Hendry nods, accepts the paper from Oliver, studies it momentarily and then passes it on to me. “Where do we stand with regards to self-defense? If one of these fuckers does come here and attacks us…are we allowed to shoot them up with sedative? Use the defibrillator on them? “
The nurses titter. I glance down at the paper, already halfway to handing it on to the next person, when my breath catches in my throat.
Oh.
Oh.
My mind just keeps on saying it. My throat begins to swell shut as it repeats itself over and over.
Oh…
On the paper are a mosaic of nameless mug shots, eight of them on the first page and more on the other side. They’re numbered down the page, and at number one, in prize place, Zeth Mayfair’s face stares grimly out at me.
I feel like I’m going to be sick.
If you stand on the roof of St. Peter’s of Mercy Hospital at night, the things you can see are kind of incredible. Back when Alexis and I were kids, my father used to bring us up here sometimes when his shifts were quiet. The doctors would turn a blind eye—Jacob Romera was a beloved employee, a radiologist for thirty-five years in the very place where I now work. He moved out to private practice in L.A. long before I ever showed my face here as a clueless intern, but his name still means something in these hallways. He could get away with anything.
His favorite time to bring us up here was when it snowed, an event infrequent enough that it would have us jumping out of skins with excitement. The soft white flakes spinning dizzily from the vast expanse of sky overhead, the thick blanket of cloud that incubated the world, used to thrill Alexis and me beyond words. We would stand for hours, necks burning from craning them back for so long, until our bodies went numb and Dad would usher us inside before one of us got sick. Memories like that rush at me, knocking the wind out of me every time I come up here.
I push them down tonight, though. It’s not snowing, it’s raining, and we’re waiting on a trauma to come in. It makes me feel sick, the waiting. The adrenaline I need to think, act, move quickly is already pulsing around my body, useless until I can actually see what we’re dealing with. The wind howls, driving the rain sideways, lashing at our bodies, soaking surgical gowns. Oliver is with me, waiting patiently. He’s a good friend, a good man. Funny, smart, attractive, a terrible flirt. It’s a miracle he’s single.
In the distance the volley of something mechanical reverberates off the city’s high rises. “Hear that? The helo.” Oliver nudges me with his elbow. “Can’t be more than a mile out. Hit the elevator.”
I don’t have a problem grabbing the elevator doors. It’s been held on this floor for the past ten minutes with the doors closed, and the nursing team waiting with a gurney and life-support gear inside are nice and warm and dry. Time for those bastards to get wet, too.
I jog back to the steel doors and hit the call button just as the powerful gust of wind blows at my back, hurling freezing cold water into the faces of the three young nurses laughing and joking inside. Mikey the intern stops what he was doing, frozen in place. His hands are locked behind his head and his hips thrust forward, bottom lip trapped between his teeth.
“You auditioning as a male stripper, Hoxam?” I yell over the wind and rain.
“No. No! Sorry, Dr. Romera, it—”
“Won’t happen again?”
“No! No, ma’am. Never.”
I hate being called ma’am. I am twenty-six years old yet these interns seem to think I’m some sort of ancient, all-powerful being. “Well when you feel like pretending to be a doctor again, maybe you can move your ass. The helo’s on approach.”
I’ll give him one thing: Mikey Hoxam is a bag of nerves most of the time, or otherwise a complete goof-off, but he gets ten out of ten for enthusiasm. He’s the first out of the elevator, guiding the gurney onto the rooftop. The helicopter’s wheels are on the tarmac by the time we all reach Oliver.
“You ready?” he yells to me.
“Yes, sir!” Mikey yells right back. Oliver gives him a look that would strip paint clean off wood. The intern realizes his mistake and has the common sense to blush. I can’t help but smirk.
“Yeah, I’m ready! Let’s go!” We rush the helicopter doors. Two paramedics clamber out, carefully lifting a backboard behind them, its cargo small and fragile.
“Maisie Richards, seven years old. Hypothermic, deep laceration to right thigh. Found seizing face down in the bath. Unconscious, pulse is still tachycardic. Coded en route, shocked twice.”
“Okay, let’s get her inside!”
Oliver and the crash team hunker down underneath the whipping rotor blades of the helicopter as they take charge of the patient and rush back toward the elevator. I turn back to the paramedics who are gathering their stuff from the medevac. “Where are the parents?”