Chapter 1
It was like usual, at first.
The paramedics burst through the door which came with a brief shot of adrenaline coursing through Lauren's veins. A sign that her body snapped into this sharp focus that only work could incite.
“Incoming!”
“Female, in her thirties! Car accident, head-on collision. Severe crash injuries on the legs, a nasty cut on the forehead. BP kept dropping in the field, she’s in and out of it, unconscious now. Bruising on the stomach. Possible internal bleeding.”
Lauren was going through this dozens of times during the day. Hundreds in the span of a week. It was her life. Every movement was etched into her muscles, almost mechanical.
One studying breath.
“Casey, Walsh, you’re with me!”
Information in neat boxes in her head. The plan already forming itself at a rapid speed. The next steps shouted out to her staff almost the same second they popped up in her mind. Stern keen gaze centered on the stretcher before she could even get to a patient from the other side of the room.
Lauren knew what should’ve happened next. Taking the bed from the paramedics. A brief glance to assess the damage. An array of instructions. Slight anxious tingling under her skin she paid no mind to after so many years. Swift drilled moves stitching the skin, cleaning the wounds, staunching the bleeding. Stabilizing them enough to send them either on their way upstairs or home.
But not this time.
Today was the first time Lauren's mind went completely blank at the foot of the bed. The chaos around her, which she usually thrived in and orchestrated, slowed down. Titled. Spinned.
Her eyes were ferociously raking over blood clumping black silky hair she used to play with so often. Bruises on dark skin. Her own shirt she’d forgotten to take from her old apartment torn. A mess that were the legs. Bone sticking out the left shin. Dozens of small cuts on the arms. A single image flashed through the void of Lauren's thoughts - the windshield in that stupid old car blowing out and hurting her.
Leyla.
Lauren’s vision blurred and suddenly there was cold under her hands as she swayed gently and braced herself against the handholds of the bed.
It was Leyla on that stretcher.
The weight of Casey's hand on Lauren's shoulder pierced through the thick fog in her head, just barely. He said something about Walsh taking over but his voice faded out among the ringing in her ears. She was desperately trying to convince herself that her mind was playing tricks on her and if she blinked a few times, she’d see somebody else’s battered face. The seconds stretched out for her. Seconds Leyla did not have.
I can’t lose her.
“Lauren?” Casey probed cautiously. Lauren shot him a lost, erratic glance. There was reassurance and confidence in his eyes. He nodded at her slowly. “You got this, boss.”
I’m not losing her.
“Walsh, move over,” Lauren barked, already charging ahead. She nearly knocked her poor colleague over, shoving her way between a troop of people around Leyla's bed.
At some point that she hadn’t registered they moved to trauma one and Lauren tried to cling to the familiar setting of the room. One step after another. She knew these machines, dealt with such injuries thousands of times in this exact place. Oxygen mask on. IV in. Steady voice reeling off instructions. A slight tremor in her hands as she checked the light reflex. Immobilizing the legs. Beeping in the background that meant Leyla's heart was still beating. And among all this an underlying pressure. A small voice in the back of her head slugging her every move. A black hole ready to suck her right in and enfold her with despair should anything happen to the woman under her care. It was persistently creeping on the fringe of her consciousness but working kept it at bay.
“BP keeps dropping, we can’t get it under control.” The nurse's words reached Lauren. From the abyss of her memories, she dug up the paramedic’s words. Shirt up and there it was - a dark purple hematoma spanning Leyla’s left side. Internal bleeding indeed.
“She needs surgery. Page Doctor Reynolds," Lauren commanded.
“But her legs-” somebody protested. She couldn’t even recognize the voice.
“-are immobilized. First the bleeding, then the legs. Have the ortho on standby.”
“Yes, Doctor Bloom.”
“Let's get her upstairs, people!” Lauren concluded, a lump in her throat loosening up a bit. At the very least, she knew what was wrong. She could act and plan the next step, they could try to treat it.
Casey went behind Leyla’s head to push the bed out of the room when everything came crashing down and every rudiment of plan Lauren’d begun to form faded.
A breath of relief dwined on Lauren's lips. All around her, there were shouts from various people mixing together into incomprehensible rustle. The sound of the door bursting resonated again, probably with another patient from the accident. But all she could hear was the steady defeating beep of one machine.
“CODE BLUE!” Casey yelled.
Lauren sprang into action without thinking.
“GET ME A CRASH CART!” she demanded while getting above Leyla's chest and starting compressions. Every helpless push felt like Leyla was slipping through her fingers more and more. This couldn’t be the end. “One milligram of epi!”
Lauren was not going to lose her. God, please not her. Everybody but her.
“Stop compressions! Charge 200!” Walsh appeared at her side with a defibrillator. Lauren almost lingered as though Leyla was going to be gone the second she took her hands off her. “CLEAR!”
“Clear!”
A moment of suspension.
Nothing.
“Again!” Lauren croaked, resuming the compressions. That black hole from before was closer than ever, threatening to suck her up.
“Clear!”
Leyla's body convoluted violently. Lauren jumped right back in. Her arms began to throb and ache.
“God damn it, Leyla,” Lauren muttered. “Come on!”
“Clear!”
Lauren's eyes were glued to the monitor. The world tilted and started to go black. And then finally….
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“She's back!” Walsh exclaimed, relief clear in his face and voice. “Thank God.”
The floor was escaping from under Lauren's feet.
“Take her to the OR,” she mustered with the last bits of strength, stumbling backwards to slide her back down the wall.
At last, she let the darkness overtake her.