“Dr. Suisse, yes. I’m Lexi--.”
He interrupted me with urgency in his voice. “You need to come with me. We need someone guarding our door while we work.”
I blinked. “Yes, of course. Lead the way, Dr. Suisse.”
He turned and made his way toward the metal double doors before swiping his credentials. “First night on the job?”
I scoffed. “Yeah, believe it or not.”
“Well,” he said as we both strolled through the opening doors, “welcome to the crew. This happens far more often than we care to admit, so you’ll probably spend more time guarding our rooms back here than anything else. This hospital is right smack dab in the middle of gang territories, so gunshot wounds and ruckus in the E.R. is the norm around here.”
I clicked my tongue. “Fantastic.”
He slipped into an E.R. room before turning around. “Stand right outside. No one comes in or out unless I approve it.”
“Will I be coming to the O.R. with you guys to guard there as well?”
He shook his head. “No, we have another security guard that does that. You just need to escort us to the O.R. when we make our move. You’ll know when it happens.”
I nodded as I took my position outside. “Got it.”
I heard the doctor barking orders while sounds I’d never heard in my life filtered its way through my ears. Tearing and gushing. Something splattered against the floor and a smell made me wrinkle my nose. I heard the man gurgling on something and I had to close my eyes to keep my own gag reflex in check. Then, out of nowhere, the doctor’s voice barreled out into the hallway.
“I need more blood in here!” Dr. Suisse exclaimed.
His voice alone tugged two more nurses toward me whose credentials I had to check before they entered. “We need to cauterize the veins, Doctor. We have to get this bleeding under control.”
Dr. Suisse didn’t skip a beat. “Already on it. Where’s that blood!?”
“Got more blood!” someone yelled.
“Get an I.V. hung. Where the fuck is that other cauterization tool!?”
The sound of a flat line plummeted my stomach to the floor, and I did the one thing I shouldn’t have done: I peeked into the room. All I saw was the blood on the floor and the hands of medical professionals soaked to the bone in that same red color. I closed my eyes and drew in deep breaths through my nose. I leaned against the wall to keep myself upright so that I could stay strong.
But, the sound of that flat line forced my heart into my throat.
“Charge paddles to 200,” Dr. Suisse said.
I intentionally continued taking deep breaths while the doctors worked as hard as they could to bring that guy back. I closed my eyes and murmured a soft prayer up to a God I had never once believed in, while simultaneously trying to block everything out as they kept charging and shocking. Charging, and shocking. Like they were in med school still and not zapping the energy and life out of a body that no longer had a will to live.
“God damn it,” Dr. Suisse hissed.
One of the nurses sighed heavily. “Time of death, 9:42 P.M.”
The sounds of ripping rubber were heard before doctors covered in blood charged out of the room. As the sound of that flat lining followed them out into the hallway, my stomach hit the fucking floor. None of this would go over well with the men that had been forced out of the E.R. But I had never once shied away from a hard job. It came with the territory, as I knew it would, so I excused myself and walked through the E.R. before finding myself standing outside with four men that looked like they were ready to spill blood.
And the second I turned to my left as I walked through the automatic E.R. doors, I heard someone groaning.
“I—I don’t know anything,” a doctor choked out.
I watched in horror as the same guy who had come at me gripped the man’s hair and lifted his head. “Then, why don’t you get us someone who’s got some fuckin’ answers, you useless piece of--.”
“Hey!” I barked.
The man looked over at me before dropping the doctor’s head. “What the hell do you want?”
I fully turned my body to face his. “I’ve got an update for you. You want to keep causing mayhem in the hospital? Or do you want information?”
