Violet kept close to me while we pushed past the main lobby and headed back through the double doors.
There wasn’t much chaos, aside from the usual hustling and coming and going of staff from beds behind pulled curtains. No yelling about a sudden code blue, no rushing to the nearest OR with bags of fluid draped over a patient’s body.
And no screaming baby having just been born in the backseat of a sedan on the way over here.
Where were the EMTs?
I glanced over at the nurses’ station. An officer stood in uniform while facing the desk, one hand gripping the utility belt latched around his waist and the other laid flat on the counter while he leaned over to talk to one of the nurses sitting behind one of the screens.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as he talked, theclackingof the keys loud despite the noise coming from the units and machines around the bay.
“Yeah, my partner,” he was saying. “Terran Bishop.”
I stopped short, cold fear sinking into my gut.
No.
Violet slammed into my back. “Ugh...”
The standard was eight weeks out following an injury on-duty—I’d looked it up the second his signed discharge papers came through the hospital’s portal system. He’d only been off for four and a half.
Why was he out in the field already?
Why was his partner not protecting him again?
Why thefuckwas he in my ER when he should be at home resting?
Oh, I was going to lose my fucking mind.
“Uh, doctor,” Violet was beginning to say, none of which I was catching from how loud the sudden rush of blood in my ears was.
I caught sight of the two EMTs coming out from behind one of the back beds, curtain drawn hastily behind them as they made their way back through the bay with their stretcher in hand. One of them was the same one who’d had his hands packing Terran’s stab wounds that night.
What dramatic irony.
Leaving Violet behind, I blew past them, their radios crackling with another incoming call out in Edgewood that would no doubt be rerouted here within the hour. I’d be elbow deep in another problem by then, trying to work through keeping myself together while having a familiar body splayed out on my OR table with whatever horrific injury I’d be tasked with fixing once more.
No blood coated the hard yellow surface when it caught in my peripheral. Not like the last time. Neither of their faces were pulled into taut frowns, filled with worry. This time, they were stone-faced and tunnel-visioned as they marched back to the ambulance bay.
A sliver of hope pierced through me. Broken bone, minor concussion from slipping on ice, a hard fall on the pavement after tripping down a large amount of stairs. All possibilities?—
Wouldn’t constitute a code 99,a traitorous voice whispered.
Goddamn it.
Fuck.
My heart thudded hard in my chest, sharpening the way I was pulling air into my lungs. Fighting to keep the rising sting of panic at bay was making me lightheaded. The hospital lights overhead spun in a dizzying fashion.
I just saw him two and a half days ago. Fifty-seven hours, to be exact.
Alive and breathing and moaning my name while stretched out on my bed. His heart had been a steady beat under my palm; a strong and healthy pulse that indicated the life I’d worked tirelessly to preserve was still vibrant and thriving.
This wasn’t happening. Couldn’t be.
Not again.
Not so soon after I’d gotten him patched up and out of my hospital to go on and live another sixty years. He didn’t need some other set of injuries to add to his collection of ones from the last time he’d been in my OR. He was supposed to behave, steering clear of wandering the streets and getting himself into trouble again with whatever vagrant happened upon him.
