Chapter 2 #3
A few minutes later, the vehicle comes to a stop on a long gravel drive.
I look through the tinted window and see the outline of a large mansion illuminated against the night.
It is beautiful in the way expensive things often are—impressive, immaculate, and completely devoid of anything that makes them feel safe.
The rear door opens.
“Out.”
I step onto the gravel, and the first thing I notice is the security.
Men stand in positions that would be easy to overlook if you weren't looking for them, one near the entrance, another farther down the drive, and two more visible through the windows.
None of them are standing casually. They're watching.
Everything here is controlled, and everything has a purpose.
I turn slowly, taking in the property while pretending to be nothing more than a doctor trying to understand where she has been brought.
There are cameras, multiple exits from the house, several vehicles, and a wall surrounding the property.
The kind of security that doesn't belong to a wealthy businessman who simply wants privacy.
Whoever owns this place has enemies, or expects to.
“How long am I going to be here?” I ask.
The man who brought me pauses. “That depends on you.”
Another half-answer. I'm beginning to hate those.
The front doors open before we reach them, and a man standing inside steps aside without saying anything.
I walk into the house and immediately feel the atmosphere change.
The quiet exterior gives way to controlled urgency.
Men move through the halls carrying equipment.
Voices overlap from somewhere deeper inside.
Someone is giving orders, and other people are responding quickly.
This isn't a place prepared for a guest. I can feel that almost immediately.
Something has happened here, something serious enough to turn an otherwise immaculate house into a place filled with hurried footsteps, hushed commands, and an urgency that seems to vibrate beneath everything around me.
I'm led through the house and up a staircase, my attention moving automatically over my surroundings even as the increasingly sharp metallic scent reaches me.
The farther we go, the stronger it becomes until there is no mistaking it. Blood. Fresh blood.
My instincts take over before my fear has a chance to catch up.
When the door opens, my attention goes immediately to the bed, then to the blood staining the sheets and soaking through the makeshift dressings at the man's side, and finally to the man himself.
Everything else disappears as my medical training takes control.
He is pale, barely conscious, and fighting for every breath, his body already showing the unmistakable signs of severe blood loss.
The people surrounding him are doing what they can, but I can tell within seconds that whatever measures they have attempted haven't been enough.
My gaze moves quickly over him, assessing his breathing, his color, his responsiveness, and the amount of blood he's already lost while my mind begins assembling the picture before I consciously make the decision to speak.
Gunshot wound. Significant blood loss. Unstable pressure.
Possible internal bleeding. Whatever happened to this man, he is running out of time, and if I don't intervene now, he may not have much of it left. He is dying.
“Fix him.”
The command comes from somewhere behind me, but I barely hear it. My bag hits the nearest table as I move toward the bed, my hands already reaching for the patient.
“Move.”
The men surrounding him step back, and I lean over him, assessing his breathing, pulse, skin color, and the wound while my mind races through the possibilities.
I don't know who he is. I don't know who these men are.
I don't know where I am or why I was brought here.
But I know exactly what happens if I don't act quickly.
“How long has he been like this?” I demand.
No one answers immediately, so I look up. “How long?”
“Less than an hour,” someone finally says.
Good. Not good enough, but better than what it could have been.
I turn back to the man on the bed and press my fingers against his neck, feeling for a pulse that is too fast and too weak beneath my fingertips. His eyelids move, and I lean closer.
“Stay with me,” I tell him.
His eyes open slightly, and dark eyes meet mine through the haze. For one strange second, the room seems to disappear. Then I remember where I am, straighten, and look at the men surrounding the bed.
“I need space, light, and whatever medical equipment you have. If you want him alive, you're going to do exactly what I say.”
No one moves.
I raise my voice. “Now.”
This time, they move.
As I turn back toward the wounded man, my hands already beginning the work they know how to do, I realize that whoever brought me here made one mistake.
They thought they had taken a frightened woman from a hospital parking lot, but they haven't yet realized what they actually took.
They took a doctor, someone who knows exactly what death looks like and refuses to surrender to it while there is still something left to save.
And whatever happens next, I intend to keep my patient alive.