ARI
TWENTY-SEVEN
“What else did he say?” Warren asked as he swerved the car.
I put my hand out onto the dashboard as if that would ease the centrifugal force spinning me around in the moving vehicle.
“Not much else, Warren. I just heard he needs me to save someone’s life and that’s it. I dropped everything and came to get you. I know as much as you do.”
Warren bit his lip, and after another screeching turn, he glanced at me. “I don’t know everything.”
I let out a huff and looked away from him. “Warren, don’t. Please.”
“Fine,” he snapped back.
After a few moments of dizzying silence, I turned to look at him and saw the ache in his face. Something pounded in my chest, eating away at my insides, and I sighed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It wasn’t exactly planned.”
He didn’t react.
“I didn’t want this to happen. Okay?”
“He forced you?” He grimaced.
“No. That’s not what I meant. I…I didn’t want to like your brother that way. I don’t want to lose you. But…”
His eyes narrowed, probably from trying to see in the dark, but it felt like he was judging me instead.
“So you like him?”
I licked my lip and sagged in the passenger seat. “I more than like him, but…I don’t feel comfortable talking about it. I know you’ve known about him for a while, but he’s still very private and I don’t want to disrespect his wishes.”
Warren sighed in response.
He didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride, but when we came to an abrupt stop in front of the abandoned farm in Hummingbird County, he turned to me before he got out of the car.
“You wouldn’t lose me. Ever. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Either one of you.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but I didn’t get a chance because he ran out and slammed the door shut behind him.
Whatever I was about to say I shook off and followed suit, running to the injured man on the ground.
He was being held up by another man, King, the local dog groomer, and Wyatt was applying pressure over the injured man’s clavicle.
There were other men lying around them, all still and quiet, and a shiver coursed through my spine as to what that meant.
I turned to Wyatt as I dropped to my knees. He looked a mess. There was blood all over his clothes, and his face was wrinkled with worry and pain. He looked like he needed a hug. And I wanted nothing more than to take him in my arms and hold him there until it was all okay.
But there was a life on the line.
I turned my attention to the injured man on the ground, and I instructed Wyatt to pull his hands away gently so I could assess the situation.
Blood pooled as soon as Wyatt let go, and I told him to apply pressure again while I opened my med bag, and Warren knelt beside me and proceeded to help me sterilize my hands.
“I need to pack his wound to slow down the bleeding. How long since he’s been shot?”
Wyatt closed his eyes and rocked back and forth as if trying to remember. It was King who answered my question.
“Ten minutes? Maybe longer,” he said.
I frowned, but I didn’t stop. Warren opened the first pack of gauze and handed it to me as I dug my finger in through the entry point and tried to find a vein, or a pulse. With my free hand I started stuffing the gauze in, trying to do the mental math to figure out how much risk he was in.
“If he’s been like this for more than ten minutes then perhaps the bullet didn’t hit the subclavian artery and vein. But I’m not taking any chances. Maybe he just got lucky, so…give me.” I turned to Warren and got another gauze from him.
Once I was satisfied with the amount I could stuff inside, I put pressure on the wound and waited, watching the man for any signs of blue skin or difficulty breathing.
All eyes were on me. I could feel them burning holes in my skin, but I didn’t care. I only had eyes for one person and one person only. The injured man.
“What’s his name?” King answered. “Nino, can you hear me?”
The man, Nino, opened his eyes very slowly but closed them back up again.
“Shit. He’s passed out. We need to wake him up. Right? We need to—” King started shaking him, and I stared him down.
“No! Let him. His body is in immense pain right now. This is just his body trying to protect him.”
“But…but what if he doesn’t wake up.”
He sounded terrified. He must’ve been a friend or a relation. I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know what the hell they were all even doing here or why there were three men dead around us.
“King, I’m going to do my best to make sure that he does wake up, but you have to trust me and you have to stop shaking him. I’m trying to stop his bleeding.” I used my most authoritative and composed voice I could muster.
Thankfully, Wyatt stepped up behind King and pulled him back, and when King tried to reach for Nino again, Wyatt wrapped his hands around King so tight the man had no choice but to stay put and cry, watching me work.
Warren stared at me as if waiting for further instructions, but I didn’t have any for him. I closed my eyes and kept on applying pressure, counting down the minutes and planning all my next steps.
“Can you find the tubes and have one ready. Also a needle,” I told him after a few minutes.
My arms ached like hell, but I wasn’t about to let up. I knew he’d been shot what felt like ages ago, but he was still breathing and still alive, and maybe it was a fluke or maybe it was Wyatt’s help, but Nino was still not out of the woods, and I’d be damned if I risked anything.
“A tube? A needle? What for?” King cried, barely audible in his distress.
“Just in case,” I said.
“In case, what?” he asked.
I shook my head, refusing to answer him. He didn’t need to know any more than he did already. I couldn’t have him break down on the possibility that I’d have to do more out here on the field than I was happy with.
There was bacteria, dirt, infection everywhere out here. The less invasive I had to be the better, but if it meant saving this man, then I would do what I had to.
Just when I started to think it would be safe to move him, a hissing sound came from his wound, and I cursed, looking up at the starry sky.
“Shit!”
“What is it?” King asked.
I didn’t answer, but I turned to Warren and asked him to find me a vented chest seal.
“Is his lung collapsing?” Warren asked.
I gritted my teeth and stared at the injured man underneath me.
“Not if I can help it. Quickly!”
As Warren moved swiftly, I focused on my breathing and not my muscles burning through me, weakening more and more with each second.
I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t.
Why was I even here? I wasn’t even an emergency doctor. What if I fucked up? What if I forgot something? It had been years since I’d worked in the emergency room.
My gaze landed on Wyatt who was watching me, unblinking, unmoving, unwavering with King in his arms, both sprawled all over the ground as far away as possible.
It was only for a moment that I looked into his eyes, but it gave me more strength than I could have imagined.
I was doing it for him. I was doing it for the man he was holding who would completely break down if Nino died.
And I was doing it for Evan, goddamnit. I couldn’t be there when he was injured and needing me the most, but I was here now, for this stranger, and I would sooner die than I let him slip away from within my grasp.
Nino’s skin started to turn blue, and I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, shoved the disappointment and fear in the back of my head, and got to work.
I had to decompress his chest. So I grabbed the needle and did just that.
I didn’t stop until his skin pinked up again, the bleeding had stopped, and his pulse was steady.
“Let’s go. We need to take him to the hospital,” I said.
King grumbled, and Wyatt deflated and shook his head. “No hospitals,” he said.
“But I’m not done yet. He needs a transfusion. He needs proper care—”
“No hospitals!” It was King who spoke this time, and his expression told me he wasn’t bullshitting me.
“Then what do I do?”
“I…I don’t know,” Wyatt said, and I felt my heart ache at seeing him so defeated.
“We’ll take him to Duke’s and figure it out there,” Warren said.
“Azrael is a trained medic, his mom is a nurse, and Duke has equipment. I’ll call them now and they’ll be ready for us.
Do you know his blood type?” he asked King and Wyatt, and King shook his head. “It’s fine. It might be on his phone.”
I looked at my friend and offered him a reassuring smile and felt a little easier. I didn’t know what I would ever do without him. I truly hoped he didn’t have a problem with Wyatt and me dating. And I truly hoped that whatever happened between us, our friendship wouldn’t be affected.
As soon as Warren made the call, he helped me carry Nino to the back of his car, and we drove off.
Wyatt and King trailed behind us. I went through Nino’s phone on the way and saw a lot of messages and a lot of things I didn’t know what to make of.
But the important thing was that I got his blood type, so I sent out a group message to everyone so they could figure out who had the appropriate blood type.
We were going to do this the old-fashioned way.
From source to target. I just hoped it wouldn’t cause any further complications.
An hour later, Nino was sprawled across a bed with Santiago Ortiz, Joey’s husband, lying next to him giving the man who I’d found out was King’s criminal brother, his blood.
I hadn’t seen Wyatt in ages, but that was no surprise. There was total chaos in the house while we tried to get Nino the right care. And yet I kept checking the door. After the hundredth time, Warren turned to me.
“Go,” he said.
“Huh?”
He rolled his eyes and lowered his tone so Azrael’s mom wouldn’t hear. “Go find him. It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
I opened my mouth, but all that came out was a sigh. “I can’t. I need to be here in case anything goes wrong.” I looked from Nino to Santiago, both passed out and fast asleep.
“We’ve got it. The hardest part is done. Go. Check on him. He probably needs you now more than ever.”
I stared at my friend a little longer than comfortable, trying to decide, but he had a point.
Whatever had happened, Wyatt must’ve been beating himself up. He did so when it wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t imagine what he must be telling himself with this apparent mission gone awry.
“Thank you,” I whispered and squeezed my best friend’s hand.
He gave me a sad smile and jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here,” he said.
I shot up and followed the way to him, my heartbeat easing the closer I got. I’d been going wild with anxiety, not being able to be there to comfort him, to look into his eyes and reassure him it was all going to be okay.
But I also realized something else. How hard it had been to breathe without him.
Fuck my life. I’m screwed.
I’m in love with Wyatt and there is nothing I can do to stop it.
And I don’t want to.