Chapter 3 Reed
Reed
The emergency room is surprisingly quiet tonight.
The nurses glance up, whispering among themselves, probably wondering when the podcast is going to come out about this River Stalker.
I don’t join in with their popcorn-box gossip. Their whispers are usually below my concern. Instead, I fold my arms and watch the screen with detached irritation.
I can feel the annoyance transforming my lips into a frown.
Whoever this amateur is better knock it off.
They are drawing too much attention. Too much chatter. They are going to ruin my sport. And ruin all the fun that comes with it.
I’ve roamed these woods for years—the river trail is mine. I’ve been a careful prowler—practicing the utmost discipline. Sure, I might have chased down a few innocent souls, but I haven’t decapitated any heads or drained the life from anyone's eyes in the last five years.
Although, sometimes the thought does exhilarate me.
Last night was my first true chase in ages. A golden, corn-fed boy with the calves to prove it. He practically spread his legs open for me.
And he almost giggled with excitement.
Fuck. Such a delicious treat that I let wander off. I kind of regret not getting a taste of him first—you know to make sure that he’s the real deal.
My father would never have allowed such a thing.
He would have called me weak in front of the whole clan, hell maybe even cut my jugular in front of the entire family during a council meeting.
Once you are seen by prey, you must take them down. It’s the Code of the Quinns. Trained to stalk and hunt, for generations. Masks passed down through the centuries.
I’m better than my father or my siblings who shun me for wanting a different kind of life. I’ve taken lives before, under my father’s command. It’s an awful and empowering sensation—watching the life spill into the void.
It’s terrifyingly intimate. The ultimate power trip with a side dish of moral conflict.
Their force gone in an instant. Delivered to heaven or hell.
But last night—God, last night was beautiful.
Him and I beneath the shy pale glow of a partial moon. Not a pesky cricket to be heard, only the sounds of the rustling leaves dared to disturb our romantic tranquility.
For a moment I forgot that I was hunting him. His performance was immaculate. His act of freezing, frantic glances over his shoulder. A pas de deux in moonlight and menace, two silhouettes dancing on the knife-edge between thrill and terror.
And for one ridiculous, perfect second, I lost the plot entirely.
Forgot who was the predator and who was the prey.
His breath came in trembling puffs of frost, each one shimmering in the pale light. His shoulders quivered, as if his heart was going to burst in front of my greedy eyes. And oh, how I would have loved to see it—just so I could stitch him back together and he would owe me for an eternity.
He smelled of innocence and alfalfa. As if he were delivered right from the farm, with a bow stuck right on top of his head.
My very own farm-fresh boy to devour like a box of freshly baked biscuits.
He’s my present to unwrap. To unravel to my desire. Custom-made temptation that made my shaft skyrocket. The cream of the crop.
He wanted me to feast on his lips. To help stitch the wounds in his eyes.
Don’t fret, little mouse.
You won’t wander far.
When I see you again, I’ll stop your heart—just for a moment.
Only so I can be the one to start it again.
And when your eyes open…
…my lips will be on yours.
Call it CPR. Or rebirth.
Either way, Medicare’s not gonna cover the bill. But I can guarantee that the aftercare will be exquisite.
“Dr. Quinn, we have a triple gunshot wound coming in STAT.” Jackie, the charge nurse shouts from the ambulance bay.
“Trauma Room One, everybody, now!” I bark, pulling on fresh gloves as the ER scrambles in chaos. “And make sure the OR is ready!”
This is my kingdom. My altar of redemption.
I’ve made it my mission to save every soul that crosses the threshold—even those that don’t stand a chance in hell. We gotta try. Because we don’t get to play God in this ER.
We must outdo Him.
Maybe it’s penance. Maybe I’m trying to stack enough miracles to balance out the throats that my family has ripped across centuries. Quinns hunt. Quinns kill. Quinns don’t feel.
Except me. I do. Sometimes.
“Coming in!” the paramedics shout as they wheel through the swooshing doors.
The patient is young. Nineteen, maybe twenty. Black male. Eyes closed. Shirt soaked scarlet—three bullets to the midline of his torso. Whoever pulled the trigger knew how to shoot.
Fuck. What a bloody mess.
“Turn up the heat in here! We need this patient hot!”
“Blood pressure is bottoming out!”
“Pack the wounds. Start fluids. Push TXA. Prep for massive infusion protocol.” I order the team. Everyone is dialed in to a T.
“Sir, his pulse is already fading.” One of the nurses stammers, her voice trembling like a leaf in the breeze.
“I don’t give a shit. I’m the physician here, and this is my trauma bay. Now pack those wounds.”
She flinches into action, cheeks flushing with color.
The nurse is correct; it would be a miracle to save this life. But we are here to try. Not to give up when a victim looks like a challenge. We are here to outlast death. To keep the Grim Reaper at bay, even when he is knocking on the ambulance door.
“Two of the wounds look managed, but the third is profusely bleeding.” Jackie shouts.
“Well, I’m not here to observe his death. Now hand me the thoracotomy tray!” I bark.
Someone murmurs, “In the ER…?”
“Retraction. Now,” I command, slashing through skin and muscle in a decisive stroke.
The rib spreader groans open, exposing the chest cavity. Warmth floods my gloves. Steam rises off ruptured vessels. His heart spasms weakly—fluttering like a head chopped off a chicken.
This victim is lucky.
Because I’ve chosen him.
He’s not dying on my watch.
“The third wound is still blowing.” Jackie yells, her scrubs soaked in crimson.
“Aorta’s hit,” I say. “Clamp.”
My hand dives past the gasping lung, heat engulfing my wrist. My fingers find the slick, thrashing pulse of the descending aorta. I squeeze hard, severing blood flow to the lower body.
For a suspended second, the whole team holds its breath.
Then—beep. Beep. Beep.
His blood pressure and pulse begin to stabilize to a level that might survive surgery.
“You are not dying today,” I whisper to his open chest cavity.
“Now get him to the OR ASAP!” I bark as two bags of blood transfuse simultaneously and they wheel him away.
“Anybody else right now Jackie?”
“No Doc. Good for now.” She wipes her forehead with a bloody wrist. “Thank you for saving him. Or—at least giving him a chance. At my last hospital, docs would call it before ripping them open.”
“You did just as much as me Jackie. It’s what we are here for.” I say, as I head to the locker room to change into a new pair of scrubs. “Let me know if anything comes in that the residents can’t handle. I’m going to go for a run, but I’ll have my pager on me."
As I cross the threshold of the locker room, I’m met by the smell of sweat and antiseptic. I stumble over to the mirror to strip, as I tear off my scrub top, I’m reminded of my family’s brand.
Noli timere.
Do not be afraid.
The memory overtakes my vision in vivid detail. I was fourteen. The entire family flew to my uncle’s estate in Utah. A congregation of the world’s assassins, all swapping stories of their latest kills.
The instructions were simple. You either kill the prey, or your father strangled the life out of you. That was the code of the Quinns for centuries, as it is to this day.
A proper rite of passage. You know like, a bar mitzvah with more shrieking.
We only kill those that have done a detriment to society, you know like a health insurance CFO about to be indicted for billions of dollars in Medicare fraud. Some might consider us brutal, but imagine how much more money she would have wasted four or five decades in prison?
They released the screaming fraudster of a woman from the cage—she stumbled barefoot into the desert, her sobs cracking through the dry darkness.
She screamed and screamed as she pounded the parched ground, her feet becoming crimson from the scratches.
She left a trail of bloody breadcrumbs across the sand.
She barely made it a mile with her head start. It was supposed to be an easy kill
The hardest part was slashing past her words.
“Please, please, please. I have two toddlers at home. Their father is gone. Please for the mercy of God. Spare me.”
And my father—my charming sociopath of a mentor—chuckled at her words, his sinister laugh still ringing in my ears like the monster he is.
Only the strongest of the Quinns were granted the luxury of adulthood. Out of my eight siblings, five of us survived to eighteen. The other three’s names were erased from our records. Quality control, the family labeled it.
Water from the shower runs down my forearms, washing away the residue of sweat and iron. I linger in the steam for a moment, pushing away the memory of my childhood.
That boy from Utah is a man now. Trained to use a scalpel to save lives—instead of snatching them.
I escaped from my family, by promising them that I would attend the finest medical school and return to them as a skilled surgeon. Not a complete lie, it gave me time to practice my sutures and gather blackmail to allow my way out of their chokehold.
But hunting is in my blood—an inherited hobby that is a double-edged blade. It offers me the steady hands of a surgeon, the boldness to make a decision in an instant. The instincts to override the compulsion of human fear.
You read the prey, watch their pulse fumble as they sense the danger lurking around them. Observe the shivers it sends down their spines. They can’t help it.
And sometimes I can’t either.
I need to claim what is rightfully mine.
I need to see my little mouse again.
Let’s find out if he’s still foolish enough to run.
***