Page 33 of Ruled By Fate

Brie finished off the last of her mocha with a long, bracing swig. “Yeah. Same.” She gulped.

Sherry looked over and grinned. “You’re going to be fine. But if you think this is intimidating, wait until you meet El Commandant.”

“El Commandant?” Brie asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Trust me, you’ll know.”

They started to head through the bay doors when an ambulance rig tore into the driveway right in front of them. The back burst open, and a gurney emerged just as a team of people poured from the hospital to meet them. They were led by a short woman of Native descent, rippling with more muscles than a Spartan warrior and radiating competence and attitude to match.

“What have we got?” she barked.

“Code blue. Twenty-eight-year-old male, unresponsive at the scene, no apparent trauma, no witnesses. Someone found him in a parking lot. We did everything medically possible, but Denise…” The medic trailed off, shaking his head with a grave look.

Denise listened while conducting a thorough, blindingly fast examination of her own.

“No chest rise, no pulse. Alright, people, let’s get him into trauma room five. Move!”

Her band of followers took over in a wave of blue scrubs. Denise stayed behind for a moment to get the rest of the information from the paramedics.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Den. He’s too young for this kind of cardiac event. There’s nothing wrong with him, except he’s dying. MI maybe? Or some kind of new drug?” He watched the gurney disappear into the ER with a helpless look. “I think we lost him on the way over.”

“You did what you could, and it isn’t over yet. Don’t beat yourself up, Tim.” She turned slightly, registering the friends. “You.”

El Commandant.

She pointed a finger at the center of Brie’s chest, freezing her in place. “You have a lost, useless look about you. Are you my new nurse?”

“This is my friend from Atlanta, Brianna Weldon,” Sherry interjected quickly. “She’s one of the good ones, Den, so don’t bite. Hard.”

Hard?

“Hand her over and go clock in.”

Sherry saluted cheerfully and sailed inside, leaving Brie at the mercy of her new captor. She immediately decided to opt for a near-militaristic level of politeness. “Hello, ma’am. I was told to report to the ER for orientation and a tour.”

Denise raised an eyebrow. “This is your orientation. The tour begins in room five. You’re shadowing me today. May God have mercy on your soul.”

I could have a friend of mine put in a word.

Denise strode purposefully away without a backward glance, expecting to be followed. Brie threw her coffee cup into the nearest garbage can and hurried after her.

At a glance, it was chaos. Only if you knew what to look for could one discern the pattern, the underlying structure beneath. It was a living algorithm — a team of highly trained individuals working together, triaging patients by order of urgency, taking family histories, and gathering pertinent information before channeling them into the appropriate rooms.

The giant patient board behind the nursing station was at capacity — fifty-two rooms, all containing patients with varying degrees of need. Before Brie could orient herself any further, a commotion from room five captured her attention.

The former occupant, a man whose arm had just been set in a cast, was reluctant to vacate for the incoming trauma. “This is my room. Get out! I’m in pain. Wheel me back inside. Ow!”

Denise bent down and whispered something in his ear too softly for Brie to hear. His eyes went wide, and he tensed so completely that his shoulders nearly touched his ears. He stayed like that for a moment, then ducked his head and began studiously avoiding eye contact with everyone.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, then preoccupied himself with a concerted effort to be invisible.

Someday, somehow… I’m going to find out what she said.

Room five was a concentrated version of the controlled mayhem that characterized the rest of the hospital. Nurses and techs poured in from every direction and began the practiced choreography of running a code. A dark-haired man who looked far too young to be in charge of another person’s life bagged the patient to force oxygen into his lungs. An almost worryingly thin nurse was doing chest compressions, humming “Staying Alive” to keep the right rhythm.

“Can you start a line?” Though they’d only just met, Denise’s voice was already unmistakable, indelibly fixed in Brie’s mind.

“Yes.”

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