have to wait… and who would have to die.
It was a bitterly tough process to watch, knowing that people who had gotten shot or somehow wounded otherwise would just have to sit there and bleed out because a medical professional had somehow made the decision they would not survive.
“Do you need help?”
Why is she asking me that again? Why the fuck—
But this time, when I turned around, it wasn’t Kaitlyn at all. It was someone shorter, with blonde hair, striking green eyes, and someone who looked much more comfortable being here than not. It took me a second to recognize her as a nurse whom we had brought here from time to time, but it had just been so long since I’d seen her, I didn’t remember her name—if I’d ever learned it in the first place.
“Just talk... talk to the other nurse,” I said.
“Other nurse?” she said.
She looked over and saw Kaitlyn. She gulped.
“Devon!” Lane shouted, his voice breaking through the muddled chaos. “Over here!”
She ran over to Lane. I shuffled over, trying to make sense of the chaos. By the time I arrived in the corner of the club where the wounded were being treated, I could hear Devon, Kaitlyn, and Lane all having an argument.
“I told you to stay away!” Kaitlyn said.
“Oh, that’s rich, is that why you’re here?”
“I’m here because I’m in the area!”
“Argue later, treat now!” Lane said. “We don’t fucking have time for this!”
The two nurses started treatment, but they continued to take potshots at each other. What the fuck? Why the... people were dying, and we were yelling at each other about why someone was or wasn’t here? What sort of fucking nonsense was this?
“How much are they paying you, Devon?”
“How much are they fucking you, Kaitlyn?”
“You know the Good Samaritan—”
