Too Strong to Save

"Doctor! Please, save Miss Anna! She's been shot!"

Warren, my father's consigliere, found me lying alone on the ground, my face drained of color. He scooped me up and rushed me to the hospital.

"She's been hit multiple times. She's barely conscious. She needs surgery right now!"

The only person at the entrance was a nurse.

"Stop! You'd better take her somewhere else," she warned. "The Don and Donna DeMarco are upstairs with their daughter. They've brought in every top surgeon in the hospital. Nobody's free to see anyone else!"

"This is their daughter!" Warren shouted. "Their biological daughter!"

He pushed past her and carried me straight to the second floor.

My younger sister, Lillian, was on an operating table, waiting for a wound to be dressed. Doctors crowded around her. The moment my parents, Ryder and Christine DeMarco, saw Warren carrying me in, their faces darkened.

"Warren," Dad snapped, "you're supposed to be my consigliere. Instead of helping me, you're bringing Anna in here to make trouble?

"Lillian was grazed by a stray bullet. She's already lost so much blood. What if she goes into shock before they stop the bleeding?"

Warren stared at him in disbelief, though he tried to conceal it.

"Don DeMarco, Miss Anna took several bullets. She needs emergency surgery!"

I watched my parents desperately, hoping that, just this once, they would choose to save me first.

It hurt so much. I could barely breathe anymore.

Dad didn't move an inch from Lillian's side. He gave me one brief glance.

"Since you've brought her here, take her into the operating room next door. We'll come when they're finished with Lillian."

If he'd looked at me for even a moment longer, he might have noticed the unnatural swelling of my chest.

One of the bullets had torn through my lung. Air was entering my chest cavity, but it couldn't escape. The pressure inside had already climbed higher than the air outside, the classic sign of a tension pneumothorax. Next, my circulation would fail. Then my heart would stop.

But Dad's eyes didn't stay on me for long. Lillian's voice pulled them right back to her.

"Daddy, my arm hurts so much," Lillian whimpered. "Am I going to die?"

Huge tears rolled down her cheeks.

The father who had spent my entire life telling me to be strong was suddenly all tenderness.

"Don't be scared, sweetheart. Mom and Dad aren't going anywhere. You have the finest medical team in the city. Nothing will happen to you."

Then he rounded on the staff disinfecting her wound.

"What the hell are you doing? You can't even treat a little cut without making her cry? Incompetent fools!"

Warren looked at my face, growing paler by the second, and listened to my increasingly desperate breaths.

"Don DeMarco, Miss Anna's condition is critical. She really can't wait."

Dad didn't even turn around.

"She's always been tough. A few bullets won't kill her. Lillian's delicate. Her wound needs proper attention, or it might scar."

But Dad, I'm your daughter too. I'm only eighteen.

And this time, being strong might not save me.

With the last of my strength, I raised a trembling hand and pointed toward the operating room next door, signaling Warren to take me there.

I knew Dad wasn't going to change his mind.

Just then, a young doctor named Joanna arrived. She was new to the hospital, too junior to serve on the elite team assigned to Lillian.

One look at me, and she let out a horrified cry.

"She needs emergency treatment to relieve the pressure in her chest! Get an operating room ready!"

A nurse leaned close and whispered, "The department head sent you to help with the patient next door. That one's more important."

"This patient is dying," Joanna said. "If we don't act, she'll be dead. I'm not walking away."

She changed into surgical scrubs while the nurse watched with open contempt.

"Typical rookie. Haven't you noticed the Don and Donna DeMarco are next door? Who do you think is going to sign off on it?"

Joanna ignored her and kept preparing.

"Start fluids. Get ready to secure her airway. She's been shot more than once, and the pressure in her chest is critical. I need an experienced surgeon to assist me."

She hurried into Lillian's operating room.

"Don and Donna DeMarco," she said urgently, "a bullet passed through your daughter's lung. She's developed a tension pneumothorax and needs emergency surgery. She has other gunshot wounds that need treatment too. I need a senior surgeon to help."

For a second, alarm crossed Dad's face. He looked at Joanna and opened his mouth to speak.

Then Lillian's eyes filled with tears.

"Daddy..."