Page 1 of Heartbeats Amidst Chaos: Part 1

Chapter one

He’s just as hot in person.

OMG.

OMG.

OMG.

Rissa rolled her eyes as the OMG texts rolled in, one right after the next. Reagan Pierce, Rissa’s best friend since they’d roomed together in college, had been talking nonstop about this hot date for a week. Apparently, she intended to text about it the entire time it was happening as well.

Bad boy vibes! BIG bad boy vibes!!

Rissa could almost hear her friend’s happy screeches. She only hoped they were happening on the inside and that Reagan was managing to maintain her outward cool. Grabbing her phone Rissa shot off a reply before her friend could swoon any further.

I’m glad your dreams are coming true.

Also, I’m about to start my shift.

Please stop texting me.

Dropping her phone into the pocket of her white coat, Rissa took a quick look at herself in the staff room mirror—once she stepped out of that room, there would be no time for such checks.

So far, her residency in the ER had been exactly what she’d expected; it was faster-paced than any of the other departments and more high-stress than any but the ICU. In a single shift, she could be treating broken bones, burns, high fevers, or a combination of odd and unexpected maladies. The urgency—the variety—it was exactly what she’d dreamed of doing when she became a doctor, and Rissa found herself thriving.

Mentally.

Physically, she was exhausted, obviously. She had only been on the graveyard shift for a week, and her circadian rhythm was so out of whack it felt wrong to even call it a rhythm. Still, with freshly washed hair and a touch of makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes, she looked okay. It wasn’t likeshewastrying to bed a super-hot bad boy. She hadn’t made time for that kind of thing since starting med school. Bad boys weren’t really her type anyway.

She simply needed to look decent and respectable. With a quick head-to-toe check—dark hair smoothed back into a ponytail, blue eyes focused, white coat smooth over her blue scrubs, name tag straight—Rissa headed toward the door.

Sirens wailing signaled the approach of an ambulance, or rather, multiple ambulances. Rissa’s phone vibrated in her pocket several times in a row. She ignored it, took a deep breath, and stepped into the chaos of the eight o’clock ER.

The first ambulance was just pulling up outside, its red lights flashing through the glass of the front door like a slowing heartbeat. Rissa was already moving forward to help with the patient when she felt a hand on her arm, “Dr. Mahoney.” She turned to find the attending physician, Dr. James Bernhard, at her side. He tugged her to the side of the hallway, and Rissa frowned, taking in his expression.

Dr. Bernhard was the most easy-going ER doctor she had worked under yet—to the point that he tended toward laziness. He had once straight out told her that he loved being an attending physician because it kept him supplied with younger, more energetic doctors who could do all the work while he directed. He was a good doctor, though, with a keen eye, and Rissa was constantly learning from him.

At that moment, however, the short, graying physician was pale and tense—his eyes behind his smudged glasses dark with horror.

“There’s been a bombing,” he said. For a moment, Rissa thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. The other ambulances were arriving, the scream of their sirens only fading as they pulled into the ER lot. “At the fundraising concert for the American Cancer Society—downtown,” Dr. Bernhard added, raising his voice to be heard over the bustle of medical personnel beginning to surge toward the incoming ambulances. “They’re bringing the victims here.”

As he spoke, the doors of the ER burst inward, patients beginning to pour in. Some limped and stumbled, their arms around the shoulders of panic-stricken family members and friends. Others were wheeled in on stretchers, their moans blending with the shouts of nurses calling out statuses for immediate care, the orders being given in clipped tones by doctors, and the wail of another ambulance as it skidded to a stop outside.

“We have to go help,” Rissa exclaimed, pulling away from the doctor and toward the tide of wounded humanity. But he held onto her elbow, jerking her to a stop.

“They’ve caught the suspected bomber,” Dr. Bernhard said quickly. “He’s injured, and they’re bringing him here as well. We’ll have to isolate him from the other patients. I want you to attend him.”

Only then did he release her arm, gesturing toward the doors. A final ambulance had just pulled up, accompanied by police cruisers. Four policemen stepped from their vehicles, slamming their doors behind them and taking up positions on either side of the glass ER doors as the EMTs threw open the back of the ambulance and hauled out a gurney.

With Dr. Bernhard at her back, Rissa moved forward, through the ordered mayhem of the other medical personnel and patients. She felt as if she were in a dream—the sides of her vision a parade of blood- and tear-streaked faces while the coolness of her training descended on her like a cloak.

The glass doors flew open once more, and the entire group of EMTs and police officers surged into the ER. Rissa’s eyes immediately landed on the patient strapped—and handcuffed—to the gurney. He was stripped to the waist, a bandage across his abdomen already soaked through with blood, and another being pressed to his head by one of the attending EMTs. His shoulders were so wide that he barely fit on the narrow stretcher, he was fighting his restraints and shouting—somewhat incoherently.

“This way,” Dr. Bernhard said loudly at her shoulder, and the group maneuvered through the crowded ER, wheeling the patient down the hall towards an exam room. Rissa fell in beside the stretcher, automatically scanning for other injuries and checking his skin color and pulse for signs of blood loss. Her mind and body worked at top speed, assessing his condition even as her ears buzzed with the chaos and her heart thudded with adrenalin.

Usually, the attending EMTs would have been filling her in on what they had discovered and treated so far, but they were strangely silent. Glancing up, Rissa saw that their faces were set in stony indifference, reflecting the expressions of the police officers who marched their little entourage down the narrow hallway.

They don’t care if he gets treated,Rissa realized.They don’t even care if he dies. Because…

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