Chapter 37
James
Blood is soaking into her top when I tear open her cardigan, and all I can think is:
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
She’s bleeding! Press on the wound!
I’m like an idiot on an ER show where they shout out instructions so that the viewer can understand what’s going on. For the love of God, I wish someone was shouting directions at me now because I am so far away from knowing what to do, it’s not even funny.
Suddenly, my aversion to all things medical flies out of the window.
It’s just me and Sadie and the need to stop this, right now.
I wrench up her T-shirt, and a cut is sitting next to her ribs, blood bubbling out of it.
Her breathing is labored, and some dreadful sucking noise is happening as her chest heaves in and out.
A hand lands on my shoulder, making me jump, and I turn my head to find a cop leaning over me. She jerks her chin.
“Punctured lung. We have to seal the wound. Don’t want it to collapse.”
She drops to her knees beside me and pulls some … tape? … out of her pocket as she says:
“Call 911.”
Never have I been so glad to have someone next to me who knows what they’re doing.
I pull my phone out and type in the numbers with a shaking hand.
The operator asks me to stay on the line, and I run her through what the officer is doing as she constructs some kind of flap over the wound with her tape.
“Take her pulse,” the officer says, grabbing my free hand and placing it on Sadie’s neck. “Count thirty seconds and let me know the number of beats.”
“Fifty-five,” I say eventually, and she nods.
“That’s 110 a minute. Fast, but not out there. I’ve seen a lot of knife chest wounds on the street,” she says. “Deal with ’em most days. That tape works pretty well unless it’s something big.”
Most days? Holy shit. All the stuff the emergency people handle while I’m at my desk writing code.
And God, I don’t want to think what “something big” might entail.
She must feel like I do when I’m looking at a computer that’s not working, trying to explain it to some poor guy who just wants to get back to work.
Christ, James, are you really comparing your job to dealing with a gunfight or a suicide?
“Might not be possible to stop her lung collapsing, but … we’re watching that seal like a hawk, okay? We want the air to come out, but not go back in. Going back in is bad. We’re checking for blue lips. I’m Del, by the way,” she says.
“James,” I say.
The ambulance arrives in minutes, the benefit of being just down the road from NYU Langone, I suppose.
Two paramedics leap out, fist-bumping Del and asking what trouble she’s been causing this time, immediately working away on Sadie.
She’s hooked up to all manner of fancy equipment, and if I could calm down for a second, I might be interested in what it is and how it works, but I can’t drag my eyes from her wound.
They lift her onto a stretcher in no time at all.
She’s so small, her face so pale, with her beautiful caramel hair fanning around her head.
One of the paramedics tucks it in as they wheel her to the waiting ambulance.
Open your eyes. Look at me. Just once. Just once, so I can tell you how I feel about you.
“Hop in,” the paramedic says, and I don’t need to be told twice, vaulting in beside Sadie. Del raises her hand to me as the doors slam shut.
Just another day on the streets of New York. And, oh Christ, the irony that I was worried about Queens, and she ends up getting stabbed half a block down from Des’s apartment!
I take her hand and examine the pale skin and bitten nails.
I’ve watched these hands flicking through the pages of a book so often, nails being chewed when it gets to an exciting part.
My chest tightens unbearably. I can’t lose Sadie now.
She really is that quiet hero she laughed about so many weeks ago, and I’ve learned so much from her about how to be strong.
The paramedic tracks her vital signs on a monitor above the stretcher like a hawk, and then gestures at me to move back as he leans down and puts his ear against her lung.
“I think the lung’s collapsed,” he says. “Gotta let the air out.”
Oh shit, oh shit.
“How bad is that?” Why does my voice sound so thin and wavery?
He starts fiddling with the plastic seal that replaced Del’s tape. He shakes his head as he watches the monitors.
“Be fine once we get her there. We just gotta make sure her blood pressure doesn’t go too low.”
I don’t like the phrase “It’ll be fine once we get her there” in that sentence.
“Lung’s collapsed,” he shouts through to the guy driving the ambulance.
“Roger that. I’ll radio ahead,” the driver says. “Two minutes out.”
The paramedic glances at me and nods. “We deal with these every day,” he says.
Asking him how many people make it is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t think I could handle the answer.
Anxious seconds tick by while my eyes are glued to the monitor alongside his, except I have no idea what the numbers mean.
Then we’re pulling into a bay at NYU Langone, and the doors open and a whole team swarms the back of the vehicle.
My throat tightens as I take in their earnest faces.
Sadie is off and out on her gurney, moving toward the ER, so I leap out after her as the paramedic moves fast, too, giving a raft of incomprehensible data to the doctor who’s leaning over Sadie.
As they wheel her through a set of double doors, a nurse gestures for me to stay back, and I come to a halt in the middle of the floor, blinking. The paramedic disappears with them. A second later, he emerges again, whistling. He stops in front of me.
“Don’t tell anyone I said so, but I think she’s going to be fine. They’ll stitch her up, put a line in to let the air out, and the lung will gradually reinflate. A couple of weeks’ recovery and she should be good.” He squeezes my shoulder.
I sink down into a chair in the waiting room.
Fuck. Quiet heroes. That cop. The paramedic.
They move through us like an invisible energy, the glue that holds everything together.
George Lucas was wrong about The Force in Star Wars; it lives in these people, not in people like Darth Vader.
I pull my phone out of my pocket—the one Sadie recovered for me—and press call on her mom’s number.
While I was lying in bed worrying last night, I decided I needed to find Sadie’s mom an admin job at Williams Security.
She’s clearly organized and a hard worker, and I’m sure she could be extremely useful.
Sadie was so quiet and unassuming when we first employed her, but she’s come out of her shell a bit recently and she has so many other talents beyond software.
“Hey, James, I’m sorry I can’t really talk right now,” her mom says in my ear. “They don’t like me …”
“I just called to let you know that Sadie’s in the hospital,” I say quietly. “I think she’s okay, but we’re not out of the woods yet.”
There’s a short silence and a sharply drawn breath. “What?”
“Jake turned up outside the apartment wanting money. He tried to take her hostage, and he had a knife.”
“A knife!”
“Darius, our doorman, saw them down the street and phoned me and then the cops. Jake stabbed Sadie and ran off.”
“Oh my God! Jesus Christ!” I can hear footsteps like she’s running followed by some voices in the background. “Stabbed! Stabbed! Where is she? I have to come now.” The phone goes muffled, but I can hear her voice, rising in tone as she talks to someone.
“If you can’t leave, it’s okay. I’m here with her and …”
“Of course I’m coming! My beautiful daughter! That asshole! I’ve a good mind to turn up at our apartment and stab him!” Her words rise in a shrill squeak.
“Fortunately, the police apprehended him, so he was caught before you could murder him, Mrs. Turner.”
“I gave him money! For years! I can’t believe I was so gullible. I’m giving that shit an earful when I see him. You tell the cops from me, I’ll testify against him. I’ll tell them whatever they want to know about him and his activities.”
Interesting. “I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you, Mrs. Turner.”
“Call me Bridget, James.”
“All right, Bridget. I’ll see you soon. And don’t worry, okay? She’s going to be fine.”
And I cross my fingers behind my back.
Bridget arrives, her face tearstained, hands worrying the handle of her bag. She latches onto my arm, eyes swimming. “My Sadie! My lovely girl. What’s happening?” she chokes out.
“We don’t know anything yet, Mrs. Turner. We’re still waiting to hear from the doctor.”
“Bridget.”
“Okay, Bridget. She’s still being operated on. We haven’t heard from the doctor. Come and sit down. Can I buy you a coffee?”
She blows out a long breath and sinks into a chair next to me. “All you do is make coffee for me.”
I’ve made it for her once. My lips curl up. “Elixir of the Gods,” I say, and she gives me a funny look.
“You sound like my Sadie.” Her face goes pained. “She’s the light of my life,” she says as she stares across the stone floor of the waiting area. “I can’t lose her. What would I do?” Her hands shake and she presses them down on her knees.
I can’t lose her either, but I can’t say that to her mom right now, can I?
“She’s an amazing person.”
She turns her head and examines my face, nodding. “Shouldna brought that jerk into her life.”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes we just do the best we can in the circumstances.”
“Mrs. Turner?” A voice says next to us, and I look up to find an officer standing there.
“Are you …” He glances down at his notebook. “Sadie Turner’s mother?”
“Damn right I am,” her mom says with a scowl, “and I want to tell you all about the asshole that stabbed her.”