I walk out into the cold bay. The wind is still howling, mocking me.
I stand there, staring into the whiteout, waiting for the lights.
Come back,I think, projecting the thought into the storm.Come back to me, Jax. I don't care about Sterling. I don't care about the Board. Just come back.
I wait.
Chapter 17
Triage
Maxwell
Time is not a constant.
In the Operating Room, time is a resource I control. I can stop the heart. I can extend the ischemic window with cold cardioplegia. I can manipulate seconds into minutes.
But standing in the ambulance bay of St. Jude’s Medical centre, staring into the white void of the blizzard, time is a weapon. And it is bludgeoning me to death.
It has been twenty-two minutes since the radio went silent.
"Dr. York."
I feel a weight settle on my shoulders. A heavy wool blanket.
I turn. Nurse Ortiz is standing there. She looks small and frightened in the red glow of the emergency lights.
"You’re freezing," she whispers.
I look down at my hands. They are blue. I am wearing onlymy suit jacket. The wind chill is twenty below zero. I hadn't noticed.
"I am fine," I say. My voice is shards of glass.
"They... Fire Rescue radioed," Ortiz says hesitantly. "They got a winch line down to the bus. They’re bringing up the survivors."
"Is he one of them?" I ask.
Ortiz looks away. "They didn't say names, Doctor. They just said 'Casualties'."
Casualties.
The word hangs in the air, heavier than the snow.
I look back at the darkness.
I think about the Board. I think about my mother’s dinner table. I think about the perfect, sterile office I fought so hard to keep.
It all feels like ash.
If he is dead, I saved both our careers for nothing. If he is dead, the "York Legacy" ends with a lonely man in a penthouse apartment who never got to be with the one man who broke through his icy facade.
Come back,I plead silently.I will use every fork in the drawer. I will let you eat chips in the OR. Just come back.
A light cuts through the storm.
"Incoming!" a triage nurse shouts.
The heavy rumble of a diesel engine shakes the concrete. It’s not an ambulance. It’s a Heavy Rescue fire truck, chains clanking on its massive tires.
