Chapter 32 Xander
XANDER
“What happened?” Fred slides to a stop next to me as I exit the operating theater, removing my skull cap.
“Driver ran a red light at the crossroads at the top of the hill out of town and skidded on the ice,” I say as he falls into step next to me.
“Hit every fucking car on the way down and collided with two more at the bottom. I just had to rearrange an eight-year-old’s guts while Hasley amputated her right leg. Fucking idiots.”
“Holy shit.” Fred stumbles slightly as he pulls at his tie. “Where do you need me?”
As we reach the staff room, I finally notice what he’s wearing. A fancy black suit with a floral shirt underneath that parts as he rips his tie from his throat. “What are you wearing?”
“Huh?” Fred pushes past me and into the staff room. “Clothes, Xander. You know, people clothes? That people wear when they’re not working? Not that you’d know anything about that.”
“I wasn’t working. I was sleeping because you were covering my surgeries.”
“Have you seen what time it is?” He points at the clock as he pulls himself out of his suit and into scrubs.
“I covered all your surgeries and pushed one back because that dude with the kidney problem had his wife sneak him a cheeseburger, so I couldn’t operate.
And while you were sleeping, I went on a date. ”
For a moment, the carnage of the crash fades from my mind as I glance at the clock. Two in the morning. “A date?”
Fred smirks. “Well, it was a really good date and it was about to turn into something else when I got the call. Overwhelmed, were you?”
“Fred—”
“Sorry, I know. I saw the trauma ward on the way in. All this from a run red light. Never fucking stops, does it?”
“No,” I sigh, rubbing my face. “Listen, I’ve got a woman in the operating theater that I need to operate on and there’s another woman in the burn ward I want you to take a look at. She’s hysterical, understandably, so I’m hoping you can work your magic and soothe her.”
“Sure,” Fred replies, attaching his badge to his scrubs and closing his locker. “Y’know, for a guy that doesn’t want the Chief’s position, you’re pretty good at bossing people around.”
“Shut up.”
“Yes, Boss,” he says mockingly as we return to the hall.
Before I can take a step, a soft squeak of alarm rises up behind me and Fred’s arm shoots out to grab my elbow.
“Careful!” he barks, hauling me away from where I nearly caught poor June between me and the wall.
“June, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even see you there.” As she glances at me, I do a double-take.
Never have I seen her with such applied makeup before and she clutches at her silver purse while standing there in a gorgeous black dress. Far too fancy for anything other than a date.
I glance between them but both of them stare hard at me, unwilling to look each other in the eye.
Interesting.
“Move,” Fred snaps, shoving me away from June, then he follows me down the corridor, but not before he glances back at her.
“You were on a date, huh?” I glance sidelong at him. “Interesting.”
“Drop dead,” Fred grunts, lightly elbowing me in the side. He rushes away before I can say anything else.
Making a pitstop at a vending machine for some soda, I check my phone.
My last two messages to Snow have gone unanswered, but I text her again explaining I won’t be home tonight, but maybe we can have lunch tomorrow.
I’d really like to just spend some time with her.
Refueled by soda by the time I return to the operating theater, I’m immediately pulled into my next surgery.
A woman who was a passenger in a taxi was caught in the carnage at the bottom of the hill with severe internal bleeding.
I scrub as carefully and as quickly as I can until my hands throb with a familiar rawness, then I stand as the nurses around me help me into my gown and snap fresh, clean gloves onto my hands.
“Alright,” I say as I walk toward the patient on the table, wrinkling my nose slightly under my mask. “What have we got?”
“One of our own, I’m afraid,” says the anesthesiologist.
“Who?” My heart skips slightly as I get closer while the anesthesiologist flips through his chart.
“Uh… oh, you might know her. You’re listed as her primary care.”
My heart pounds and just as her bruised, unconscious face comes into view, her name is read out like a whisper in a cavern.
“Noelle Montoya. She’s… Patient Services, right?”
Snow.
Oh, my God.
She doesn’t look like herself.
Her skin is painfully pale and her lips stretch unnaturally around the tube thrust in her throat to keep her breathing.
Blood stains her neck and mascara smears her cheek.
I can’t breathe.
I stand there with my hands aloft just above the surgical field and stare at her while my heart pounds frantically in my chest as if it’s trying to escape and bring her back to life by my own blood.
Snow.
What happened? Why wasn’t she safe at home?
“You good?” The anesthesiologist’s voice cuts through the fog descending around me, and I glance at him.
“Fine.”
“Then should we get started?” His brow creases. “She’s losing a lot of blood here.”
In this moment, I understand why surgeons aren’t allowed to operate on people they care about.
Having Snow’s life in my hands is sickening, but at the same time there’s no one else I would trust to bring her back to me.
Taking a deep breath, I hold my hand to the nurse on my right. “Scalpel.”
“Wait!” Another nurse suddenly flies forward and grabs the anesthesiologist’s hand. “Did you give her general or Ket?”
“What?” The anesthesiologist glances downward. “I was about to administer Ketamine to keep her under.”
“Idiot,” the nurse snaps. “She’s pregnant, are you trying to harm the baby?”
“What?” The anesthesiologist starts flipping through his paperwork.
What?
My hands freeze even as the nurse next to me places the scalpel in my hand. I can’t grip it.
I’m staring hard at the anesthesiologist, waiting for his response, and it doesn’t come quick enough.
“Shit, I didn’t realize,” he says. “Hold on, Xander, let me switch—”
Pregnant.
Snow is pregnant.
How is this possible?
There’s no way.
She would tell me, right?
Unless she didn’t know.
But if she didn’t know, it wouldn’t be part of her medical records.
Pregnant.
The floor wobbles under my feat and sweat breaks out across my forehead as too many thoughts collide in my head.
Snow is bleeding out right in front of me and all I can think about is the fact that she’s pregnant.
“Okay, we’re good to go,” the anesthesiologist says.
I can’t move.
I’m rooted to the spot even as weakness spreads down my legs and the floor seems to wobble beneath me.
“Xander?” The nurse beside me grows concerned as I still don’t take the scalpel from her.
“Xander!” The anesthesiologist yells and jerks me out of my stunned trance. I blink and my eyes burn.
“Call Fred,” I choke out.
“What?” The nurse next to me removes the scalpel from my open palm and places it down.
“Call Fred. Get him in here. I can’t do this.”
“But doctor—”
“Get him in here!” I yell, and everyone around me flinches. “Get him in here right now!”
I can’t do this.
I can’t think.
I can’t stop my legs from trembling.
Pain in my gut is spreading through my entire body and my heart is beating so fast that the taste of copper spreads over the back of my tongue.
Snow is pregnant.
Is that my baby in there?
Why wouldn’t she tell me?
As I step away from the table, warmth stings behind my eyes.
Am I about to lose them both?
Fred sprints into the scrubbing room just as I stumble in there and our eyes meet.
I don’t get a chance to say a word because somehow, he seems to understand immediately.
“Xander, get out of here,” he snaps. “I’ve got this.”