Wild

Chapter 1

"How long has she been without a pulse?" Erin asks, walking into the ER bay as she finishes pulling on her latex gloves.

"Two, maybe three minutes," answers Joshua, the resident who took the patient when he came in.

The doctor presses her fingers to the boy's neck out of pure need for confirmation. She doesn't know much about him yet; she was just paged. But he doesn't look older than fifteen, and minors always add an extra layer of pressure.

"What happened?" she asks, nodding toward the defibrillator.

The nurse hands her the paddles, and everyone pulls their hands away from the boy's body as Dr. Dooley moves to place them on his chest.

"Bicycle accident," Joshua says as Erin prepares for the first shock. "He clipped a cab and went down hard—cracked his head on the curb."

"Charge to two hundred."

The boy's body lifts off the gurney with the shock, and Joshua flinches, stepping back as if the current might reach him. Erin catches it out of the corner of her eye. The kid has potential, but she's always thought he's too soft for this kind of work.

Ten minutes later, the doctor walks out of the bay after stabilizing him and ordering a transfer to the ICU.

She strips off her gloves, tightens the tie holding her thick, dark, wavy hair in a high ponytail, and heads over to talk to the patient's mother.

She knows now that the boy's name is Ander, because a second nurse came in with his background the moment his mother arrived.

The woman breaks down when Erin explains her son's condition, and the doctor doesn't pull away when she grabs onto her like they're old friends.

There's a knot in Erin's stomach, because there's nothing more she can give her—nothing except this.

Growing up without a father, with a mother who worked too much, Erin spent her childhood being a second mom to her little sister—twelve years younger than her—and feeling like she never did enough.

That never went away. Now, at thirty-seven, she still hasn't shaken the belief that she's supposed to give without expecting anything back, because that's what she learned, and it's what she always gets from her sister Brooke: nothing at all.

"He's in intensive care now—monitored and stable. Why don't you take a short walk, get some air? I promise he's being watched closely, and they'll come get you the second anything changes."

Ander's mother looks up at her with wide, wet eyes and manages a small smile, because Erin is warm and gentle with the people who need it, and sharp and closed-off with the ones who don't—and this woman needs the first thing, so that's what she gets.

Erin watches her head down the hallway, then turns in the opposite direction toward the locker room. Her shift ended an hour ago; she shouldn't even have been here when they paged her for the emergency. But she never feels any rush to go back to an apartment where no one's waiting for her.

She showers and changes into cargo pants—her favorite, comfortable and practical—and a short-sleeved t-shirt.

She grabs her bag and jacket, checks herself in the mirror before heading out.

She's pulled her hair into a loose bun now, and her gray eyes look smaller than usual, heavy with sleep.

Still, when she steps outside, she walks straight to the café a couple of blocks from the hospital.

Doesn't matter if it's days or nights: Erin always stops somewhere before going home, as if she needs to pass through a non-hospital world first, to feel like her life isn't entirely defined by her job.

It's almost eight in the morning when she walks into Vanis and drops into a free table in the corner.

"Night shift?" asks Esteban, the owner, with the wide smile that never fails to brighten her day.

"Yeah. Long and rough," Erin confirms.

"Two donuts, then?" he offers, easy and familiar—he knows her by now, knows she always orders the same thing depending on how the night went: two donuts when she's stressed, one when it was quiet, and just coffee when it was awful, when she lost someone.

Those days, her stomach shuts down for hours.

"Chocolate, please."

Esteban brings the coffee and heads back toward the counter while Erin notices the woman at the next table watching her.

She doesn't know if it's because she ordered chocolate donuts at eight in the morning or because the woman is simply interested in her—but either way, Erin doesn't care.

At this hour, after a brutal night, the only thing she wants is her breakfast. The last thing she wants is to flirt with a woman who can't seem to make up her mind.

"Here you go, enjoy," Esteban says.

She gives him a smile and eats the first donut in about three bites. She takes her time with the second, and when she's done, she drains the rest of her coffee in one go, stands up, leaves a bill on the table, says goodbye to Esteban, and walks out.

She gets back to her apartment feeling wrecked.

When she closes the door and looks around the empty space, she thinks again—like every time—that maybe getting a cat, the way Barry keeps telling her to (Barry, her partner on the ambulance when she works private events), wouldn't be such a bad idea.

But then she reminds herself that she's barely home.

When she doesn't have a shift, she picks up extra work specifically to avoid being here, so the poor thing would be alone all day.

She drops her bag on the hook by the door and walks across the dark gray tile toward her bedroom, where she left the bed perfectly made before she left—not a single wrinkle—and grabs comfortable clothes for after her shower.

Once she's cleaned up and changed, she settles into the living room, because if she goes straight to bed she can't sleep.

She needs something to clear her head first. So she curls onto the chaise longue, legs folded until her heels nearly touch the back of her thighs, and picks up where she left off in her book—reads until sleep starts pulling at her.

She's barely gotten through the first line when her phone goes off and Brooke's name lights up the screen.

"Hey, Brooke," Erin says, swallowing a yawn.

"Are you home or at the hospital?" her sister asks.

"Home—just got in. I had this really long shift, it was—"

"Perfect, so you can talk," Brooke cuts her off.

Erin exhales and feels a quiet ache settle in her chest as she nods, the same disappointment that always comes when she talks to her sister.

Because when Brooke says you can talk, what she actually means is that Erin can listen.

Brooke is the one who's going to do the talking, and when she's done explaining or asking for whatever she needs, she'll hang up—without asking how Erin's day went, without asking if she needs anything, without asking how she's doing.

"What's going on?" Erin asks, resigned.

"My landlord raised my rent again," Brooke says. "Apparently some friend of his has a place about the same size as mine and charges twenty bucks more a week."

"He can't raise your rent, Brooke. You have a signed lease."

"With a clause that lets him break it if he wants."

"Maybe you should look for something smaller somewhere else. That place is too big for just you—you could find something way more affordable if you—"

"I like this apartment, Erin," Brooke snaps. "It's right next to work and the park where I run. And Senna lives close by."

Erin clenches her jaw. She runs a hand through her loose hair and winds a strand around her fingers, pulling tighter and tighter until the sting at her scalp turns sharp enough to cut through.

That's how she releases pressure when she can't say what she actually thinks—when she's frustrated or wound up.

Because right now she wants to tell her sister that, given what Brooke earns—barely enough to cover her own expenses—she should be looking in a cheaper neighborhood, or finding a better job.

New York is huge, and bartending jobs aren't hard to come by.

But she already knows how that goes: Brooke will get angry, tell Erin she's selfish for not understanding that her hourly gig at that dive bar, where she pours drinks for a bunch of drunk college kids alongside her best friend Senna, makes her happy, and if she changes it she won't be.

Same with the apartment. It's an argument that never goes anywhere, because Brooke doesn't reason—she just gravitates toward whatever's most comfortable.

"How much do you need?" the doctor asks, because that's the only reason for this call and they both know it.

"I'm not sure. Maybe two hundred would cover me this time. Can I come by in an hour? I'm meeting Senna to work out right now."

"I just got home from a long shift, Brooke. I want to sleep. Come now, or come this afternoon."

"I can't this afternoon, Erin. I work. Can't you just wait a little longer?"

Erin pulls the phone from her ear and considers hanging up. She doesn't. She just exhales hard and puts it back.

"Fine. One hour."

She ends the call and sets the phone down beside her, face-down. She picks up the book and rests it on her legs without opening it, because suddenly she's back with something her mother used to say, in those last months before she died.

"You have to learn to say no to your sister. I love you both so much, but I can't stand watching how she treats you. Stand up for yourself, sweetheart."

Erin's throat tightens until swallowing hurts. She reaches for her hair again, winds a handful around her fingers, and pulls until the pain makes her gasp—and with that gasp, something loosens.

Her phone buzzes beside her. A message this time, from MediSupport, the private service she does medical coverage for at large events alongside her colleague Barry.

Dr. Dooley, we're confirming your assignment for medical coverage at the Mia Wilder concert at Madison Square Garden this Friday. Arrival at 4:00 PM, estimated duration through end of event plus one hour. Full team details and protocols have been sent to your email.

Thank you for your availability.

Erin raises her eyebrows, then lets a slow smile pull at the left corner of her mouth—just a little wicked.

She knows who Mia Wilder is: a breakout artist who's been taking the country by storm.

She's heard a few songs and thinks they're decent, even if the pop-rock thing isn't really her style—she leans more toward straight-up rock.

But what makes her smile is that her sister Brooke is one of those hundreds of thousands of fans, and obviously has tickets to the show, because Erin bought them for her birthday.

If Brooke ever found out Erin was going to have actual access to the artist—standing in the wings, a few feet from the stage—she'd lose her mind with jealousy.

Erin decides she won't say a word. Telling her would just give Brooke another thing to ask for—like sneaking her backstage to meet the artist—and Erin still hasn't figured out how to say no.

But she doesn't have to, if Brooke never finds out she'll be there.