Mount Mercy

by Helena Newbury

  And then it hit me that it was over. We’d won. I carefully laid the wire cutters down and then didn’t so much hug Corrigan as fall into him, laying my head on the top of his pec. All of the exhaustion and emotion slammed down on me at once and if he hadn’t wrapped me up in his arms I think I would have slid to the floor.

  He let out a huge, shaky sigh and smoothed the hair on the back of my head with his palm. I snuggled into his chest and locked my arms so tight around his back that there was no danger, none, that anyone would ever separate us again. A bitterly cold wind was lashing the mountain and I could feel my ears and back and feet going numb. We should really get inside. But neither of us moved because that strip of flesh down our fronts, where we were pressed together, was so gloriously warm, neither of us was willing to sacrifice it. We rocked there silently for long minutes. Then he gently eased my head back, cupped my cheeks in his hands and kissed me.

  It was slow at first, those hard lips gentler than I’d thought him capable of. For the first time, we weren’t in the middle of a crisis and it changed everything. He explored me, teased me with little flicks of his tongue against my lips, the pleasure delicate and pink, but shot through with a wicked silver promise that made me press myself hard against him. His hands slid into my hair and our mouths opened, his lips seeking and demanding, drawing me out.

  My hands grabbed at his biceps, then his shoulders, reassuring myself that this was real, that we’d done it, that he was there. And he ran his hands protectively down my back as if he wanted to cover all of me and keep me safe from the world. It was a kiss that was full of possibilities, of hope for the future.

  Corrigan gently broke the kiss. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the hospital and—”

  Colt stepped out of the darkness. He was limping badly, the bandages on his leg soaked with blood, and his face pale and damp with sweat. But his eyes were bright with vengeful fury and he was holding a gun.

  Corrigan lunged forward, hands outstretched to grab the weapon.

  And Colt raised his gun and shot me in the chest.

  65

  Amy

  AT FIRST, just disbelief. He can’t have—No, I can’t be—

  Then the pain. Searing and aching, throbbing with each heartbeat. It hurt but, weirdly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d imagined getting shot would be. It was dull, somehow. It must not be too serious. I’ll be okay.

  “You fucker!” yelled Corrigan and ran at Colt. Colt stood his ground and tried to bring the gun around, but Corrigan was a human battering ram, smacking into him and carrying him down to the ground. Before they’d even landed, Corrigan was smashing his fist into Colt’s face with wild-eyed rage. Corrigan would win. Colt must be close to passing out: how was he even on his feet?

  Suddenly, my legs gave way. There was no warning, they just collapsed under me as the muscles stopped working. The fall jolted my chest, sending sharp waves of pain radiating outward, and I was suddenly so weak that I couldn’t even use my arms to break my fall. I tried to scream, but even my lungs needed more energy than I could give them.

  Then I saw to my horror that Colt wasn’t going limp under Corrigan’s punches. He was soaking them up, snarling up at the Irishman. How? He still had hold of his gun and now he was trying to force it down to point at Corrigan’s head, the sinews in his forearms standing out like cords. How is he—Oh God, they must have given him the adrenaline! It would likely kill him, given his injuries. But until then, he was like some barbarian in a Berserker rage, his strength dialed up to eleven.

  As I watched, the gun started to inch downwards towards Corrigan’s head. Corrigan was grunting, wide-eyed with disbelief at Colt’s strength. He had to stop punching and use both hands and even then, the gun kept moving.

  I have to help him! I was lying on my side and I tried to worm my way towards them. And then the pain hit.

  The shock had been tempering it. Now it blossomed out from the wound, a slow-motion explosion that felt like it was ripping me apart. I rolled onto my back, sobbing, and clasped my hands to my chest. When I felt the hot stickiness of blood, I felt sick. The pain kept coming, doubling and then trebling. It felt as if someone had shoved a red-hot spear of iron right through me and left it there, my body slow burning and blackening as the heat spread through me.

  Colt was winning. His unnatural strength was forcing the gun down, a millimeter at the time. Its barrel was twitching and sometimes the twitch took it almost to Corrigan’s forehead. No!

  Through a haze of tears, I reached out towards him with one bloodied hand.

  Corrigan’s eyes caught the movement and he looked at me.

  And then he got mad.

  I thought he’d been angry before, when he ran at Colt. But this was different. Deeper. Darker. Vengeful.

  The realization felt like my body had been slid into black, icy water. He thinks I’m going to die.

  Corrigan roared, a wordless battle cry, and shoved Colt’s arms and the gun they held to the ground. I heard a bone break. And then he slammed a fist across Colt’s face and Colt lay still.

  Corrigan hurled the gun off into the snow and ran to me, falling to his knees by my side. The rage was turning to fear, now, his face pale with it. “Beckett?” He grabbed my hand. God, he was so warm... or was I cold?

  He put his hands on my wound. The pain seemed to be receding. I felt my head loll and he took my chin in his hand and made me look at him. “No!” He used that voice, but it was thick with emotion, the Irish heavy in it. “No, you stay with me!”

  I tried to speak, but it was so hard.... I tasted blood. There suddenly seemed to be blood everywhere: leaking hotly into the snow beneath me and pulsing from the wound under his hands. The edges of my vision went dark.

  “No!” There were tears in his eyes and my heart wrenched. Jesus, for him this was Chrissy all over again. “You’re going to be okay, Beckett,” he snapped, pressing on the wound. “You’re going to be okay!”

  I put all the strength in my body into squeezing his hand. “I am,” I rasped with unshakable certainty. “You’re going to save me.”

  66

  Dominic

  HER EYES CLOSED. No. Jesus no….

  I scooped her up in my arms and for a second, I just knelt there. She felt so light, so fragile, like a bird shot out of the sky. How could he do this to her? How could anyone do this to Beckett?

  Then I jumped to my feet. Her heart was still beating. There was still hope. I looked desperately around. I couldn’t save her there. I had no equipment and no way to call for help. My only chance was to get her to the ER.

  I carried her to the pickup and lay her on the back seat, then jumped into the driver’s seat. We’d left the engine running. My foot twitched towards the gas—

  I stopped as I saw Colt’s body in the rear view mirror. Fuck!

  I couldn’t leave him there. If he woke, he was crazy enough to set off the bomb. We’d all die. But Beckett needed help now—

  Cursing, I jumped out, picked up Colt’s limp body and heaved him into the back of the pickup. Then I jumped back in and floored the gas.

  I took the snow-covered road at sixty and didn’t slow down when I hit town. But it still wasn’t fast enough. I could see her growing paler each time I glanced in the mirror. I could feel the life slipping out of her. I tried talking to her, even yelling at her, but she wouldn’t wake up. I pushed the gas even harder. Come on!

  I screeched to a halt in front of the ER, scooped Beckett into my arms and ran inside through the empty doorway. Lloyd was sweeping up the broken glass and I nodded him towards my pickup. “Colt’s in the back. Get some fucking handcuffs on him.”

  Lloyd nodded as if that was something he’d very much enjoy, and stalked outside.

  I ran deeper into the ER. In the dark, no one had seen me, yet. “I need a gurney!” I yelled. “And I need help!” Taylor, Adele and Lina all clustered around me, asking what had happened, asking who it was. They couldn’t see….

  And then
, mercy of mercies, the lights flickered on. Maggie must have wired up the replacement generator. Everyone blinked in the sudden glare and—

  “Oh Jesus, no!” Taylor’s voice was a weak rasp as she recognized Beckett. Adele and Lina went pale. We ran to the gurney Bartell had fetched and I laid Beckett on it.

  For the first time, I could get a good look at the wound. The bullet had hit her dead-center, gone straight through her and come out of her back, doing God knows what damage on the way through.

  Everyone was looking at me. “Tell us what you want,” prompted Bartell.

  God, they expected me to be a doctor. But I couldn’t—Beckett wasn’t a patient, she was one of us, she was mine, she wasn’t meant to be—

  “Corrigan!” snapped Bartell.

  I nodded. Took a deep breath. Ah, God.... And focused.

  “Two units O-neg,” I snapped. “Taylor, intubate, Adele, get me her vitals.”

  The air buzzed with numbers, all of them bad. I could see the blood on her lips: at least one lung had been damaged. “Rib spreader,” I said. “We’re going to have to—”

  My throat contracted. I couldn’t say open her up. Couldn’t think of her that way. This was Beckett, she deserved to be above all this, out of harm’s way.

  The others helped me cut Beckett’s clothes away. When I saw the ugly wound next to the gorgeous, pale skin I loved so much, I wanted to storm outside, find Colt and finish him.

  I raised the scalpel... and froze. Ah hell. My stomach flipped over. I knew we needed to get into her chest. I knew that. But the thought of cutting into her—

  Bartell’s voice was urgent, but gentler than I’d thought him capable of. “Corrigan, I can do it.” He reached for the scalpel.

  “No!” I snatched it away, took a deep breath... and cut. Used the rib spreader to open her chest. And then I was staring at her, the essence of her, the stuff we rely on every day but never think about. Her blood. Her lungs.

  Her softly beating heart.

  I followed the bullet’s path of destruction. The room swam behind wetness and I had to blink to see. It had come in at a steep angle, missing her heart, but tearing through one lung. It had nicked her spleen and kidney and left her bleeding from more places than I could count.

  “Pressure’s 90 over 60 and dropping,” said Adele.

  “She’s going to need surgery,” I said. “Call upstairs and—”

  Everyone around the table went silent. And call who? Our only surgeon was on the table. Beckett was going to die unless….

  “Put a mask on me,” I ordered. “And I need clamps and sutures.”

  “But you’re not a—” began Taylor

  “It’s the only chance she has,” I told her.

  Lina tied a mask over my mouth and helped me shove my arms into a surgical gown. Adele suctioned away blood, then handed me a clamp. I stared down at Beckett, my heart pounding in my chest. How the hell does she do this? To me, the maze of organs and blood vessels was chaos, just like the bustle of the ER was to her.

  “Heart rate’s 120,” Adele told me, her voice tight.

  I tried to focus. To forget that it was the woman I loved, to think about systems and pressure and which artery branched where. All the anatomy I’d learned in medical school slipped through my fingers like mist. Fuck. I can’t do this.

  I looked up for a second, towards her face. She looked peaceful. She could have been sleeping in my bed.

  I was the only chance for her to wake up again.

  I took a deep breath and pushed everything else out of my mind. And I went to work.

  67

  Amy

  HE WAS the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. Two deep, soulful pools of blue gazing down at me, his brow creased with worry. “You okay?” he asked immediately.

  I tried to speak, but my throat ached, as if it was bruised from the inside. That started me coughing and that really hurt, like my whole chest was on fire. What the hell was wrong with me?

  Then I remembered.

  I managed a weak nod. Considering all that, I felt fine.

  Corrigan’s brow slowly uncreased and he gave me a big, wide grin.

  I looked down at the sheet that covered my chest. “Was it bad?”

  He shook his head. “Nah.”

  I kept staring at him. He huffed and looked away. When he looked back at me, I pinned him with a look. Corrigan!

  “You’ve been out for a full day,” he said. “I had to open your chest.”

  I looked down at myself in disbelief.

  “I had my hands right inside you,” he said. “In some cultures, that would make us married.”

  My heart flip-flopped. That didn’t sound so bad. “Did you fix me?” I asked, shocked at how weak my voice was.

  He acted mock-offended. “Are you doubting me?” Then he frowned. “I mean, I wasn’t sure of a few things. Had to do some guessing. A kidney might be in backwards and I think I put your spleen where your liver should be—”—I lifted a hand as if to hit him—“Yes! Of course I fixed you!”

  I bit my lip. Of course he fixed me. Just like I’d known he would. We looked at each other for a second and then he leaned down and gave me a very careful hug.

  “Krista?”

  “Recovering well. Everybody’s doing well. Colt’s in a cell at the police station. Phone lines are still down and the roads are still blocked. But look….”

  He wheeled my bed around so that I was facing the window. It was noon and, above Mount Mercy, the snow clouds had parted. For the first time in days, we could see blue sky.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later

  “Mine’s bigger,” I said.

  “But I have two,” said Krista. We were standing in front of the mirrors in the locker room, our scrub tops lifted to our necks. “And two exit wounds.” She counted off her scars, turning this way and that. “One, two, three, four.” She grinned proudly. “I look like I’ve been to war.”

  I shook my head and let my top fall back down. Both of us were still weak and not officially back at work yet, but we hadn’t wanted to miss today. Today was the day Rebecca went home.

  The blizzard had been over for two weeks, but the snow was so thick, it had taken the authorities two full days to get the road to Denver re-opened. When they did, Rebecca’s parents had been the first people to arrive. They’d barely left her bedside since.

  To reach the elevators, we had to cross the ER. The critical care beds had gone back upstairs and the doors I’d smashed through had been replaced. Outside, I could see Maggie supervising the unloading of the new generator from the back of a truck. Earl, who was technically still on sick leave, was out there with her in his civilian clothes, holding her hand. They were inseparable and I’d never seen them happier, although Earl grumbled to me that she’d made him cut back on the donuts to look after his heart.

  We had our full complement of staff back and the ER was busier than ever. But the chaos didn’t freak me out, anymore. I knew I’d always prefer the calm of the OR but everyone needs a little chaos in their lives.

  The elevator doors slid open in front of me and I saw blue scrubs stretched over a broad, hard chest. I looked up into blue eyes that twinkled with mischief.

  “Doctor Beckett,” rumbled Corrigan.

  “Doctor Corrigan,” I said coolly.

  We stood there staring at each other, not touching, but our eyes just eating each other up. It was a game we played. We’d be completely formal and professional whenever we saw each other, letting the tension build and build and then, when we couldn’t take it anymore….

  “Oh, please,” muttered Krista, leaning between us to hit the button. “Get a room. And I don’t mean the linen closet.”

  I flushed down to my roots. We’d have to be quieter, next time. But then I caught Corrigan’s eyes and grinned.

  Upstairs, we barely got through the door to Rebecca’s room before Rebecca’s mom threw her arms around me. “God bless you,” she said into my neck. “T
hank you.”

  I gently patted her back. This was nothing: when she’d first arrived and seen that her daughter was okay, she’d locked me in her arms and not let me escape for nearly a minute. I didn’t mind at all. The poor woman had been worried out of her mind.

  The family moved towards the door. Rebecca looked up at me with big eyes and a slightly shaky lower lip. “We’re coming back, right?” she asked her mom. “We can all come back here. I want to learn how to ski.”

  “We’ll try,” said her mom. Her dad ruffled her hair. Rebecca kept her eyes on me, her lower lip getting shakier by the second. I knew exactly how she felt. After everything we’d been through, I was having trouble saying goodbye, too.

  That’s when Corrigan bent down and handed Rebecca a clumsily gift-wrapped package. When she tore off the paper, she found an aging, much-loved bunny rabbit. Rachel’s rabbit.

  “To remember us by,” said Corrigan. He was grinning, but the emotion was thick in his voice. “He needs a good home.”

  Rebecca clutched the rabbit to her chest and nodded.

  Corrigan straightened up and slipped an arm around my back. He found my hand and silently knitted his fingers with mine, squeezing them hard for a moment as we watched the family walk away. When they turned the corner, he drew in a deep breath and I saw the pain in his eyes fade and clear.

  We came to the window that looked out over the town. The news trucks that had swarmed the hospital when the story broke were gradually disappearing, but the town was still full of reporters and the impact of being on the national news was still being felt. After seeing how pretty the town was, tourists were flooding the place. Corrigan and I had done what felt like a hundred interviews each, telling and retelling the story to reporters from both coasts and even a few international news stations.

  We’d also both been debriefed by the FBI. Colt was in their custody and they’d picked up the rest of his gang in Denver. They’d been relying on the bomb to get away without a trace. Armed with all the eyewitness reports from Mount Mercy, the FBI had identified the men and tracked them down within days. The gold had been recovered and was on its way to a new, undisclosed hiding place. Colt was going to be in prison for the rest of his life and his men were looking at very long jail terms.