Between the two of them, they got their patient—one Lydia Briggs—stabilized and onto the hovergurney. Raising the transport to hip height, they hurried back to the ambulance, with Erin notifying the hospital of their ETA and requesting a trauma team upon arrival.
“You drive,” Brendan said as he guided the hovergurney into the back of the rig.
Erin nodded and left him to it. Brendan hit the control button that would raise the support legs from the flooring and locked the hovergurney into place. The rumble of the engine filtered through the frame of the bus as he worked methodically to set up an IV line, attached wireless electrodes for vital readings, and scanned her RealIdent chip again to check for any medical notices.
“Fuck,” Brendan muttered as an allergy to isoflurane popped up. He typed the information into the trauma report he was preparing to send to the doctors on call at Lafayette Hospital. They’d need to prep a different anesthetic for her if they opted for surgery over a regen regime.
The motions of tending to his patient were interrupted only twice, both times due to Erin checking up on him. He easily kept his balance through her driving, the bus jostling with every turn Erin took in her haste to get them to the hospital.
By the time they rolled into the hospital’s emergency drop-off bay, the woman’s vitals were dropping, and he knew they needed to get her into the hands of doctors.
“How are we looking?” Erin asked as she hauled open the ambulance’s double doors.
Brendan unlocked the anchor legs keeping the hovergurney in place, letting the anchors fold back into the flooring. “Not good.”
A trauma nurse met them at the ER’s sliding door. “Medic 2?”
“Yes,” Erin said.
“Let’s get the patient prepped for the OR. Follow me.”
Brendan and Erin steered the hovergurney after the nurse, the bustle of the ER controlled chaos around them. Lafayette Hospital was a Level I trauma center and received many patients suffering from life-threatening injuries. Lydia Briggs certainly fell into that category.
The person responsible for her wounds made himself known in a hideously violent way that left Brendan momentarily frozen in his tracks.
The sound of gunfire and the screams from too many people got louder as the doors separating the emergency ward from the waiting room lurched open on their sliding tracks. Brendan found himself staring down the barrel of a gun for the second time that year, heart pounding in his chest, and he couldn’t breathe.
But like during the terrorist attack all those months ago, Brendan focused on the life he carried in his hands and not his own.
The deep graze of a bullet cutting over his left arm made Brendan cry out, the pain like fire erupting along his nerves. The hit had him stumbling backward a step or two, warm blood sliding down his arm and soaking the long-sleeve of his uniform.
“Brendan!” Erin said, reaching for him. Thepingof a bullet hitting the trauma desk behind them had her flinching away.
“Run!” he yelled at Erin even as he tipped the hovergurney onto its side, fighting against the equipment’s orientation programming.
His patient, strapped to the baseboard, hung limply against the straps, putting further strain on her battered body. Brendan wanted to drag the hovergurney toward cover, but there was no room to maneuver something so bulky. He dragged it to the floor with him, hoping the metal bottom would be thick enough to stop a bullet.
“Where is she?” the shooter snarled. “Where is that fucking rat-faced bitch?”
Brendan unsnapped the buckles holding the woman to the hovergurney and let her fall into his arms. He tried to get her out of sight, tried to twist around so his body was between hers and the gunman, but it was too late. They’d been spotted.
Brendan looked up in time to take a pistol butt to the side of his face. Pain ricocheted through his skull and jaw, teeth slicing into his inner cheek. Blood filled his mouth; he spat it out, blinking dazedly up at the barrel of a gun aimed directly at his face.
“Don’t do this,” Brendan pleaded.
“You should’ve stayed out of my business.”
When faced with certain death, some people saw their life flash before their eyes. Brendan didn’t see a damn thing, his mind a mess of white noise. He saw the gunman’s finger tighten on the trigger and would have squeezed his eyes shut, but Brendan could barely breathe, much less move.
Then those fingers bent in an unnatural way, the gun flying out of the man’s hand by an invisible grip that shouldn’t have been possible. The man screamed, the sound cut off half a second later when his face met the floor in a body slam perpetuated by no one that Brendan could see. Brendan blinked rapidly as he clutched his patient to him with shaking arms.
“You fucker,” the gunman slurred into the floor.
“Shut up or I’ll break your jaw when I close your mouth.”
The new voice was harsh, filled with a cold fury that enabled Brendan to finally take a breath. He knew that anger wasn’t directed at him. Brendan turned his head and stared at the man who had saved them.
Oh.
