8

Estina

"That was a rush."

I smiled at the nurse who'd just finished helping me with a patient who came just in the nick of time to deliver her babies. Despite the call up to the maternity ward, there was no hope to transport the woman up there in time. Her first daughter was crowning as she was wheeled into the emergency room, and because of how quickly her baby was descending, she had to give birth down here. The second twin wasn't waiting either, and it really was a rush.

The urgency.

The excitement.

The experience of watching proud but freaked-out parents bringing new lives into the world.

Sometimes, it was nice to help out with emergencies that weren't full of gore and gloom. Of violence and chaos. Sometimes, it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Should that young woman ever want more children, I had a strong hunch she'd pay attention to her body more acutely and realize what active labor was like quicker than she had this time.

"It was," I agreed.

"And I bet you'll be delivering many more babies when you go off on that missionary program." She smiled and looked me over. "I almost envy you."

That wasn't something I heard often, not about missionary work. It wasn't only altruism that had me signing up for it and already putting in the paperwork for the sabbatical, despite just starting here. It was the desperate need for something else. Something new and foreign because somewhere in my delusions, I thought that finding a new "normal" without my parents or a family would be easier if I tacked it on to a new "normal" of life after a mission in the extremes of weather and civilization.

"I would love to travel like that." The young nurse sighed wistfully.

"It's not a vacation," I replied.

"I know. But, like, it would be so exciting!"

You could always be a traveling nurse...

I didn't have time to advise her about an alternative career path because someone else arrived.

"Need some help here," a man called out.

At first sight, I cringed.

Again?

More of these mobsters already?

My head threatened to spin with the constant of violence around here. Talk about an extreme of civilization. With the rate of these Mafia men shooting up the city, they reduced New York to something like a dystopian hellscape.

"Are you kidding me?" I muttered as I hurried forward to help the two men dragging another in. Flanked by the pair of strong-looking suited men, the older guy hung his head. Short blond hair was matted with blood as he was dragged in limply, clearly unconscious.

"He was drugged and shot," the man on the left reported. "Gunshot to his right arm."

I nodded curtly, understanding the process of triage would be shifted here. Collecting information would end up being a broken-up and backward process, but it would have to wait.

Stabilizing a patient came first, and that was what we prioritized. With the charge nurse, an older woman instead of Fatima today, I ordered a couple of nurses and techs to assist me with getting the wounded and unconscious man wheeled into a room.

Stethoscope in hand and calling out orders to those around me to better equip me to assess this man, I worked quickly. We all did. In the systemic flurry of movements that was standard in this environment, we hustled to inventory what we were working with.

"Lots of bleeding down here," the nurse reported, cutting away at the open gash in his pants. Torn apart from something that had cut him already, the fabric gave way and we collaborated as a team to remove his clothes to better assess his injuries.

"One of those guys handed over this," a tech said as they joined the efforts. She dropped a baggie with a tranq dart in it. It sat on the counter of the small space, and I frowned at it.

"He was tranq'd," the tech said. "Looks like something used on horses."

I nodded, compressing the open wound while preparing to debride it and clean it out. Keeping my hands busy to slow the blood loss, I called out orders for blood work and labs. A tox screen would be most accurate to tell us what he was given, but I agreed with the tech. The dart was something used on horses, and I'd know it because of my childhood of riding lessons and being in the stables near vets.

For two hours, we worked on the man. He didn't wake once, but my confidence grew that he would be fine. His vitals were tracking well. Even though he looked older, perhaps in his late forties, he was fit. Muscled. Rugged. All that taut skin and those sinewy tendons proved that this John Doe took care of himself.

But not so well that he'd avoid being shot and drugged.

I kept my judgment to myself, oddly intrigued about this man. Even though he was unconscious, a dangerous aura emanated from him. As though in sleep, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

Why do I feel like I've seen you before?