Page 52 of Claiming Ours
“Fuck, he must have passed out from the pain,” Memphis snapped, more to himself than at anyone. He grabbed Juno’s hand and pressed her fingers to West’s throat. “Monitor his pulse. If it races or dips, let me know.” He swallowed hard. “While he’s out of it, I’m going to look at his hand again, see if I can get a better idea of what we’re dealing with. Any chance there’s an ambulance in this town?”
“No. We don’t even have a true emergency clinic, just the doc at The Nest,” I said, already pulling out my phone to warn the doctor that we had an emergency case. But instead of me giving him a heads-up about my friend’s injury, the call went straight to voicemail.
“Looks like three fingers are smashed to the point that I don’t know what’s left.” My stomach churned, and I turned away, unable to stomach the sight. Baylee gasped and curled against my side, burying her face in my soaked flannel shirt. “I need to wrap them, stop the bleeding, but not until we get some pain meds in him. I’m more worried about shock than him bleeding out.”
“Where the fuck is Langston?” I asked Ethan, tapping Lang’s contact on my phone.
“He made a run to Anchorage for the doc. The last shipment of some medicines didn’t come in, and he ran out of critical shit like antibiotics and gauze, so he asked Lang to make a quick run.” Ethan ran a hand through his black hair, tugging at the ends as he looked up. “Fuck, this is bad.”
I nodded, fully agreeing with him. This was bad. If West lost his fingers…. I shook my head to clear that dark line of thinking.
Amy ran in, Carl right behind her. They skidded to a stop on the other side of West, and Amy extended the prescription bottle toward Memphis.
“Here. Brandon is a big guy, so I’m not sure how much you should give West to be effective.”
“Thank you.” Memphis held the bottle close, inspecting the table. “This is perfect. He can have one now. That should help with the pain enough to?—”
“Guys, I don’t know,” Juno said, voice shaking. Memphis’s head snapped her way, no doubt hearing the same terrified tone we all did. “His pulse is crazy fast.”
Memphis dropped the bottle between his knees. Reaching inside the medic bag, he pulled out the stethoscope, situating it in his ears before placing the opposite end on West’s heaving chest. With a curse, he ripped the equipment down so it draped around his neck.
“The pain is too much. He’s on the verge of having a heart attack if we can’t get his heart rate leveled out.” He eyed the medicine bottle for half a second before grabbing it off the floor and unscrewing the top. Dumping the contents into his awaiting palm, he poured all but two back into the bottle.
“I thought you said?—”
“I know what I said,” Memphis snapped over his shoulder, cutting me off. “But this is still safe. I just didn’t want to do itunless it was necessary. Which it fucking is right now. I need help to make him swallow these.”
Dropping to my knees beside him, I took the offered water bottle from Ethan. “Tell me what to do.”
With a little fumbling, Memphis and I worked together, getting both pills down his throat with only a few curses and half the water spilled.
Memphis wiped at the sweat dripping down his forehead with the sleeve of his black Henley. “I have to wrap his hand,” he mumbled to himself as he dug through the medic bag, tossing things to the ground that he didn’t need. Placing a package of quick-clot gauze and a roll of bandages beside his knees, Memphis hovered a hesitant hand over West’s mangled one.
“I need you to keep him calm,” he murmured softly to Juno, who nodded. “Talk to him. Even if he’s passed out, he can hear you.” He ripped open the packaging with his teeth. “Liam, I need you ready to hold him down if he wakes up and fights me. The last thing I want to do is cause more damage if he jerks his hand out of mine. I’ll do this as fast as possible, but I have to be careful too.”
As Memphis counted, he inhaled and exhaled in deep, controlled breaths. At his muttered “Three,” he slid his fingers beneath West’s wrist and started wrapping the destroyed flesh. West flinched, and a pain-filled sound almost like a howl escaped, but thankfully he stayed passed out. My intense focus was zeroed in on West to catch any movement, ready to hold him down if needed.
And thank fuck I didn’t. To Memphis’s credit, he did what he promised, his work efficient and quick. A few minutes later, he gently rested West’s bandaged hand on his chest and sat back on his heels with a relieved exhale.
“That’s the best I can do to keep him stable.” He swiped his forearm across his sweaty brow. “Now, how do we get him help from an actual doctor?”
Carl stepped forward, attention on his phone. “Lang is on his way back. We need to get West to the docks so the second he’s here, Langston can turn around and get him to the hospital in Anchorage. That’s the best chance out here of saving that hand.”
The roar of a truck engine and the splash of tires had us all turning to the old-school Ford skidding to a stop outside the metal structure. Engine still running, Miles leapt from the driver’s side and jogged our way.
“Let’s go,” he said, staring at Juno. “You’re going with him and Langston. I have someone from the hospital on standby for you to call when you’re close, and they’ll meet you at the docks to transport West to the emergency room.”
She nodded, wiping at her cheeks and nose. Miles carefully lifted West’s limp body into the air and strode toward his truck. Without another word, they hurried out into the rain, situated West inside the cab, and sped away. For several seconds, we stood in utter silence, watching the taillights as they faded into the massive downpour, before someone spoke up.
“That was intense,” Ethan rasped. Memphis grunted when Ethan slapped a palm between his shoulder blades. “That was fucking awesome, guy I don’t know. I’m Ethan Carthage, one of the employees here at Uplift.”
It looked like Memphis tried to smile, but the adrenaline high was wearing off, so it was more of a grimace. “Memphis Thomas, and thanks. The last year working as a medic in Orlando helped prepare me for shit like this, but”—he grabbed an alcohol wipe from the bag and started cleaning his hands—“having no hospital close by is throwing me. How do you guys do it?”
“Most of our injuries can be treated by Dr. Richards, but if they’re too severe and you don’t have someone like you orLangston around, then you’re fucked,” Carl said, his tone distant as he stared at the puddle of blood on the cement. “Which isn’t okay. Not for our community or anyone in Anchor Bay. Yes, everyone understands the risks when they move here, but I still wish we could do more.”
I nodded while rubbing the back of my neck with one hand, holding Baylee tight to my side with the other. “Maybe we need someone dedicated to responding to trauma. Langston is great from his time in the military, but like now, he’s not here all the time. He has a full-time job to manage.”
“We’d need someone who could do the job, be available at any time, and understand the complexities of being this remote,” Amy said, cutting her eyes over to Memphis, who was busy scrubbing at his nails with a clean alcohol wipe. “Yeah, let’s think about that.”
