“Don’t. I can’t. Please. Let’s wait. Wait and see.”
His breath is uneven, but he says nothing else. Headlights flash around the corner, and I rush to the door, relieved when Emma’s car slams to a stop beside the SUV. Then she’s out, marching past me and into the storage unit, taking in everything in an instant. I turn to follow, only to be passed by Evie, tears running down her cheeks as she sprints to her brother.
Not able to help her, not in any measure, I slide the door down with a jangle, then wash in again as Emma slips an IV looking thing into Jansen’s arm, the skin there so white my heart clenches, before hooking him up to the saline I’d prepped for her. Once I’m germ-free, I stand beside Emma, unable to look at Jansen’s face, instead doing as Emma instructs, cutting away his sweatshirt, heavy with the weight of blood soaked into it as Evie weeps softly by his head.
Emma injects something into him, and Evie gets upset, yelling as Emma calmly explains whatever she did, but I focus on my task, working with Trips to keep as much of Jansen inside of him as possible, the sodden sweatshirt tossed into the trash before I wash up again. Then, Trips and I alternate in helping Emma find and stitch closed the large blood vessel that was hit, then cauterizing the smaller ones, slowing down the speed with which Jansen’s dying.
I don’t want that thought, but it’s there, lodged in my mind, the idea of a world without his smile, one that I’m not sure is worth facing. One I’m not sure is worth saving.
Digging out the bullet is disgusting and terrifying, Emma sweating despite the still chilly air in the storage unit. But eventually, she finds it, all of us sighing in relief as it plinks onto the metal tray. She does some more poking and prodding, making sure that nothing else serious was hit. She says it mostly got his diaphragm, missing his heart by an inch and his liver and lungs by less than that. Repairing the muscle takes time I wish it didn’t; every moment Jansen’s on the table is a moment too long.
Trips says something about it being a small-caliber bullet, but I can’t say I care. Any bullet in someone I love is too big. Anything that leaves someone I love looking like a wax sculpture of themselves, the life absent while the flesh remains, should be nowhere near me and mine.
Emma stitches him up, asking me to see what’s in the fridge in the back, the saline I’d grabbed earlier almost empty. Evie gives me his blood type, and I find a singular bag, not knowing if it’s enough. Not knowing whether anything we’ve done is enough.
“What now?” I ask as Emma ties off the last stitch and switches the saline for the blood.
She doesn’t answer, just washes herself up again, Trips and I following, the room silent save Evie’s whispered, one-sided conversation with an unconscious Jansen.
Emma rifles through the drawers, her phone in hand, before coming back and adding a shot of something else into Jansen. Then Emma wipes him down and covers him with a blanket before counting out two piles of pills and dumping them into a Ziplock, writing directions in Sharpie.
I can’t help but stare at those words, her round lettering too cheerful for the directions she’s scratched out: White pills, 1-2 every four to six hours for pain as needed. Peach pill, 2 every six hours until gone. Double up on missed doses.
Planning for this to work, even as Jansen lies silent on the table, his breaths shallow, his laughter missing.
Done with everything she can do, she pulls a rolling stool beside her patient, her eyes hazy as she watches her girlfriend barely keeping it together across from her.
She doesn’t comfort her.
“Now, we wait,” she says.
Chapter 2
Clara
Thirty silent minutes later, Trips pulls me aside. “We have to go back.”
“No.”
He mindlessly flicks and opens a pair of handcuffs he found in a drawer as he looks across the room at Jansen. The waxy sheen on his skin is fading. I hope that’s a good sign. Emma’s alarm goes off, cueing her to check his temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure.
“We have to. I’m surprised no one has come yet. The LoJack on the car will lead them right here. We both know my father shouldn’t get his hands on Jansen.”
“I can turn off the LoJack.”
“Clara, you know it’s not that simple.”
I want to stomp my foot, the anger and fear still stuck inside me looking for an out. “But it shouldbe, Trips. He took a bullet for me. The least I can do is to be here when he wakes up.”
He glares across the room, Evie looking up as our volume rises.
“Not if it costs any of us anything more than we’ve already lost, Crash.”
Evie stands up, and even from across the room, I see rage coat her face. This woman—a woman I’ve wanted to get along with ever since Jansen told me how close they are—it’s clear I’ve bought her hate tonight.
“This is your fault,” she hisses, striding closer.
“It is,” I say.
