Chapter 6
Clarke spent her day off in her garden. She repainted the wooden fence, planted flowers, and added more stone pathways. She was exhausted when she finally went inside eight hours later. The days were getting warm. The emergency room would soon be filled with even more swimming, ATV, and motorcycle accidents.
Once inside for the afternoon, she tried to take her mind off her dad. She cooked a complex dinner, watched half of a movie, and then took a long bath. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was in overdrive. After an hour of tossing and turning, her phone rang on the nightstand.
“Hello?” she asked.
“Clarke, hey,” Murphy said. “Um... We have a problem at the hospital.”
Clarke sat up in bed and slid her glasses on. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Someone’s hacked the entire system. We can’t access anything.”
“Please tell me the equipment is working.”
“I really wish I could.”
The drive took ten minutes. She called Marcus to understand more about the situation, but he knew next to nothing about how the hacker entered their system. The police were attempting to track the perpetrator. By the time she arrived, the parking lot was swarmed with cars and people. Two ambulances were parked in the bay.
“Divert all other cases to Chicago Med,” Clarke said.
“We did,” Indra said. “Lincoln's in the OR with a GSW that couldn’t be transferred. I kept the ambulance here just in case.”
“Good thinking. Sorry I wasn’t here when it started.”
“Clarke, please. You don’t live here.”
Clarke pushed through the double doors to find Octavia staring at the computer monitor. She read the words aloud when Clarke asked. Someone was asking for fifty thousand dollars to release the system from lockdown. If not, every file would be deleted. Their system automatically backed up periodically, but she was unsure if the hacker was able to delete that system as well.
She took her phone out to make a call. Before she could press the name, Bellamy grabbed her arm.
“We’ll get everything up soon,” Bellamy said. “Don’t worry.”
“We have patients who need things now, Bell. What if someone codes and it doesn’t work?”
“I’ll call Chicago. Maybe they have a backup for emergencies or something.”
“Thanks, Bell. I need to check everything. Let me know how I can help.”
She stepped behind the counter to see how many patients were on the floor. She collected the available charts to check their status. Some could be transferred to Chicago Med and St. Mary’s if the problem was not resolved within the next hour.
Lincoln was in OR 3 with his GSW patient. She stepped into the lobby of the OR and spoke through the mic.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “How’s Octavia?”
“I haven’t seen her yet. I just got here and talked to Bell. I'll find her though.”
“Thanks. Tell her I should be done in less than an hour. Hopefully, all this shit will be figured out by then.”
“I hope so.”
She left Lincoln and two nurses to finish their surgery. Harper was staring at a TV screen on the wall where an intimidating red light was flashing behind the threat. She was biting the inside of her cheek. Clarke put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. The hospital had been threatened many times before, but never had the other staff members known or been involved. Most threats could be handled discreetly. This threat was different because the perpetrator bypassed the normal channels and went straight for their broadcast system.
“It’ll be okay, Harper,” she said.
“What if someone dies?”
“No one is going to die, Harper. I promise. We'll transfer out who we can and keep the stable ones. The cops will figure it out.”
“Yeah, right. I'm supposed to put all my faith in Octavia’s brother? I watched her pour salt in her coffee yesterday.”
They laughed as Octavia emerged from the break room. She put both hands on her waist. With her dreaded hair down, she took up even more space and attempted to look intimidating.
“In my defense, I had just come out of a five-hour surgery,” Octavia said.
Harper seemed to be in a better mood when she walked away. Octavia seemed fine, but she relayed Lincoln’s message. Clarke’s brain was in overdrive as she spent the next forty-five minutes checking on patients, deciding who should be transferred and how, and ensuring her staff was not overwhelmed. There was no progress made with the hacked system.
“Dr. Griffin,” someone said from the bay.
When she turned, Lexa was walking through the double doors in a grey tank top and high-waisted black leggings. There was a bruise on her shoulder and above her clavicle. Both were fresh. When Raven entered a moment later, her questions were answered. She could not see Raven’s arms due to her long-sleeved black shirt.
“What are you two doing here?” Clarke asked.
“We could ask you the same thing, idiot,” Raven said.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s my job,” she said.
“Oh, right. Chief has to be on call twenty-four seven,” she said. “Sorry. I forgot you aren’t allowed to sleep ever.”
“What the hell, Raven? Were you two sleeping? Doesn’t look like it.”
She did not have the capacity to deal with Raven’s attitude with everything else happening. She had no idea where the argument came from. Raven was here just the same as she was.
“Clarke, wait,” Lexa said.
She froze in the middle of the hallway. The chaos seemed to stop for just a moment. She had been running around, helping everyone else since arriving, and ensuring her patients were not suffering.
“Are you okay?” Lexa asked, standing at her shoulder.
She shook away the emotional reaction she had been withholding since waking to the ringtone. She pushed everything away to focus. “I’m fine,” she said. “Can you check on Lincoln in OR three, please?”
“Yes,” she said.
Without looking at the other woman, Clarke continued down the hall.
The system came back on at three am. The cops never found who was behind the attack and the ransom was not paid. Their IT team claimed nothing was missing from their files, old or new. There was no data breach that anyone could find. Clarke was relieved.
The night shift had arrived at ten to take over, so she made sure everyone else went home. She could fill in the staff. Everyone was exhausted and emotionally drained, including herself. She could not remember the last time she slept more than four hours since her dad started hospice. She was also starving and realized she had not eaten since that morning.
She made a sandwich when she got home and ate with the kitchen lights off. With everything calm, Clarke felt more overwhelmed than she had at the hospital. She sat on the floor and rested her head on her knees.
“What was that about yesterday?” Lexa asked.
Raven had texted to go on a run. They met at the trail they had been using the past week. She had missed running and had not kept a steady schedule since moving to Chicago almost two years ago. She worked fewer hours at the rehab facility and was less stressed than working in the emergency unit but had not had the motivation while working there.
“What was what?” she asked.
“The thing with Clarke.”
“I was mad at her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s there too much. Her whole life is that fucking hospital. I love that place. I really do, but I also understand that it’s my job. I don’t think she does.”
Lexa could understand the argument. If there was anything she knew about Clarke, Lexa knew she worked too much. Everyone at the hospital needed her for something. Even when someone else could help, they preferred to ask Clarke. And the woman was always willing to drop everything to help them.
“She comes from a family of people like that,” Raven said. “Her dad was a medical scientist, and her mom was the state DA for a long time. Her grandfather was a doctor. They built the hospital with the money he left and dedicated it to him.”
“She feels a responsibility for the hospital then. She's the only person in the family who works there every day. Surely you can’t blame her for that.”
“I blame her completely. Can we get back to running now?”
“Sure.”
Neither spoke for a mile. They kept a good pace and were perfectly matched for speed, which Lexa appreciated. She was glad Raven’s knee was not bothering her that day. When she was having a bad day, they could not work out at all. Her bad days seemed to be half of the time.
“Her dad’s dying,” Raven said as they ran along the creek. “Cancer.”
“She’s using work as a distraction,” she said.
“I think so, but I think she’ll regret it when he’s gone. I just don’t know how to approach her about it.”
“You know her better than anyone. She'll listen to you.”
“No, I don’t think she will. Not about this. But she might listen to you.”
“Why would she listen to me over you?”
“Because your dad passed away and I never had the luxury of knowing mine.”
Lexa had not thought about her father’s death in a long time. She was fifteen when he had a fatal heart attack. Her mother fell into a deep depression. They had barely spoken since she moved to Chicago.
“Maybe we should just let her do it her own way,” Lexa said. “My dad died seventeen years ago. I'm not sure it would help.”
“Just do it for me. If it doesn’t work, I'll let it go”
“Promise?”
Raven laughed.