Chapter 17 #2
John sighed, his shoulders tensing, and he intentionally rolled them as he sat forward.
“Look, clearly we want the same thing here, but we’re trying to go about it in our own way, without consideration for the other.
Why don’t we try—just for five seconds, each sit in the other person’s perspective, and see if we can’t collaborate—not compromise—on a way forward. ”
Tanya’s rigidity softened, and the taut lines around her puckered lips released. “All right, I think we can…”
The phone on Tanya’s desk rang, and she glanced at it, frowned, and answered it. Her frown drew tight over her face.
“Police are on their way?” Tanya asked. He hesitated and watched as her eyes snapped to his before hanging up the phone. “There’s a situation in the ED.”
John got to his feet, unfazed, and heard Tanya fumbling with her chair behind him to follow. Emergency medicine never stopped.
He pulled his stethoscope out of his back pocket and slipped it over his neck, jogging down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, knowing it was faster. Steph was already waiting for him at the back door.
“Police are on their way,” Steph informed him.
“I heard. Where’s Mendez and the others?” John asked, steeling himself and preparing for whatever was waiting for him behind those doors.
“Mendez and his team can’t get to him.”
“Who?”
The doors from the hallway opened onto chaos.
Lights, sounds, screaming, crying.
Blood.
This was not a normal scene for his department.
The long hallway of the thruway that connected the nurse station and adjoining rooms was at a standstill. His eyes found Mendez, his larger body recognizable over his team. He was on his knees, holding his nose in both hands, with Ava at his side, shaking.
Reyes was standing beside a large, beefy man with tattoos covering his exposed arms. He had a shaved head and a Nazi symbol on his chest, which told John everything he needed to know.
Reyes had his hands out in a defensive gesture, his upper lip swollen and his eyes focused on the surgical knife in the man’s hand, which was pointing directly at…
John’s heart stopped.
No.
Wyatt’s body was unusually stiff, as though his survival instincts were telling him to freeze at the sight of the predator who had him in his sights. The large bald man with tattoos held a knife to Wyatt’s throat, blood already slowly seeping from beneath the blade.
No!
John stepped forward, unable to stay back.
“The police are almost here, John,” Steph whispered frantically, grabbing his arm and attempting to stop him.
“We don’t want any more violence, sir,” Wyatt’s voice dropped into that steady, deep octave. The same voice that soothed horses, patients, and John.
The tattooed asshole with the knife snorted angrily through his large nostrils, glaring at Wyatt.
“We’re just tryin’ to do our jobs,” Wyatt reassured. “It’s safe here…”
John saw a brief movement from Wyatt’s hand. Blood was rapidly descending his arm. His fist was clutched tight as thick wet droplets coated the white tile floor beneath him.
He was hurt. And if he had been cut with a surgical blade, it could be bad—or go bad very quickly, depending on where he was cut.
“Fuck you, faggot,” the man with the knife hissed. “Get out of my fuckin’ way.”
John realized then that Wyatt was braced against a gurney, protecting an elderly woman whose eyes were wide and confused.
“She needs treatment…” Wyatt said gently. “We’re not gonna hurt her.”
“Fuck you!”
“Hey, hey…” John stepped slowly toward them, hands out. “Whatever is happening here, we can talk about this like rational adults.”
The large man lurched forward, doubling down on his attempt to control the situation, but he didn’t cut any further into Wyatt’s throat—yet. John held out a hand, forcing himself not to react.
Nurses screamed, and Reyes glanced uncertainly at John.
He shook his head slightly, indicating for Reyes to stay back.
Mendez, upon seeing John, slowly got to his feet, his eyes locked on Wyatt and the man with the knife.
Samuels, whom John couldn’t see but knew was there, was also probably waiting in the wings, ready to tackle this bastard if they had to.
Wyatt’s direct, pale blue eyes never once left the man’s face, holding perfectly still.
“Police are almost here,” John said calmly. “There is no need for any of this.”
The man with the knife was at least a foot taller than John and weighed considerably more.
“Why don’t you lower the knife…?” John said in his steady, even tone.
“Fuck off!”
“Is this your mom?” John asked, directing his question only at him.
The man’s scowling face turned mutinous. “I told her she’s not safe here. I told her not…” The man blinked and shoved Wyatt hard into the gurney. The elderly woman jumped, confused and frightened.
John sidestepped, following the movements like he would an opponent in the ring. It had been years since he boxed, yet he knew that the training had never really left him.
“This is the safest emergency department in all of LA, I can promise you that. Every single person in this room wants nothing more than to help your mom. We’re not here to hurt you or her.
We’re just here to help her the best that we can…
” John reassured. “What I cannot guarantee is what will happen when the police arrive.”
The man’s jaw clenched, sweat beginning to bead on his temple.
“The safest way out of this is to drop the knife.”
He saw a flash of wild fear and paranoia in the man’s eyes, and the shrinking cage that seemed to be closing in on him.
Wyatt sensed it too, and released his breath, voice thick and laced with emotion… and fear. “John…”
The man with the tattoos twitched.
That’s all it took, slicing the surgical knife across Wyatt, who leaped backward to avoid the cut.
John’s heart stopped.
And everything moved all at once.
Reyes yelled and Mendez charged, along with Samuels, who appeared out of nowhere.
But John moved first.
He rammed his shoulder hard into the man’s torso and they went flying backward, slamming into the tile floor and skidding across it in a heap of limbs.
Before the man could move, Samuels, Mendez, and Reyes dogpiled them.
John managed to grab the man’s wrist and yank the bloodied knife out of his hand.
The man reared, attempting to strike him.
John saw all the other men pinning him down, and for a split second he thought about putting the knife to this man’s throat the way he had done to Wyatt’s.
He gripped the knife once before tossing it on the ground toward the nurses' station. Sawyer, another resident, saw it and stopped it with her shoe, shaking as she grabbed it off the floor, her eyes wide.
Police announced themselves then, and with their guns drawn, descended on the chaos.
John’s fists were shaking but he managed to hold the man down with a knee to his throat, the other men holding down his flaying limbs. John craned his neck and saw Steph putting pressure on Wyatt’s throat. Blood spilled out from beneath her hands, and she was yelling for help.
Wyatt’s gaze was locked with his as he sat in Steph’s arms on the floor taking slow, measured breaths to slow his heart rate and thus his pulse, slowing the blood loss.
John froze, staring in horror and fear as panic ripped through him.
Samuels was on his feet, grabbing John by the back of the neck, and together they raced to Wyatt.
He wrapped his arm around Wyatt’s waist, Samuels on the other side, and hauled him onto an open gurney.
A team of nurses descended on him, applying everything they needed to measure his pulse and heart rate.
Reyes appeared at John’s side, “Police got the bastard.”
John’s face remained composed, even though everything inside him was shaking.
“Lawson…” he murmured, voice cracking.
Wyatt’s eyes lowered slightly, and his hand fell away. If the blade had been a normal kitchen knife, it wouldn’t have done this much damage. A surgical blade could cut through tire rubber if enough pressure was applied.
“His heart rate is dropping.”
“It’s missed the internal jugular vein. It’s superficial at best, but bleeding like a son of a bitch,” Samuels cursed. “Is he bleeding somewhere else?”
John grabbed his arm, turning it over, and saw that the bed sheet was already soaked. He was losing blood from a main vein in his arm, and quickly.
“Tourniquet,” John ordered, and Samuels squeezed the device over Wyatt’s arm, the blood flow immediately stopping.
“We can glue this sucker back together,” Samuels said. “Shouldn’t be too bad of a scar.”
“O negative,” John instructed the nurse to replace Wyatt’s blood loss.
After a few agonizing moments of waiting for the fluids, pain medicine, and new blood to pump through his system, Wyatt’s eyes finally opened and he let out a whooshing breath as he glanced down at his arm, which John was cleaning of excess blood, giving him access to the cut so he could seal it.
“Rise and shine, cowboy,” Samuels said jovially, yet his expression was pure relief.
Wyatt blinked and swallowed, his head resting on the white pillow, his skin grayish. “I feel like I got hit by a bus.”
“Nope, just a knife-wielding maniac,” Steph said from the doorway. “Reyes—Mendez needs someone to look at his nose.”
“On it.” Reyes glanced at Wyatt. “Fuck, man, that was crazy.”
“Yeah,” Wyatt murmured, looking dazed.
“Glad you’re alive, cowboy,” Steph said, eyes brimming with emotion as she and the other nurses stepped out, leaving John, Wyatt, and Samuels in the room alone.
Adrenaline depleted, emotions now slammed into him like a crashing wave, and John’s eyes burned with tears. He let them fall, wiping them on his shoulder as he worked on sealing Wyatt’s wound. The cut didn’t look deep enough to cut through muscle, but it was enough to cause significant blood loss.
“Can you move your fingers?” John asked, his voice rough, unable to look at him.
Wyatt hesitated.
“Move your fucking fingers, Lawson.”