Chapter 30
Mia
My feet hit the pavement at a dead sprint.
Behind me, I hear Sebastian calling my name, but it's background noise beneath the roaring in my ears.
The sliding doors of the emergency entrance can't part fast enough, and I nearly crash into them, my palms slapping against the glass as I squeeze through the opening gap.
"Dr. Phillips!" The security guard at the front desk half-rises from his chair, but I'm already past him, dodging between startled visitors and staff.
The elevator bank looms ahead, its indicators showing every car stuck on upper floors. I slam through the door to the stairwell, the metal clanging against the wall with enough force to chip paint.
"Mia!" Sebastian's voice bounces off the walls behind me. "Mia, wait!"
I can't wait. Every second is one more Cheryl doesn't have. My calves burn, lungs screaming as I push higher. Second floor. Third. The handrail is slick beneath my palm as I use it to pivot around each landing.
Unbidden, a memory flashes in my mind; my father's monitor flatlining, the high-pitched wail that seemed to go on forever while I stood frozen, unable to help, unable to save him. The same helplessness threatens to overwhelm me now, but I push it down, channel it into pure forward motion.
I promised her. Promised I wouldn't let her slip away like my father did. Promised I'd figure it out, whatever it took.
My chest heaves with exertion and something dangerously close to a sob as I hit the fourth-floor landing. The door feels impossibly heavy as I shove it open before exploding into the corridor with enough force that a passing nurse jumps back.
"Sorry," I gasp, but I'm already past her, sneakers squeaking against polished linoleum as I sprint down the hallway.
The walls blur, fluorescent lights streaming overhead like stars in a hyperspace jump.
My heart pounds so hard I swear it's trying to escape my ribcage, to race ahead to Cheryl and lend its rhythm to her silent one.
Ahead, a cluster of blue scrubs and white coats crowd the doorway to her room. Time slows, stretches like taffy as I approach. Too many people and not enough rushing. In fact, there’s no rushing at all. No one shouting orders for epi or defib paddles.
Something's wrong. Something beyond the obvious wrongness of Cheryl coding.
I skid to a halt at the threshold, chest heaving, sweat trickling between my shoulder blades.
The room is crowded—two nurses I recognize from night shift, Dr. Perez from cardiology, Kim holding a tablet, his face grim.
And Cheryl, small and still on the bed. The monitors are silent and the screens dark.
I scan their faces, searching for urgency, for the controlled chaos of a code. Instead, I find only solemn resignation.
"What the fuck are you doing?" My voice comes out ragged. "Why are you just standing there?"
Dr. Perez turns, his face a mask of practiced sympathy. "Dr. Phillips—"
I shove past him, pushing through the wall of bodies surrounding Cheryl's bed. The stillness of the room is obscene, an insult to the vibrant woman who occupied it just yesterday.
"Someone get the crash cart!" I shout, yanking back Cheryl's covers. Her body is still warm. Not too late. Not too late. "Start compressions!"
No one moves. They're all just watching me with those same pitying eyes, making no effort to help, no damn effort to save her.
"What the hell is wrong with you people?" Fury burns through my veins. If they won't help, I'll do it myself.
I climb onto the bed and straddle Cheryl's small form. Her face is peaceful, eyes closed as if in sleep, but the stillness in her chest tells a different story. My hands find position over her sternum, one atop the other, fingers interlaced.
"Dr. Phillips, please—" One of the nurses steps forward, reaching for my arm.
I jerk away from her touch, muscles coiling tight.
"One, two, three—" I begin counting out loud, pushing down with the heel of my hand in the rhythm that's been drilled into me since med school.
Cheryl's frail body gives beneath my weight, ribs yielding with a flexibility that threatens to crack my heart along with her bones.
Someone touches my shoulder. I shrug them off, never breaking rhythm. Thirty compressions. Check for breathing. Nothing. Tilt head, clear airway. I pinch Cheryl's nose, cover her mouth with mine, and force two breaths into lungs that no longer work on their own.
"Come on," I whisper fiercely as I resume compressions. "Don't you do this, Cheryl. Not yet."
Another hand on my shoulder, firmer this time. "Dr. Phillips. Mia. You need to stop."
"Get off me!" I snarl, shaking free without looking up. The room spins around me, faces blurring into an audience of useless bystanders while Cheryl's life slips away beneath my hands. "Why aren't you helping? Why isn't anyone fucking helping?"
My arms burn with exertion, but I push through it, pressing down again and again. Sweat or tears—I can't tell which—drip from my face onto Cheryl's hospital gown, darkening the pale blue fabric.
Someone else enters the room and I know without looking that it's Sebastian. I don't look up, don't acknowledge him. I can't. If I break rhythm now, if I stop for even a second, Cheryl is truly gone. And I can't lose her. Not like this. Not when I promised.
Sebastian comes closer, his presence at the edge of the bed is like a physical weight.
"Mia."
The way he says my name nearly breaks me but I ignore him and push hard and faster.
The tears come in earnest now, blurring my vision until Cheryl's still face beneath me becomes a pale smudge. I blink furiously.
"Please," I whisper, no longer sure if I'm talking to Cheryl or the room or some higher power that doesn't seem to be listening. "Please."
Sebastian's hand closes around my wrist, firm but gentle. "Mia. Stop."
I jerk my arm away from, my hands immediately finding their position over Cheryl's sternum again.
"No," I spit, the word burning my throat like acid.
"She still has a chance." My fingers lace together, heel of my palm pressing down, but Sebastian's hand returns, more insistent this time.
I twist away, using my shoulder to block him. "Get off me! She needs help!"
Suddenly his strong arms wrap around my waist and he physically removes me from Cheryl.
"Let me go!" I writhe in his grip, twisting and thrashing like a wild animal. My elbow connects with something solid—his ribs maybe—and I hear his grunt of pain, but his arms don't loosen. "Put me down! She needs CPR! Why aren't you helping her?"
"Mia, stop." His voice is right against my ear. "Baby, please, you have to stop."
I slam my heel down, aiming for his instep, but hit only the floor as he shifts his weight. "No. Every minute without compressions decreases her chances by ten percent." I claw at his forearms, nails digging into flesh hard enough to leave half-moons. "Let me go."
Sebastian spins me around, hands gripping my upper arms like vises, forcing me to face him. His face swims before my tear-blurred vision—jaw tight, eyes intense. "Mia, listen to me. She has a DNR."
The words don't register at first. I'm still too busy struggling to get back to Cheryl. "She needs help. Why won't you help her?"
"Do Not Resuscitate," Sebastian enunciates each word slowly, carefully while his grip on my arms never waver. "She signed it last week. It's in her chart. She didn't want this."
The room tilts sideways. My knees go weak, and suddenly Sebastian's grip is the only thing keeping me upright. "No," I whisper, the fight draining out of me like someone pulled a plug. "She wouldn't. She would have told me."
Sebastian's expression softens, and that's somehow worse than his clinical detachment. "She knew it was coming, Mia. She made her choice."
"No." The denial explodes from me with renewed force.
My hands curl into fists, and before I can think, I' pound them against Sebastian's chest. "No, no, no.
She can't be gone. She can't." Each word punctuated by another blow, my fists connecting with the solid wall of his torso.
"Why didn't I know? Why didn't she tell me? "
Sebastian takes each hit, absorbing my fury and grief without complaint. Around us, the room has gone deathly quiet, the other medical staff frozen in place, witnesses to my complete unraveling.
My vision blurs completely, hot tears streaming down my face. The rage that's been fueling me suddenly evaporates, leaving nothing but a hollow ache that threatens to collapse my chest from the inside out.
"I was supposed to save her," I whisper, voice breaking on each word. "I promised."
Sebastian's arms come around me, one hand cradling the back of my head as I slump against him. "I know, baby," he murmurs into my hair. "I know you did."
For a moment—just one fragile, suspended moment—I let myself lean into him, let the solid warmth of his body anchor me in a world that's suddenly spinning off its axis. His heart beats steady beneath my cheek, a cruel reminder of Cheryl's silence.
I pull away abruptly and as I back away to the door my gaze lands on Cheryl's still form. The monitors remain dark and silent, an absence more deafening than any alarm could be. The room blurs around the edges, faces smearing into indistinct shapes and more tears fill my eyes.
"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so fucking sorry."
Then I turn and flee, unable to stand in that room one second longer, to stand the weight of another death, of another failure.
Barreling down the hallway, I’m blind with tears and rage. My feet move on autopilot. My lungs burn like I've been running for miles, each breath a ragged gasp that does nothing to fill the emptiness spreading through my chest.
I can't go to the lounge, can't face colleagues with their sympathetic glances and careful distance. Can't stand in the elevator with strangers while I'm falling apart at the seams.
That’s when I see the empty consultation room. Wrenching the handle down, I practically fall into the room before slamming the door shut behind me. My back presses against the cool wood as I slide to the floor.
"Fuck," I whisper, the word barely audible even in the silent room. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
I press my fists against my eyes, hard enough to see stars, as if physical pain might somehow eclipse the emotional agony tearing through me. My breath comes in ragged gasps that border on hyperventilation, chest heaving with the effort of containing sobs that want to rip free.
Cheryl is gone. Just like my father. Gone while I stood by, useless and unprepared.
The parallels crash over me like a tidal wave—the same sterile room, the same machines, the same crushing helplessness as I watched life slip away. Different people, same ending. Same failure.
"Not again," I choke out, pressing my palms flat against the cold tile floor as memories swallow me whole. "I failed again."
My father's face floats before me—pale and drawn in those final days, eyes sunken, skin taking on that translucent quality that whispers of approaching death.
I remember holding his hand, promising I'd find an answer, begging him to just hold on a little longer while I researched one more treatment option, consulted one more specialist. Then the monitor's wail.
The flurry of activity. The moment when time stretched and warped, and I knew—knew with bone-deep certainty—that he was gone.
Just like Cheryl.
What kind of doctor am I? What kind of daughter? What kind of friend? I miss the signs, miss the connections, miss the chance to save the people who matter. The weight of it crushes the air from my lungs, leaving me gasping like a landed fish.
Sebastian's face flashes through my mind—the concern in his eyes, the careful way he tried to comfort me. I shouldn't have pushed him away. Shouldn't have lashed out. But the tenderness in his gaze was unbearable.
A sob finally breaks free, the sound ugly and raw in the quiet room. I curl in on myself, knees drawing up to my chest as if I could somehow make myself small enough to disappear. My shoulders shake with the force of my grief, each gasping breath painful in my tight chest.
The darkness presses against my closed eyelids, but it can't block out the images cycling through my mind—Cheryl's still face, my father's final breath, the moment the light left his eyes while I stood frozen.
They blur together until I can't tell which memory belongs to which death, which failure is which.
I know what I have to do. The clarity cuts through my grief like a blade, sharp and undeniable.
I can't keep failing people. Can't keep missing the signs, arriving too late, watching death steal away the people I care about while I fumble for answers that never come. There's only one solution, one way to ensure I never have to stand helplessly by another hospital bed again.
I have to leave Sierra Mercy, leave medicine entirely.