Behind me, Jack’s booming voice came out over the din of men shouting, nurses and techs urging patients to behave, and cops questioning whoever they could.
From this man to the next, I moved with such haste that the shift passed in a blur. I was all over, calling out orders, asking for cooperation, and trying to assess the most emergent cases of gunshot wounds, open lacerations from the explosion, concussions, and broken bones.
“Get him to a CT, stat,” I told a nurse as I backpedaled out of a room, peeling off my gloves only to go to another room and put on a fresh pair to assess another patient. I furrowed my brow, certain that this argumentative and hostile man lying there bleeding from his face and chest would have just as much, if not more, internal injuries with how close he seemed to have been near the explosion in the restaurant.
Before I could turn and face forward down the hall, though, someone knocked into me and sent me crashing to the floor.
I landed with a deepoof, all the air pushed out of my lungs with the impact of the drop. Breaking the fall with my hands slapped onto the floor, I winced and ignored the instant pain of smacking down so unexpectedly.
Dammit!
Amidst the mayhem of the shift and the harried urgency we were all working under, I was almost ready to scowl at my mistake. That it was only my fault to not look where I was going and collide with someone. Nothing good would come from walking and not facing forward.
But that wasn’t the case here. It wasn’t my fault. Even if I had been looking ahead and watching where I was going, this tall, ragged-looking man in a suit would’ve struck me down. His beady eyes were locked on me and his lips lifted in a snarl. Foreign insults came from his mouth, but I didn’t need a translator to understand. A man only looked at a woman like that when he wanted to hurt her. To punish and lash out. The stink of booze wafted from him, cutting through the usual stench of disinfectant. As he wobbled to swing one leg back, I held my breath and frantically scrambled for the inevitable.
He was aiming to kick me, and I wouldn’t be fast enough to get up.
All these men seemed so deranged, criminal and violent. Italians? Russians? I couldn’t tell. But they didn’t seem like civilians, like what Fatima guessed.
This man wasn’t right in the head, either angry about the bombing, still intent on wreaking havoc, or so drunk and strung-out that he was oblivious to his behavior. All that mattered in this precise moment was that he’d singled me out as the target of his fury.
Tensing at the threat of his shoe striking me, I gritted my teeth and strained to get up.
But the hit never came. Other impacts of flesh-on-flesh did. Another man in a suit came to my defense. Showing up out of nowhere in the chaotic crowded department, this broad-shouldered man rushed to intercept the kick. With deftly delivered punches and elbowed jabs, he rendered the other guy defenseless. Instead of slurring at me and kicking me while I was down, he sat on the floor now, groaning, holding his side, and closing his eyes in pain.
Breathing out in a rush, I blinked quickly and fought to get up, to get off the floor where I’d be trampled or worse.
My God. This is a nightmare.
Failing to get my bearings quickly, I mentally chastised myself for being so sheltered to the gritty crime of New York.
“Are you all right?” the man asked.
His voice was curt, but not unkind. Impatient, like he had too much to do. Worried, like he gave a damn whether I was injured. He sounded older, but Americanized and not confusing me with a too-rapid Italian accent or a heavy brogue of a Russian inflection.
As he extended his hand to me to help me off the floor, more shouts sounded from the other end of the hallway. Staring at his polished shoes that bore stains of still-drying blood, I furrowed my brow and banished all the fleeting thoughts of gratitude in my mind.
He was with them, somehow.
He was one of them, all these deviants causing so much commotion and violence in my department.
“Fuck.” He growled it, distracted by the sounds of the fighting at the other end of the hall.
“Dr. Donovon!”
I craned my neck to see Fatima rushing toward me. With her approach, the older man spun on his heel and darted in the direction of the newest fight.
“Are you okay? What happened?” Fatima flung her ponytail over her shoulder as she crouched to assist me.
Taking her hand, I shrugged off the incident and got up. I brushed off my pants and frowned at the man. “I’m all right.”
As if!
I doubted I’d be “all right” until I got done with this shift and was at my new apartment to drink a stiff shot of gin to calm my nerves. “He bumped into me and that man…” I scrunched my face, turning to see if I could make out the man who’d saved me from a drunken man’s kick. I hadn’t seen his face, though, so I had no clue which suited thug he was.
“One of the mobsters?” Fatima asked.
Oh, bloody hell…My eyes bugged out. “Mobsters?”
