Strong arms wrap around me, pulling me from her limp body. Jagger’s voice cuts through my cries, firm and commanding in a way that leaves no room for argument. “Go,” he orders. “Go and get help. Now. We’re right behind you.”
He bends, scooping her into his arms as I run with every bit of strength I have. I burst through the hospital doors like a bomb has gone off behind me, my shriek tearing through the bustling waiting room. “Help!” I cry. “Someone help! Please! It’s Zahra!”
The lobby explodes into motion. Security guards and nurses rush toward me as a gurney materializes out of nowhere. Hands grab my arms, steadying me and making sure I’m okay. True to his word, and no more than a few steps behind me, Jagger walks through the door, carrying Zahra with devastating care, her head lolling against his shoulder with every rushed step.
He lays her gently on the stretcher, and I pull a sheet over her exposed body, trying to shield her the best I can, granting her the modesty she can’t ask for. My hands shake, but my voice doesn’t. “Trauma bay,” I bark, sharply. “Now.”
My world narrows to the rush of flickering overhead fluorescent lights and the squeal of the rubber wheels against the tile floors. I stay beside the stretcher, one hand gripping the rail and the other brushing Zahra’s blood-matted hair out of her face.
“Stay with me. You’re going to be okay. I promise,” I whisper, near certain that I am lying to both of us.
Leaving the terrified friend at the door of the trauma bay, the doctor in me slams into action with cold, ruthless efficiency when I snap on a pair of gloves. Airway intact, breathing shallow but present. Cuts and abrasions are scattered across her skin, evidence of violence that makes my jaw clench so hard it aches. Orbital socket, likely fractured. Sexual assault evident.
“BP’s dropping,” someone calls.
“Hang two large-bore IVs,” I order. “Trauma labs. Type and cross. Now.” They move fast. Everyone does. The room hurries with urgency. Because, as much as we’re all telling ourselves this is just another patient, this is one of us.Our friend.
I cut away the remnants of her tattered scrub top, revealing her bruised and distended abdomen. “Possible internal bleeding,” I grumble as I reach for the ultrasound probe a few feet behind me. After quickly slathering it with gel, I slide it across her stomach. Black. So much black. More blood fills her abdomen with each pump of her heart. “She needs surgery,” I say, my voice tight and loud enough to get the attention of the rest of the room. “Now.”
Her heart rate stutters on the monitor, then it plummets.
“She’s crashing,” one of the nurses shouts calmly. The sound that follows is worse than any scream.Flat line. A single screaming line on the monitor. “She’s arresting. Start compressions.”
“No,” I snarl, climbing onto the gurney and straddling her lifeless body. My hands come down hard on her chest, counting aloud, forcing her heart to beat as a nurse bags her, forcing air into her lungs. “One, two, three… Come on, Zahra…” I pound rhythmically as we are wheeled to the surgical suite. Someone takes over when we stop, and I walk briskly to the scrub room.
I get ready for surgery on autopilot, the familiar ritual steadying me as the staff stabilizes Zahra. Soap, water, meticulous precision. With every swipe of soap, I lock everything else away. The guilt. The rage. The images of what they did to her. By the time the nurse is slipping me into a pair of sterile gloves, my focus is entirely on the body on the table. On the job.
“Scalpel.” The tool is slapped into my palm, and I press the blade to her skin. When I open her abdomen, blood spills out, red blooming over my gloves, gown, and forearms. It’s everywhere—hot, slick, and impossible to ignore—covering me like a crime scene. “Suction!” I bark before digging into the cavity and grumbling, “I can’t see shit.”
The surgery is grueling, time dissolving as we work. We don’t stop. Wecan’t. Every time we think we’ve controlled it, another vessel tears, spraying me with more of her blood. My arms ache, and my lower back is sore.
“Clamp.”
“Suture.”
“Hold pressure.”
Zahra falls into V-Fib, trying to slip away. Dr. Durand grabs the defibrillator and holds the paddles over her chest as I continue to work. “Clear!” he shouts, and I pull my hands free as the jolt lifts her slightly off the bed.Nothing.
“You don’t get to leave. Not like this,” I grouse through clenched teeth, my hands diving back inside and working diligently between another shock, every second counting. I tie off a bleed, and suction finally clears the field. “Got it.”
I yank my hands free as she is shocked again. Seconds stretch unbearably long as we wait for the blip on the monitor. One comes. Followed by another, and my knees nearly give way beneath me. A rhythm. It’s weak, but it’s there. I step back, exhaustion slamming into me so hard I have to grip the side of the table. Holding on to it tightly, I exhale the relief that is followed by a breath so deep it feels like my first. “Close her up,” I exhale.
I strip off my gloves and mask as I walk. My hands tremble with adrenaline as I retreat to the scrub room. After closing the door, I sink down against the wall with my head dropping into my hands.
This is the cost.
Every choice. Every secret. Every time I told myself I could carry this alone.
I wanted to save one woman and her child. And in the process, I dragged my best friend into hell and shoved her into the hands of monsters.
I don’t know how to fix this.
I knock the back of my head against the door twice before rising to my feet. I stow my feelings away, slipping on the mask of the emotionless robot who needs to walk from this room looking like a professional. Not like a woman who is on the brink of falling apart.
Hospitals have a particular sound and feel when something has gone wrong. It’s not blaring alarms or overhead code calls; those are sharp and obvious. It’s the undercurrent. The subtle shift in everyone’s demeanor. The way their voices drop and how footsteps move faster, but somehow quieter, like they are afraid to draw attention to the fact that someone’s life is hanging by a thread.
I can practically feel the unease vibrating through the soles of my boots as I pace the hallway outside of the operating room, waiting for Blake. No matter how long it takes, I want to be here when she’s done.For whatever she needs.Bouncing from wall to wall, I scuff the same set of tiles over and over again. Each step is pointless and compulsive, but stopping would mean thinking. Every time the double doors open at the end of the hall, my chest tightens with worry that Blake will be coming through them, in tattered pieces.
