36. Stay With Me
Chapter thirty-six
Stay With Me
Melina
The ambulance screeches to a halt, and the doors slam open. Strong hands seize my arms and drag me back.
"No!" I scream, thrashing. "He’s been shot! Please—he's barely breathing!"
Sirens bleed into one another as more units swarm the street. Red, white, and blue strobes through the trees, casting fractured shadows across the wreckage.
A fire engine skids to a stop behind the ambulance. Suddenly, they’re everywhere. Boots pounding. Radios crackling.
A blonde paramedic, mid-thirties and all business, steps between me and the stretcher and holds me firm. "Ma’am, I know this is hard, but we need room to work."
Firefighters rush to the crumpled SUV. A police cruiser pulls up beside us. But I can’t look away.
Jax lies too still on the pavement. His skin is pale, ashen, almost gray. Sweat beads his brow. His breath comes shallow and ragged.
The EMT’s descend. One kneels beside him, gloved hands moving with brutal efficiency. “GSW, lower left quadrant. Entry wound only. He’s tachypneic and diaphoretic. Let’s get a pressure.”
"Do something!" I cry, lunging.
The medic doesn’t flinch. "I promise, we’re doing everything we can."
The other responder slaps a cuff on his right arm, eyes scanning the monitor. “BP’s eighty over fifty and dropping. Radial’s weak. He’s circling the drain.”
"Tourniquet's not gonna help here—get two large-bore lines in. Left arm's compromised. Try the right antecubital. If it collapses, we'll go femoral."
"Copy. Grabbing the second line. He needs volume, fast."
One of them peels back his sleeve and slides an IV into the crook of his arm. A bag dangles overhead, held up by steady hands.
The other slices through his tactical pants and boxers, exposing the inside of his upper thigh. Another IV. Another needle. A flash of blood. The fluid starts pouring in.
“Shallow but present,” someone states, listening at Jax’s mouth. “Airway’s patent. Get him on high-flow O?—ten liters, non-rebreather.”
A hand rips open a trauma kit and slits his shirt, revealing deep bruising across his ribs. Thick white gauze presses tightly against the wound on his side—already soaked through with dark red. “Possible rib fractures. Trachea midline—no JVD. Chest rise symmetric but minimal.”
"He's hypovolemic and altered. Internal bleed's the priority. Hold pressure while we prep the scoop. We’re moving."
They collar his neck, slide him onto a backboard, and strap him down with practiced speed. I stumble after them, heart hammering.
"You’re bleeding," the blonde medic says, blocking my path. "I need to check you."
"I’m fine," I lie. "Please—let me go with him."
She hesitates, then gives a sharp nod. "Stay out of the way."
Jax is disappearing inside. There’s nothing on this earth that would keep me away. I hardly make it in before the doors shut and we lurch forward.
The back is controlled chaos. Jax lies strapped to the stretcher, barely conscious, fighting for breath.
One medic checks his airway while the other fights to stabilize his vitals. Someone tosses me a clean blanket without looking—an unspoken kindness to cover my blood-streaked skin and exposed bra.
The driver’s voice crackles over the radio. “This is Medic Five inbound to Parkland Memorial, priority one. Male, early thirties, GSW to the lower left abdomen with heavy bleeding. BP unstable, tachy at 140. Suspected internal hemorrhage.
“Patient was involved in an MVC—possible concussion, left shoulder trauma, multiple rib fractures. Currently altered, in and out of consciousness. Two large-bore IVs running fluids, O-negative blood en route. ETA twenty minutes.”
“Copy, Medic Five,” the dispatcher answers. “Trauma team standing by. Go straight to Bay 3 on arrival.”
Internal hemorrhage. Concussion. Fractured ribs.
My fingers dig into Jax’s, my body goes ice cold. The words barely register, but I know exactly what they mean. They’re losing him.
Jax shifts, his head rolling toward me. His eyes flutter open—slightly.
“Jax, I’m here,” I whisper.
The medic adjusting his oxygen glances over. “Talk to him. Keep him awake.”
I swallow past the tears. “Jax, stay with me, okay? You’re gonna be fine. Just hold on.”
His lips part. His voice is a whisper. “Melina…”
“Shhh… don’t try to speak.”
His chest rises unevenly, every breath shallow. “So… cold…”
I press his hand between mine, trying to warm him. “I know. Just hang on. We’re almost there.”
“You’ve survived worse than this,” I murmur, brushing damp hair from his brow. “You’ve taken bullets, broken bones, God knows what else. This? This is one more scar to match the rest. So don’t you dare quit. Not now. Not on me.”
His body seizes.
The monitor screams—a shrill, high-pitched sound splitting the air.
“V-fib! No pulse!”
A medic climbs onto the gurney, pressing hard on his chest and counting aloud. “One, two, three, four—”
Tears stream down my face. “Please! You have to save him!”
The second attendant grabs a syringe. “Pushing one epi! Charging to 200!”
“Clear!”
The shock hits—his body arcs—then a weak beep.
Then another.
“Sinus rhythm. He’s back.”
I sob, gripping his blood-slick hand like it’s the only thing anchoring me.
“Notify the ER he coded en route,” the lead medic says quickly. “Push another bolus. Hold pressure on that wound. Let’s keep him here.”
The ambulance rattles around us. The world narrows to motion, sirens, and desperation. The medic leans over to check the line in his thigh, her tone low. "Line’s holding. Blood pressure’s climbing. He’s still in this."
Time stretches. I talk to him nonstop—home, the kids, his favorite records. Anything to pull him back.
He doesn’t wake.
A voice cuts in from the front. “Five minutes out.”
“You hear that?” I whisper. “You made it through hell. Now stay here. With me.”
The ambulance skids to a halt outside Parkland Memorial’s emergency bay. Doors fly open and chaos pours out, shouts and footfalls colliding in a blur of movement and sound.
“GSW, early thirties male. Coded en route, shocked back. BP sixty over forty and falling. Two large-bore lines running, needs trauma now.”
Stretcher wheels scream as the crew hauls him out. My heart slams against my ribs with every step. I leap down and barrel through the sliding doors after them—no one stops me, they’re too focused on Jax.
The gurney surges down the corridor, weaving through nurses and scrubbed bodies who scramble to clear a path. The trauma bay doors burst open.
“On my count. One, two, three, move.”
They lift him onto the hospital bed. A nurse slices the rest of his shirt, while another calls for a BP recheck.
“Pressure’s dropping. Sixty over thirty. Thready radial.”
“Pupils sluggish but reactive. Post-code. What meds en route?”
“Epi in. Two liters wide open. Another unit of O neg hung.”
“FAST is priority. Chest X-ray and pelvic if time allows.”
They work quickly. Gloves snap, monitors beep. A woman in scrubs spreads gel across Jax’s abdomen and rolls an ultrasound probe over his skin—his chest rising and falling with the ventilator, a plastic tube already secured between his lips.
“Labs STAT, CBC, type and cross, lactate, coag panel. Massive transfusion protocol standing by.”
“Still no response to fluids. Start norepinephrine—get a vasopressor drip running.”
A doctor rushes in, eyes scanning a monitor. “Negative FAST. No peritoneal free fluid. Bleeding’s likely a vessel or retroperitoneal.”
“He’s still dumping volume. BP?”
“Fifty-eight over twenty-eight.”
“Push another bolus of blood and have the rapid transfuser ready in the OR. We’re not waiting. Get him upstairs.”
I stand frozen, the ambulance blanket still wrapped around my shoulders and weighing me down like lead.
A nurse tightens the straps around his upper body, stabilizing his position. Another tapes a fresh pressure dressing over the wound. A doctor moves between us, blocking my view. “Let’s go—OR now!”
They wheel him out with practiced speed, the gurney a blur as it vanishes down the hallway.
Gone.
The silence that follows is deafening.
I stay there, chest heaving, hands sticky with his blood, until someone speaks beside me.
“Let’s get you into a room,” a nurse says gently as she steps into my space.
“No,” I cut her off, voice hoarse. “Not until I know he’s okay.”
“You were in a serious accident. You’re bleeding, and we need scans to make sure you don’t have internal injuries.”
She hesitates, then tries again. “He’s heading into surgery. There’s nothing more you can do for him.”
“Then I’ll wait.” The words crack. “Please.”
She exhales, glancing toward the doors swinging shut in the distance.
“You’re in shock—you aren’t feeling it yet, but you’re hurt. He’s going to need you later, so let’s take care of you now.”
I blink at her.
She follows my gaze to my right forearm. Blood trickles from the gash—pain I’ve been pushing aside.
“This needs stitches,” she utters. “Come on. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
My vision blurs, and the floor tilts. I try to speak, to protest, but the words won’t surface. The adrenaline drains out of me, and my knees buckle.
She catches me as I fold into her. “Okay,” she whispers. “Let’s sit you down.”
She guides me away from the trauma bay, tone soft and steady, a small calm against the storm ringing in my ears.
Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, sharp and unrelenting. My head swims as pain presses in from every angle. Each step grows heavier. My ribs throb with each breath, my skin stings, my skull pulses with a deep, dragging ache.
And then—nothing.
***
When I come to, I sink into the hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling and willing it all away. The weight of the last few hours—the last few months—crashes down all at once. My mind shuts off in retaliation.
I force my gaze down to where the nurse’s gloved hands move with care. She helps ease the blanket from my shoulders, folds it, and sets it aside. Then she passes me a gown.
"Let’s get you changed," she says gently. "I’ll step out and be right back."