The wound that wasn't an accident

Isabella's fingers cramped. The hot, slick muscle of the sicario's neck fought against her grip, but she refused to let up the pressure on the severed vessel.

"I said move!" she screamed over the chaos of the warehouse.

A heavy, red mechanic's toolbox skidded across the concrete, crashing to a halt against her knees. Javier dropped to a crouch beside her and ripped the metal lid open. It was full of grease stained wrenches and rusted hardware.

"The needle nose pliers," she commanded, not looking away from the pooling blood. "And the thickest zip tie in there. Get them."

Javier slapped the cold metal tool and a black plastic strap into her waiting palm.

Isabella looked up at the circle of armed soldiers staring down at her. "Give me the tequila."

A soldier ripped a half empty bottle of clear liquor from a nearby crate and handed it down. Isabella bit the cork, spat it onto the concrete, and poured the high proof alcohol directly over the rusted pliers. The sharp, burning stench of the liquor cut through the heavy smell of copper.

"Hold his head steady," she told Javier.

Isabella plunged the sterilized pliers directly into the torn flesh of the man's neck. She felt blindly through the hot blood until the metal jaws clamped firmly over the severed vessel. She squeezed the handles tight.

"Loop the zip tie around the handles," she ordered. "Pull it as tight as you physically can."

Javier fed the plastic tail through the lock. The zip tie ratcheted shut in one sharp, rapid burst of sound, cinching tight like a small mechanical verdict.

The thick plastic locked the handles of the pliers together, creating a flawless, immovable hemostat. The rhythmic spurting of blood stopped.

Isabella let out a sharp exhale. She wiped her forearm across her forehead, leaving a dark streak of blood.

"The bleed is contained," she said, her chest heaving as she quickly looked down the man's body. "He's still losing pressure. Where else is he hit?"

"The right thigh," Javier said. "Through and through, but it tore the muscle."

Isabella crawled across the slick concrete to the man's leg. She grabbed the torn fabric of his tactical pants and ripped it open. The wound was deep, ragged, and actively hemorrhaging. She couldn't see the source of the bleeding inside the muscle wall.

She needed retractors.

She looked past the wounded man and spotted a dirty breakroom table pushed against the warehouse wall.

"Forks," Isabella snapped, pointing a bloody finger. "Get me two stainless steel forks from that table."

A soldier sprinted over and tossed them into her hands. Isabella placed the metal prongs face down against the hard concrete floor. She raised her heavy hospital clog and stomped her heel down on the handles, the metal ringing out twice in a sharp, flat clang that bounced off the high ceiling.

The thick metal bent backward, forming two heavy duty hooks. She poured the last of the tequila over them, ignoring the dying man's agonizing groan.

Behind her, Diego paced the center of the room like a caged tiger. He ran his blood soaked hands through his dark hair, leaving crimson streaks across the strands.

"¡Aseguren las puertas!" Diego roared at the men guarding the perimeter, his voice echoing off the high metal ceiling. "¡Nadie entra, nadie sale!"

He turned sharply, his eyes locking onto Isabella as she hooked the bent prongs deep into the edges of the torn thigh muscle and pulled outward with all her strength.

Diego stopped pacing. He stared at the crude metal in her hands.

"¿Tenedores? ¿Una brida de plástico?" he snapped, stepping closer. The explosive, volatile rage was bleeding through his voice. "¿Qué demonios estás haciendo, Isabella? ¿Crees que esto es una maldita carnicería?"

Isabella didn't flinch. She hooked the second fork into the opposite side of the muscle, pulling the bullet hole wide open.

"I am improvising because you don't have a sterile operating room in your warehouse!" she shouted right back at him, not even looking up. "If you want him to keep his leg, stop yelling at me and get me light right here in this cavity!"

Diego glared at her. The veins in his neck were pulsing. For a split second, the sheer disrespect hung in the air, thick and dangerous. But he looked at his soldier's leg, then back at her steady, unyielding hands.

He pivoted sharply toward his men.

"¡Alumbren ahí, rápido!" Diego barked. "¡Muévanse!"

Two soldiers stepped forward. They unclipped the heavy tactical flashlights from the barrels of their assault rifles and aimed the blinding white beams directly down over her hands.

The deep tissue of the wound was suddenly illuminated in sharp, terrifying clarity.

Isabella leaned in, absorbed in the surgical theater.

Standing just outside the ring of harsh light, Diego watched her. His breathing slowed. The frantic pacing stopped. The feral rage from moments ago melted into a cold, intense, calculating stare as he watched the brilliant doctor he had just coerced take absolute command of his bleeding men.

• • •

The blinding white beams of the tactical flashlights cut through the shadows, creating a harsh, illuminated theater over the torn muscle.

Far away, the faint wail of police sirens rushed down the interstate.

Isabella plunged her fingers back into the hot, slick cavity of the capo's thigh. She navigated entirely by touch, feeling past the shredded fat and torn fascia.

Her fingertips scraped against something hard.

She wedged two fingers around the deformed slug and pulled. The metal slid free with a wet squelch. Isabella tossed the bullet over her shoulder without looking.

It hit the concrete floor with a sharp clink.

But the dark blood didn't stop. It continued to well up from deep inside the wound, rapidly filling the cavity she had just cleared.

Isabella frowned.

The bullet missed the main vascular line, she thought, her brow furrowing in the harsh light. So why the hell is the cavity flooding?

"Bring the lights closer," she ordered. "Right over my hands."

The two soldiers dropped to one knee, lowering the barrels of their rifles until the white beams were inches away from the torn flesh.

Isabella grabbed a relatively clean piece of the man's ripped tactical pants and pressed it deep into the wound, wiping the pooling blood away for a fraction of a second.

She leaned in so close her nose almost touched the man's skin.

There it was. The femoral artery.

But it wasn't torn by shrapnel or grazed by the bullet. It was a perfectly straight, razor clean surgical incision that had burst open.

Isabella froze. Her breath caught in her throat.

Lining the edges of the ruptured artery were tiny, pale, frayed threads.

Vicryl.

A cold chill spiked straight down her spine. She stared at the melting threads.

Somebody deliberately used Vicryl, Isabella realized, her pulse hammering in her ears. Somebody rigged this man to bleed to death the next time his heart rate spiked.

The heavy, rhythmic thud of Diego's boots broke her focus. He stepped into the very edge of the blinding flashlight beams. His broad chest was heaving. His ruined white shirt clung to his torso, soaked dark.

"¿Sobrevivirá, Doctora?" Diego demanded, his deep voice thick with the adrenaline of the firefight.

Isabella slowly raised her head.

She looked at him standing over her, expecting a simple medical update. Her grip on the bloody fabric tightened. She didn't answer his question right away. She just held his gaze through the harsh white light, feeling the heavy, undeniable weight of the secret she now held.