Between Heartbeats

Candice's P.O.V.

The bedroom of the farmhouse was already a battlefield by itself, the air already carrying the acrid smell of antiseptic, coppery blood, the ozone smell of the defibrillator, and I was pushed against the wall, with nails cutting into my palms and dropping blood, as the doctors cut and stitched and cut and stitched the body of Mantovani, and worked like priests at a burial, with their grim masks of concentration beneath the cold overhead light. The flatline had been twenty-three seconds--twenty-three infinite, soul-destroying seconds where the world had been as narrow as the heartbeat, where some part of me had snapped asunder never to be renewed, the familiar horror of having the person with whom I had grown to share my gravity, the one who would have been my anchor, beginning to absorb me. Mom was holding me round the waist, her chin against my shoulder, and her voice was giving broken prayers in my hair, Come on, love; come back to her, as cracking as her voice broke on every word, the passion of a mother who had seen her daughter make this life choice rushing in on desperate hope.

Sanna had not left the bedside since the first shock, and his bandaged hand was of such a grip with the metal rail that he could see the knuckles of his eyes had turned white, and the doctor was shouting, We have rhythm--weak, but holding! Give me another push of O-neg, stat! The transfusion line dripped steadily into the arm of Mantovani, red, and I could see it like it was the only thing that was holding him to this world, and I could hope that it would be enough. Conti walked to and fro by the door, phone in hand, in conversation with the perimeter team out there--the last of our loyal men and holding off the federal cars, which were two miles away and closing on us, his voice low and pleading, "They are two miles away; we have roadblocks out, but they will soon get through us." The killing of the sheriff did not put an end to the war; it had merely swapped uniforms, and now instead of the tactical equipment badges and warrants were used, the exposure of which made our shadows our Spotlights.

Dad was standing at the bedside, hands clasped, lips praying silently, his silent faith a low, steady balancing rod to the percussion, and when the doctor at last withdrew, wiping his perspiration off, he looked up at me with weary honesty, and said, "He is steady--temporarily. The bullet hit an artery, we clamped it, but he must be operated upon in an hour or he will be bleded to death. We can't do more here." The words came as blows, all of them taking breath, and I could feel the arms of Mom clinging firmly round me, her sob smothering down my shoulder. Then we move him, now, however, Sanna said roughly and roughly. The Queens clinic owned by Conti had cleared the path already. Very unstable, unstable of his vitals, I tell you, the doctor shook his head. The ride alone could kill him. We require an ambulance--equipment, train paramedics.