Page 134 of Free to Fall

Riyaz, our head nurse, says, “Gore’s running this.”

Inside, I’m reassuring myself everything is going to be fine. I demanded it was time for me to come back. I’m mentally ready. I can do this.

I can.

I didn’t have Liam Payne at my back before this, and I don’t need him in my heart now to be the best at what I do. I order, “Let’s have a CBC type and cross match.” Leaning forward, I listen to Mr. Hendricks’s chest. “Call the OR and tell them to prep a room.”

Riyaz quicks a brow. “Without having a chest X-ray?”

“Then you listen. His artery is completely blocked.”

“I wasn’t questioning you, Gore,” she begins.

“You were. We don’t have time for it. Every minute we stand here debating instead of acting—”

“Shit, he’s flatlining!” Suarez shouts.

Riyaz lets out an expletive. She gives me the information I need without needing to ask. “No BP.”

Rollins calls out, “No sensation radial or medial.”

I yell, “Scissors. Get his clothes off. Inject an amp of lidocaine and start CPR.”

Immediately Suarez and Rollins begin slicing through the T-shirt and jeans he’s wearing. Riyaz draws the medication.

Suarez calls out, “He’s arresting!”

“Charge the paddles to two hundred and continue CPR,” I order. Once I’m handed the paddles, I call, “Clear!”

Everyone scrambles back.

It’s a dance we’ve performed hundreds of times before, just with different partners. Even the victim knows the moves. Their body arcs in a bend they’d claim they never could consciously as the shock rips through their system while the devil rolls his eyes as we try to cheat death one more time.

Right now, it’s not working.

“Charge me to three hundred.”

“Charging,” Riyaz confirms. “Ready.”

“Clear!”

“Still in arrest,” Suarez notes.

“Not anymore. Asystole.”

Come on, come on. Don’t do this to me on my first day back, Mr. Hendricks. Aloud, I call out, “How long have we been trying?”

“Thirty minutes,” Riyaz confirms.

The cool wash of death starts to fill the room. Still, I give it one more try. “Charge to three-sixty. One hundred of lidocaine.”

We all hold our collective breaths as we wait for a bounce, a blip. But after Suarez shouts out “Asystole” I know it’s time to call it for my team, for the family.

For myself.

I look down at my watch and note, “Time of death, 14:24. Has his family made it here yet?”

Rollins murmurs, “We just got a hold of his wife. She’s a schoolteacher.”

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