“Emma. I need you,” I say.
There’s an immediate rustling. “Where?”
Trips yells out the address, and I repeat it.
“I’m already on the Westside, close to there. What am I doing?” she asks. And I’ve never been so glad to have a friend like Emma.
“It’s Jansen. He’s, he’s been shot. And we can’t take him to the hospital. I know you’ve only worked on animals…”
“Oh God,” she whispers. “I mean, I’ve worked on old farmers too stubborn to drive to the nearest emergency room too, but only for minor things like burns or lacerations. This, Clara…”
“I know I’m asking too much,” I say. “But I don’t know what else to do. Can you do this?”
“How bad?”
I swallow my panic. “How badly is he bleeding?” I ask Trips.
“He’s lost a good amount of blood, but if I were to guess, the shock of it knocked him out, not the blood loss.”
The ding of a car door and a muttered conversation make it across the line. “Got it. What part of the body?”
“Chest,” Trips says, his eyes burning into mine in the mirror before knocking his chin to one side, indicating another turn.
“His chest? But he isn’t bleeding out?” Emma clarifies.
“He’s bleeding, and if I stop my pressure, I’m not sure how long he’d have. But no. Not currently.”
“Okay. Clara, I love you, but you’ll owe me big time. I’m on my way. What supplies will I have?”
Trips explains what to expect as I drive, forcing back the tears so I can still see the road.
“We’re going as fast as we can, but we’ll be about five minutes behind you. I’ll text this number with what I need and instructions on how to sterilize everything so I can scrub in right away. But this may not work, Clara. He might still need to go to a hospital.”
“I understand,” I choke out.
“Then I’ll see you soon.”
“Love you, lady,” I manage.
“Love you, too.”
The echo of silence fills the car, and I can’t bring myself to glance into the backseat again. Instead, I focus on the road, hoping that no news is good news as Trips directs me to a block of storage units, the flare of bright paint too much for my overwrought eyes. The guard at the gate has me roll down the window, and I tuck my hands under myself, debatingthe benefits of hiding the blood on my hands versus the strangeness of the position. “Name?” she asks.
“Anderson James,” Trips calls from the back, and the woman looks like she’s ready to ask for ID, the darkness in the vehicle, our only saving grace. But as she pulls up the fake name, her eyes get big and she swallows.
“Go on through,” she says.
“There’ll be another car coming in about five minutes,” I say. “A woman with pink hair.”
“I’ll let her in,” she says, purposely not making eye contact with me as she hits the button to open the gate.
“Thanks,” I mumble, waiting for the gate to slide far enough for us to slip through. The poor girl looks terrified, and a little courtesy can’t hurt. I’m not sure I could be an asshole right now if I tried, with all my energy focused on the non-updates from the backseat as I wind through the units until we get to one in the back.
The lock is alphanumeric, and my hands are sticky with half-dried blood, making it difficult to get right, but I do. I throw open the metal garage door as Trips calls me over, and it’s my turn to keep the blood in Jansen as he carries him into a cobbled-together hospital room, laying him on a gurney. Trips goes back to holding pressure, but his arms shake as he asks me to pull out the space heater.
Glancing at the phone, unable to look at the pale, waxy color taking over Jansen’s skin, I grab the heater, then get scrubbed in. Reading Emma’s message through bloody prints, I arrange all the tools she requested, lucky that some type-A person labeled every drawer in the place. Once I’m done,though, I have nothing to do but wait, panic making time painfully slow.
“Clara,” Trips warns, but I just shake my head.
