I prop up on one elbow, breathless, just in time to see James take Jake to the ground, which appears to be pretty painful and not at all like it is in the movies. The two cops reach where they’re splayed on the asphalt. I lie back on the sidewalk. Everything is a bit swimmy. Christ, whywould Jake do something like this? All that trouble in Jamaica Houses, and he never got involved.
“Sadie?”
James’s voice is much closer now, and then the face that I love more than anything in the world looms over me, lips curling in his trademark grin.
“Are you having a rest down there?”
“I … I …” His face is swimming in and out. “James, I …”
God, I feel so strange.
His face goes from sardonic amusement to alarm in a heartbeat, and he drops to his knees and wrenches open my cardigan.
The queen stares desperately at her knight, hoping he can save her.
“Oh Jesus Christ” is all I hear him say before I pass out.
Chapter 37
James
Blood is soaking into her top when I tear open her cardigan, and all I can think is:
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
She’s bleeding! Press on the wound!
I’m like an idiot on an ER show where they shout out instructions so that the viewer can understand what’s going on. For the love of God, I wish someone was shouting directions at me now because I am so far away from knowing what to do, it’s not even funny.
Suddenly, my aversion to all things medical flies out of the window. It’s just me and Sadie and the need to stop this, right now. I wrench up her T-shirt, and a cut is sitting next to her ribs, blood bubbling out of it. Her breathing is labored, and some dreadful sucking noise is happening as her chest heaves in and out. A hand lands on my shoulder, making me jump, and I turn my head to find a cop leaning over me. She jerks her chin.
“Punctured lung. We have to seal the wound. Don’t want it to collapse.”
She drops to her knees beside me and pulls some … tape? … out of her pocket as she says:
“Call 911.”
Never have I been so glad to have someone next to me who knows what they’re doing. I pull my phone out and type in the numbers with a shaking hand. The operator asks me to stay on the line, and I run her through what the officer is doing as she constructs some kind of flap over the wound with her tape.
“Take her pulse,” the officer says, grabbing my free hand and placing it on Sadie’s neck. “Count thirty seconds and let me know the number of beats.”
“Fifty-five,” I say eventually, and she nods.
“That’s 110 a minute. Fast, but not out there. I’ve seen a lot of knife chest wounds on the street,” she says. “Deal with ’em most days. That tape works pretty well unless it’s something big.”
Most days?Holy shit.All the stuff the emergency people handle while I’m at my desk writing code. And God, I don’t want to think what “something big” might entail. She must feel like I do when I’m looking at a computer that’s not working, trying to explain it to some poor guy who just wants to get back to work.Christ, James, are you really comparing your job to dealing with a gunfight or a suicide?
“Might not be possible to stop her lung collapsing, but … we’re watching that seal like a hawk, okay? We want the air to come out, but not go back in. Going back in is bad. We’re checking for blue lips. I’m Del, by the way,” she says.
“James,” I say.
The ambulance arrives in minutes, the benefit of being just down the road from NYU Langone, I suppose. Two paramedics leap out, fist-bumping Del and asking what trouble she’s been causing this time, immediately working away on Sadie. She’s hooked up to all manner of fancy equipment, and if I could calm down for a second, I might be interested in what it is and how it works, but I can’t drag my eyes from her wound. They lift her onto a stretcher in no time at all. She’s so small, her face so pale, with her beautiful caramel hair fanning around her head. One of the paramedics tucks it in as they wheel her to the waiting ambulance.Open your eyes. Look at me.Just once. Just once, so I can tell you how I feel about you.
“Hop in,” the paramedic says, and I don’t need to be told twice, vaulting in beside Sadie. Del raises her hand to me as the doors slam shut.
