Chapter Seven
Beckett
TEN MONTHS LATER
“Good morning, Dr. Myers,” the sexy blonde at the receiving desk says as I walk in for my monthly shift in the emergency room.
Once a month, I do a charity shift at New York General.
When I first accepted the role, I was a little more altruistic than I ended up becoming; however, it is good for my reputation.
I am seen as somewhat of a saint after discovering a drug that increases the blood's ability to fight cancer cells in every mutation.
It has shown incredible results in keeping cancer in remission and shrinking or eliminating most tumors.
It isn't necessarily a cure, but it is the predecessor to one.
What it does is prolong the lives of those with late-stage cancer and nearly obliterate cancer in early-stage patients.
Since the FDA approved the drug, I have become somewhat of a hero.
It is a position I don’t really enjoy, but I need to keep up my shifts in the emergency room so I don't look like I bailed the minute I gained some notoriety.
I wave hello to the blonde at the front desk but don't engage her in conversation.
She is definitely someone I would fuck, but I don't have sex with women who work at any of the hospitals where I have patients.
I won't ever let anyone get that close to me.
She is definitely fuckable, but the red-masked woman at the masquerade ball nearly a year ago kind of ruined me for casual sex.
I cannot stop obsessing over her. Of course, her body was absolutely stunning and perfect, and I fit inside her like a glove, but when she walked out on me—no, she didn't walk out, she snuck out of the hotel and left me with nothing but a pair of broken fucking shoes and the Louboutins I had bought.
I couldn't get my clothes on fast enough to catch her, so I talked with the head of the catering company to try and get her identity.
“One of the services we provide is the opportunity to engage more intimately with our staff, but what transpires between you has to be consensual for you both. That includes exchanging identities. If you’d like to leave your name and number, we can have her contact you. Otherwise, our contract states…”
“Never mind,” I told her abruptly. “Fuck your policies.”
She gave me a plastic grin, and I wanted to slap it off her face.
“If you want to compensate her, you can certainly give us the money, and we’ll make sure she gets it.”
No fucking way was I going to give a million dollars to the catering company to hand over to someone whose first name I didn’t even know.
I had fully planned on giving Red a million dollars.
She was worth it and more. I wanted to surprise her when she went to her bank and found out that she had received an enormous deposit.
I would never see her face, but just knowing she would be set for life—or for a little while if she didn’t blow it all—made me feel good.
She literally ran away from me. I have no idea how she feels, or if she is okay.
She just disappeared. I used my CSS connections, and all they could do was give me a list of names for women who worked for Satin.
They hacked the Satin computer database and found fifteen women working that night.
Twelve of them red-hearted, but the women were only listed by their initials and paid in cash. Unbelievable.
I have to just accept that it is over. I was that big of an asshole, and I probably ruined her life.
I had a good night, and I sent her running out of the room.
I try fucking as many women as I possibly can to erase her from my memory.
It is all random, consensual, horrible sex.
The women aren't even that bad; it is just that they aren't as good.
She wasn't the best at having sex, but she was lovely, and funny, and could go toe-to-toe with me.
I want that in my life. I want her in my life, at least for another night.
“Doctor Myers,” a frantic ER nurse comes rushing at me.
“We have a severe trauma coming in STAT. The patient is in her twenties, female, with no identification or personal effects. She’s been struck by a motor vehicle and is in active labor with hypotension noted.
Vitals are unstable; she’s arriving in Bay Five in ten. ”
Fuck, it’s a bad one.
“Okay, nurse, thank you. I’ll scrub in and meet you at Labor and Delivery. Is any paralysis noted?”
“No, Doctor. The EMT said that the baby was about to crown and the mother was unconscious.”
I’ve worked with this nurse before, several times. She is a woman in her late forties and keeps a picture near her computer of her three children in front of a Christmas tree. This one may hit home for her.
“We’ll get her fixed up.” I offer the nurse, whose name badge says Christina, a smile.
“Yes, Doctor.” She goes on ahead, and I scrub up to deliver a baby to a woman who may or may not survive.
My shift tonight has already been tragic. Prior to the pregnant woman coming in, we had another accident victim whom I spent an hour trying to save, only to lose him in surgery. We also had an elderly stroke victim whom we lost. It hasn’t been a good night, and I am feeling despondent.
I get an update on the pregnant woman. They delivered the baby in the ambulance.
So, I am not about to deliver a baby but have one very injured, formerly pregnant woman to try and save.
They get her into an examination room, and I am finally able to get a look at her while the baby is taken to the NICU.
The woman is in really bad shape. She has a huge injury on her forehead which bleeds profusely down her face.
Head injuries tend to bleed a lot, so I am not as concerned with the surface blood, but it was a vehicle accident; depending on the force of impact, she could have internal hemorrhaging on her brain.
“Updates?” I ask as I pull the thin blanket down and immediately see her legs.
While one is very obviously contused and broken, the other is perfect. Fucking perfect. I look at her face again, at her lips. No… no… no. Those lips. I would never forget them.
“What are the updates?” I am nearly frantic as the EMTs and nurses tangle with each other, trying to get her hooked up to an IV and take her vitals.
“We suspect a fractured right tibia, fractured ribs, possibly a collapsed lung. Head wound, hemorrhaging. We’re setting up labs for her now, Doctor.” The intern attending with me tonight is being thorough, which is good.
“Get her on oxygen and order a blood transfusion. Any stats on the baby?” I look at the intern, feeling numb and nearly psychotic with the thought that this might be my Red Mask and her child and, God forbid—mine.
“The baby is a female and was almost to term. She is five pounds, four ounces, and healthy. She needs a little oxygen assistance, but otherwise, the baby is doing better than her mother.” He seems pretty happy about the infant’s condition, but I am still completely overwhelmed.
“And we don’t have any identification? Nothing?” Who leaves the house without identification? Especially pregnant and near term.
“She was hit in front of a bodega across from an apartment building, I heard, but I have to look at the police report to give you a definitive answer. The driver says she was crossing the street at the crosswalk and he skidded on ice at the light. Ran right into her.”
“Okay. I need a swab from her and the baby immediately so we can get a DNA ID.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
I look down at the patient's face again as a nurse cleans the blood off her head.
She is deeply unconscious, and I am not sure if she is in a coma.
Tests will have to be done to know conclusively if she has internal bleeding, brain injury, or is comatose.
With a small cut at her hairline, I am able to detect where the blood is coming from.
I stare at her face. Despite her injuries, she is magnificently beautiful.
Like an angel, pale, white, and broken, she lies in front of me fighting for her life.
She has the deepest, blackest, raven-hued hair… it is my Red. It has to be.
I send her and the baby's swab to a forensic examiner working with CSS. I don’t visit the baby; she is stable, and there is no need to see her. More importantly, I don’t want to face the fact that Red has a child and it could be mine.
I tend to other patients until the results come in a phone call two hours later while I am doing paperwork in my office.
“The woman is Scarlett Cross. She’s twenty-four years old and has no next of kin outside of a few distant relatives in California. We were able to discover that she’s a student at New York University and studies dance. She’s also a dancer in the corps de ballet for the New York City Ballet.”
Fuck.
My head rings with pain. It is her. The woman fighting for her life in Room 208—just about to go into surgery for internal hemorrhaging, three broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a skull fracture—is Red.
And at the moment, we aren’t sure she is going to survive.
I am not a crier, and I am not about to become one, so I swipe at the tear dripping down my face with abject hatred.
Fuck her for nearly getting killed. Fuck her for running away from me.
Fuck her goddamn, fucking broken shoes that I still hold onto.
“And the baby?” I ask, nearly in a stress-induced psychosis.
“Well, here’s the really weird thing. We ran the DNA several times, and every time the match came back the same, with little to no variation.” The voice on the other line sounds somber and confused.
“What’s wrong with her baby?”
“Well, the results came back with Ms. Cross identified genetically as the mother.”
I lose all professional decorum at that point. “Of course, that’s obvious. What about the father? Or genetic deformities? What’s wrong with it?”
“Here's where it gets a little strange. All ten of the result markers identified you, Sir, as a ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine percent paternal match.”
Fuck. Just what I thought.
“Is it possible that you’re this baby’s father?”
“Anything is possible,” I tell him and hang up the phone. I am about to claw my way out of my own skin; being rude is the least of my problems.
I sit in the office of New York General staring at the wall.
Red is fighting for her life, and I have a baby in the NICU.
After what feels like years of just staring at nothing, I stand up and make my way to the nursery.
If I have a child, I have to at least look at it because she is very likely going to lose her mother, and I will have to be responsible for finding her a home.
When I walk into the nursery, there is only one nurse sitting with a baby.
She looks up at me and seems a little nervous.
I offer her a smile, which is not only rare but hard to do given the circumstances.
The baby has an oxygen tube attached to her nose and is covered in monitoring tabs, but a quick glance at her patient monitor tells me that she is indeed a very strong little fighter. Her vitals are good.
“She seemed lonely in the incubator. She’s a little fighter, very strong, this little one,” the nurse says, holding the baby to her chest, tucked inside her scrubs.
This nurse is giving my daughter the treatment her mother should have been able to provide, or fuck…
God, me. I was supposed to be holding her.
Despite the ugly breathing tube taped across her little face, my daughter is beautiful.
A heavy rain pelts the windows outside, and I pray her mother won’t die.
“Skin to skin,” I say softly.
“Yes, Doctor,” the nurse says softly, acknowledging my presence in the room.
“I was just doing my rounds and came to check on her,” I say, about to leave.
“How is the mother?” the nurse asks. She is staring at my daughter with such adoration I feel a little uncomfortable.
“In surgery. Not well, but…” Fuck the tears. Fuck.
I am crying.
“I know, some hit harder than others. She’s a beautiful woman, and she just gave birth to this gorgeous little girl. If we lose the mother, maybe my husband and I can adopt her.”
What the fuck? No… God, no.
“She has a father,” I say, trying to hold back my anger and confused emotions. “We ID’d Mom and Baby; she has a father. Worst case, she’ll go with him.”
“Oh.” The nurse sounds disappointed.
Worst case, she’ll go with me. Fuck the rain, fuck that stupid fucking car that hit them, fuck… Fucking is what got me here in the first place.
I stay at the hospital for the rest of the night. The baby continues to do well, and when Scarlett comes out of surgery, it seems like her prognosis has improved.
“The surgery went better than expected. She is still not out of the woods, but we were able to get her on a vent for the collapsed lung. She has three broken ribs, a hairline fracture on her skull, and a fracture on her right tibia; her injuries are not fatal. She’s conscious, but groggy if you want to see her. ”
“Thank you,” I tell the intern who is finishing his shift and updating me on all the patients, saving Scarlett until last.
I pass her room several times but wait until she is asleep to go in and look at her. She is going to live, and her injuries aren’t as bad as we initially suspected, so that sweet baby upstairs will grow up with a mother. The question is, will she have a father?