Mount Mercy

by Helena Newbury

  As she snuggled down, I remembered to check her chart. Everything was fine except—

  Oh God.

  “Everything okay?” asked Rebecca.

  I managed to control my face. “Yes, sweetie,” I whispered. “Go to sleep, everything’s fine.”

  It was the first time I’d lied to her.

  36

  Dominic

  I SPENT about twenty minutes hunting for Beckett before I thought to go upstairs and check the surgeon’s break room. I strode in and sighed in relief as I spotted her standing in the shadows. Then I glanced around and whistled. Everything was sparkling clean, there were plump armchairs, a bean-to-cup coffee machine and a jar of amaretto biscuits. The ER break room was a frat house by comparison. “Wow,” I said. “So this is how the other half lives.”

  She drew in her breath and I heard the rapid tremble. I rushed forward, grabbed her hand and pulled her into the light: yep, her eyes were full of tears. “What?” I demanded. “What’s going on?”

  “Rebecca’s kidneys are failing,” she croaked. “They’re blocked. Damage from the crush injuries. I knew it was a danger, but I didn’t think it would happen this fast.”

  My chest closed up. “What do we do?”

  “There’s nothing we can do until tomorrow. I’ve given her Sorbitol, we need to wait for that to bring her potassium levels down first….”

  She trailed off. I took hold of her shoulders. She suddenly looked so fragile. “What is it?”

  “The only way to save her kidneys is with a pyeloplasty. I’ve never done one before, it’s a job for a specialist renal surgeon. And with an adult I could do it keyhole, but Rebecca’s too small, I’d have to open her up. She’s already weak. She could die on the table.”

  “And if you don’t do it?”

  “She’ll live... but her kidneys will fail and once they’re gone, she’s on dialysis for the rest of her life.” Fresh tears welled up. “She’s a minor, she can’t make the decision. Her parents are meant to, but I can’t reach them!”

  Oh shit.

  Her voice fractured. “How the hell am I meant to decide? Do I risk killing her, to give her a shot at a normal life?”

  I closed my eyes and pulled her to my chest, wrapping my arms around her and cradling her head against me. Her silent tears made warm blotches on the front of my scrubs. “You think I should do it?” she asked after a few moments.

  That was my instinct. If it had been an adult then sure, roll the dice and to hell with the rules. But this was a kid. I thought of Rebecca hooked up to a dialysis machine once a week for the rest of her life, hoping she got lucky on the transplant list. But then I thought of her parents showing up and Beckett having to tell them their daughter was gone because of a decision she’d made. There were no easy answers. “I don’t know,” I said at last. I stroked her hair. “I know you’re an amazing surgeon. If anyone can pull it off, you can. And I know you care about her. You’re the closest thing that kid has to a mother, right now. You’ve got to go with your gut, do what you think’s right. I’ve got your back either way.”

  Krista opened the door. When she saw us hugging, her face lit up. Her mouth opened for one of her smartass comments...and then she saw the expressions on our faces and bit it back. “You two should head home,” she said gently. “It’s still quiet.”

  Beckett shook her head. “We can’t just leave you here.”

  “Yes you can!” said Krista firmly. “You have to! Both of you are exhausted. Taylor and I can handle the graveyard shift, but we need you two fresh for tomorrow.”

  She had a point. It could be days until the snow cleared and we had to sleep at some point. And now that she’d said it, I realized how utterly spent I was. A full day on my feet, followed by trekking up that hill in the snow, rescuing Sophie, carrying the stretcher, struggling back up the hill. We’d only dozed in my pickup and only for an hour or so. I was ready to drop. I looked at Beckett: she looked exhausted too.

  Krista could see we were weakening. “If there’s an emergency, we’ll send someone to come get you.”

  “My apartment’s just down the street,” I said without thinking. Then I realized how it sounded. Beckett blushed and, for once, I think I did, too.

  “Go!” said Krista, grinning.

  We went.

  37

  Amy

  THE FIRST THING I noticed was that I was warm. Really warm, cozy in a way I’d never experienced before.

  Firstly, I was sprawled face-down on a big, heated mattress that was the perfect blend of hard and soft. I sent my hands out on sleepy reconnaissance missions, feeling around until I’d confirmed that the mattress had shoulders and abs and was, in fact, Corrigan.

  Secondly, I was under the best comforter I’d ever felt. It was soft enough to mold to our bodies and hug us but dense and thickly satisfying, its weight pressing me firmly into my pillow of Irish pec. I never, ever want to move. The only part of me that was cold was my nose, because that was above the comforter so that I could breathe. So I ducked my head and snuggled in tighter.

  “Christ, woman! Your nose is like a feckin’ icicle!” Corrigan captured my head between his palms, kissed my forehead and then pressed one warm palm against the tip of my nose to thaw it.

  “I really like your bed,” I said seriously.

  He fingered the comforter appreciatively. “Well, you don’t want to mess around when it comes to duvets.”

  I hadn’t considered that he might have the same need for coziness that I had. I’d thought of him sleeping on the floor with a sandpaper blanket. Every day, I was learning new things about him. “Duvet? That’s what you call this?” He nodded. “Teach me something else,” I said.

  His face lit up and his voice dropped into a silver-edged growl. “I’ve got a few things I could teach you.”

  We were both naked, I realized. And his cock was stiffening rapidly against my thigh. “Words!” I yelped. “Teach me words!”

  He pointed through the open door to the bathroom. “That’s a tap,” he said, pointing to the faucet. “We’re in my flat. You’re a lass.” He rolled us over so that he was on top. “And if we fought, we’d be having a row.” It rhymed with cow.

  “Now you’re just making them up,” I told him. My voice had gone high and tight. He’d landed between my legs and he was very naked. We looked at each other and I bit my lip. “What, um...what did you want to teach me?” I asked, shocked at my boldness.

  He gave a truly wicked chuckle and ducked his head under the duvet. A split-second later, I cried out and arched my back, clutching at the pillows.

  * * *

  We didn’t want to leave Krista and Taylor alone at the hospital too long, plus there was no power so no way to cook breakfast and we were both starving. But before we headed out, we had to brave a freezing cold shower.

  I endured it for about twenty seconds and then leapt out, naked and shivering, trying to rub some warmth into myself with a towel. It occurred to me that I didn’t have anything to wear except yesterday’s scrubs. There were fresh ones at work but I could do with something to throw on until then, maybe a t-shirt. While Corrigan showered, I had a look in his closet but there were just a few shirts: he’d only partly unpacked. I pulled open a dresser drawer—

  Staring up at me was a toy rabbit. A gray one, with pink ears, clearly much loved: I could see where a little hand had crushed its paw tight and where its feet were faded from having been dragged along the ground. Someone had taken this thing everywhere with them.

  Rachel.

  I heard Corrigan jump out of the shower in a cloud of curses. I quickly shut the drawer, grabbed a shirt from the closet and pulled it on, my heart hammering. I forced a smile onto my face as he walked in but I knew we needed to talk.

  He took my hand and we headed out onto Main Street to try to find something to eat. When the daylight hit my face, it reminded me: today’s the day. I had to make the call on whether to operate on Rebecca. I wasn’t any closer to a decision,
but I couldn’t put off making it much longer.

  Last night’s snow was already being shoveled off the sidewalks and, amazingly, most of the stores had opened for business, using candles for lighting and wood burners for heat. The bank seemed to be closed, but that made sense: without power, their computers would be useless.

  The cafe was rammed. Everyone in town was searching for breakfast and the cafe was the one place in town that had a grill fired by propane tanks. “All I can offer you is a table outside,” said Martha, the elderly owner.

  It was cold but crisp and we had our thick coats. “We’ll take it,” I said quickly and we sat down before someone else grabbed it, then got our orders in: eggs, bacon and coffee.

  A family with two small children took the only other table and my mind snapped back to Rachel’s rabbit. How do you cope? I’d asked him in the pickup. I don’t. The answer hadn’t made sense to me, then, but it did now. That fierce Irish stubbornness I loved so much...it had kept him going but only because he’d refused to accept death’s authority. He hadn’t moved on. He’d spent the time since their deaths treading water, filling his life with the constant adrenaline rush of the ER. And when that wasn’t enough: bars and women and danger, Doctors without Borders and trips to warzones. Oh, Corrigan! I just wanted to hug him. He hasn’t let them go.

  My mind followed that to its logical conclusion and I didn’t like it. If he hasn’t let them go...God, he must feel like he’s having to choose, them or me. No wonder he’d seemed so torn, these last few days. The guilt surged up inside me. What the hell do I do?

  I didn’t have any answers. I wished my mom was still alive: if I’d ever needed some motherly advice, it was now. But I was going to have to figure it out myself, one day at a time.

  One thing couldn’t wait, though. Something I’d seen on the cliff top that I was seeing now through fresh eyes. Something I had to talk to him about. I drew in a big breath of freezing air—

  “Um,” I said. Brilliant, Amy.

  He frowned at me and waited.

  I grabbed his hands to give me strength. “When your hand got caught,” I said, “and the car was going to carry you over the cliff, you said it’s okay. You looked like...you were ready to go.”

  He looked away. “It was just for a second.”

  Every dormouse instinct in me begged me to let it go. Confronting people isn’t in my nature. But he needed to hear this.

  I shook my head. “It’s not just that one time. When you faced off with Colt at the hospital, part of you wanted the fight. And the Congo. And Libya. All those warzones.” I took a deep breath. “I—I think part of you wants to die because you feel guilty about...them. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Corrigan stared at me, stunned at what I’d just blurted out.

  I looked down at the table, heart thumping. “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I probably should have been more subtle. I sort of skipped social skills 101.”

  He just kept staring at me. Each time I dared to glance up, his expression had changed. He went from shock to fury and then to sadness and finally defeat. I couldn’t take that. I’ve made things worse! I kept my eyes fixed on the table.

  Until a warm finger hooked me under the chin and lifted my head so that I was looking into his eyes. Eyes that had changed again to show deep affection...and hope.

  “You’re not the one who’s fucked up, Beckett,” he said. He went silent for a moment. I could see him struggling, bracing himself to get the word out. I don’t know if he realized he was squeezing my hands, but I hoped it helped. “Yeah,” he said eventually. He looked almost surprised that he’d managed to say it. “Yeah,” he said again. “I did want—I did want to die. Sometimes.”

  I had to fight past a huge lump in my throat to speak. “Did?”

  He looked deep in my eyes for a long time before he finally nodded. He wanted to be sure and I think he wanted me to know he was sure. “Did.”

  And he pulled me by the hands towards him and leaned forward and drew me into a slow, tender kiss. I could feel the cold wind lashing my cheeks and playing with my hair but it didn’t matter: a warm glow was pulsing through me, right down to my toes. And I understood something: he was my missing puzzle piece, the perfect balance for me, just as my mom had been to my dad.

  When we broke the kiss, Martha was standing there next to us, plates in hand. She said nothing as she set them down, but she had a huge grin on her face.

  We ate quickly, before the freezing air cooled the food too much, and it was fantastic: crispy strips of bacon that melted in your mouth, mounds of piping-hot, buttery scrambled eggs and huge mugs of steaming coffee. There’s something about a hot breakfast when you’re really, really cold. I watched Corrigan as I sipped my coffee, feeling the first stirrings of hope.

  An alarm started to blare, a long continuous bell that I’d never heard before. As I looked up, the doors to the bank burst open. Wasn’t the bank closed?

  It took me a second to register that the men pouring out of the bank all had guns. “Oh Jesus,” I whispered.

  A police SUV had been cruising down the street. It screeched to a stop and Earl and his young partner Lloyd jumped out, guns drawn.

  “Get down!” yelled Corrigan, even as he grabbed me around the waist and bore me to the ground.

  And then the world became deafening gunfire and breaking glass as the shooting started.

  38

  Dominic

  GUNFIGHTS always look so exciting in the movies. That’s because they don’t show the collateral damage. When you’re a bystander, it’s very, very different.

  There were at least ten gunmen, some carrying bags in one hand and handguns in the other, some toting assault rifles. As they poured out of the bank and tried to cross the street, they came up against Earl and his young partner, Lloyd, firing from behind their SUV. So they fanned out instead, spreading the fight all the way down Main Street right when it was full of people going to work. My ears rang with the staccato chatter of gunfire. And then, between the shots, the screaming started.

  I’d been under fire before, in the Congo, even taken a few bullets myself. I knew we had to get behind something, but we were caught out in the open: there was nothing. All we could do was to get down low and pray. A gunman ran past us and one of the cops fired at him and missed. I heard the bullets pass overhead and the plate glass window of the cafe came crashing down in a million glittering shards. The people inside began to run and scream, but there was nowhere to run: the place was too crowded for them to move.

  I already had Beckett down on the freezing sidewalk and I was trying to cover every inch of her body with mine. My heart was slamming in my chest. What if she gets hit? What if I lose her? I knew the most dangerous thing in the world is someone firing a gun indiscriminately and right now, both sides were in a wild panic, spraying bullets at anything that moved. Earl and Lloyd were just small-town cops and probably hadn’t ever been under fire before: they were operating on instinct, scared out of their minds. And the gunmen just plain didn’t care.

  A second cop car pulled up behind Earl’s and the gunfire increased. Should we run? That meant standing up and that made us bigger targets. Even as I thought it, a woman fleeing across the street screamed and fell to the ground. I didn’t even see the stray shot that hit her. I stared at her twitching body, trying to figure out how to get to her...and then she went still, a life just snuffed out. I pressed Beckett even tighter against the sidewalk, my heart pounding.

  And then, in the midst of all the chaos, I glimpsed a face. One of the men firing an assault rifle was Colt.

  I started to recognize other faces. The old guy who’d come in with palpitations. Some of the men who’d carried the two injured guys to the ER. This was Colt’s gang, or militia, or whatever the hell they were. They’re bank robbers? That’s what they’d been planning?

  I looked down and saw Beckett staring at Colt, too. “Here?” she mouthed over the gunfire. I knew what she meant. A tiny local
bank like the one on Main Street wouldn’t have enough cash to be worth robbing. And why weren’t they wearing masks? Didn’t they care that everyone could identify them?

  Then I saw Seth, Colt’s son. He was sheltering behind a parked car and next to him was a man in a tan jacket. Seth had a hand on the man’s arm, as if telling him to wait. Almost as if he was the man’s bodyguard.

  Beckett gave a horrified moan beneath me. I followed her gaze and—

  Oh God, no.

  Taylor was standing about thirty feet away. She was still holding a takeout cup of coffee and she was rooted to the spot, face pale and eyes huge. She must have wandered into this just as it started and now she was frozen.

  And two of the gunmen were running right towards her, gunfire chewing up the storefronts behind them as the police tried to hit them. I could see it all coming in sickening slow motion. Even if I could leave Beckett, there was no way I could get to her in time—

  Seth sprang to his feet and started running, shoving other people out of his way. I saw Colt yell at him, furious, but he kept going, charging towards Taylor. He slammed into her like a linebacker, carrying her to the ground behind a car just as bullets raked the wall where she’d been standing. Seth lay there panting and frantic, his arms wrapped around Taylor’s waist to hold her there. He glanced our way and for a second, our eyes met. I glanced down at Beckett. I understood.

  Colt yelled orders to his men and they started to flood across the street towards an alley. He called for his son, but Seth shook his head, still protecting Taylor.

  The man in the tan jacket made a run for it. Earl yelled at him to stop. Colt raised his gun and fired and my stomach knotted as I saw Earl fall. Lloyd dropped to his knees next to his mentor, his mouth wide in shock. Then he jumped to his feet and fired wildly at Colt, screaming in rage. Most of his shots slammed into a parked car near the guy in a tan jacket—