Page 31 of Sweethearts and Savages
Do the surgery on the patient, not the person, Stacey,I chastised, still gathering things. Bohdie pulled the gloves on, even though he looked like he wanted to shake me for answers. But I had no answers. I had only questions and more doubt.
Would I still have a girlfriend tomorrow?
Was I as good as I thought I was?
“Tell me what happened,” he growled, and I recited the little I knew. She’d been in an accident. She was critically injured. I scrubbed everything I could, wiping down the surfaces, anything that I thought could be contaminated. As I told him the little I knew, Bohdie’s chest rumbled louder and louder.
Before he could fully shift into a lion, Judge was back with equipment that should have been impossible to get on such short notice, which probably meant he’d probably stolen it from a hospital somewhere. It was wrapped in a blue sterilized bundle and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I muttered, unwrapping it and setting everything up on the side bench. To calm myself, I listed the name of every instrument and its purpose, then ran through the procedure for a craniotomy in my mind.
“They’re here!” Daniel yelled from the elevator, and immediately I was running. I looked at Bohdie. “I need you to control your instincts, Alpha, and keep the fuck out of the way. I promise, as soon as I know anything I will tell you.” I skidded to a stop in front of him, grabbing his arm so he looked at me. His eyes were glowing, telling me he was close to shifting. “I’ve got this. I will let you know as soon as I know anything, good or bad. But a lion in my surgery will guarantee her death. Go.”
He snarled, kissed my forehead, and then strode to the wall. His eyes were burning holes in the elevator doors as we waited for them to open. The silence was overwhelming, a demon of its own.
Then they burst open and there were people everywhere. Alistair strode out first, a broken Enit strapped to a gurney, her neck in a brace. She wasn’t moving, like she was already dead. My heart stuttered in my chest at the sight of her. She was banged up, like she’d been in a blender. She was bleeding in several places, and her leg was at an odd angle. I couldn’t breathe.
After him came Micah, carrying Christopher in his arms, whose tibia I could see poking out from his shin. Behind him was X, the big, scary, scarred vampire who struck fear in everyone except his kids. In X’s arms was Carmen. She was slipping in and out of consciousness.
“Stacey,” Alistair’s voice snapped, and I jumped. I pushed the image of Enit’s normal, uninjured face from my mind. I looked down at her like I would a stranger. I checked her pupils, flashing a light into her eyes and noticed their slow response.
“Any seizures?”
Alistair shook his head.
I grabbed the side of the gurney and strode down the hall. “I need CT scans and a full body X-ray now.”
I had a patient to save. I caught Bohdie’s agonized expression as I walked past. I had to save us all.
My hands were cramping.I’d been patching Enit up for hours. Layla was assisting me; she’d studied to be a nurse in her younger years. X was also assisting, looming over me like a malevolent presence, even though I knew he wasn’t being threatening to me. It was just his generally concerned demeanor. As it turned out, he was a pretty decent surgeon. He didn’t try and take over, despite the fact he looked at me like I was a child playing Operation. I found he was less… growly, if I talked through what I was doing. Like this was my final exam, except it wasn’t my medical degree on the line.
No.
Couldn’t think like that.
I’d cut out a bone flap from her head over the impact site, allowing her brain room to swell while the medication I’d had Judge steal from a hospital had a chance to work. I was glad she was a supe. In a human, I was pretty sure her injuries would have been fatal. She’d be dead. As it was, her body was repairing itself slowly.
I worked on her shattered pelvis, putting it back together the best I could. I should have paid better attention during my orthopedics rotation. I looked up at the screen that showed me her vitals and breathed a sigh. Finally, her intracranial pressure was lowering, and I judged it safe to replace the bone flap on her skull.
“Up you go now, kid. I can finish this part. Broken bones is something I can fix. You go fix her brain.”
I began the careful process of replacing the section of bone I’d removed with Layla’s help. I placed bolts on it to hold it into place and then stitched Enit’s scalp over the top. I was happy with her vitals but I wouldn’t be completely happy until she woke up.
In comparison to the brain, her other injuries were run-of-the-mill. A small incision, a pin here and there. Whatever X’s medical skills were, he’d stayed up to date with the most recent techniques. He didn’t want to get out the bone saw and chop anything off anyway, which I was relieved about.
I put on a soft helmet that would protect her head from impact, and finally, I was ready for her to come out. I’d fixed her as well as I could. I looked at the clock on the wall—it had taken eight hours. My whole body ached, but she was alive.
She was on a ventilator to clear the fluid from her lungs. She’d stay in a medically induced coma for a couple of days, and then we would really know the extent of any permanent damage caused today.
I collapsed to my knees and the big vampire was there to scoop me up. “Come on, kid. You did good. No one could have done it better. You need to rest.”
I nodded, my hands shaking wildly. “You can put me down. My knees just locked.”
Both X and Layla looked skeptical but I stood on thighs that trembled. I walked out the door and straight into Bohdie.
“Doc…”
“She’s okay. She’ll be alright.”
He shuddered with relief, then picked me up in his arms and hugged me tight. “Come on, Doc. We’ll go sleep in her dorm room for a bit. It’ll be good to be surrounded by the scent of our mate.”
