Edge of Chaos

by Brynn O'Connor

  The darkness around Luke is punctuated by muzzle flashes and screams, breaking glass and slamming doors. Luke ducks behind a tool shed and sends another text. According to plan, if the members receive another text, that means it’s time to retreat and meet back up at Luke’s house. With all the noise and action, Luke seriously doubts anyone is going to realize he’s just texted them; but it’s worth a shot. Luke steps out from behind the tool shed just in time to see two brothers come up on each other in the dark. The brother on the right opens fire, while the one on the left drops into a prone position before returning fire. That would be his guy. It’s the way he taught them to shoot so he fires with his own weapon at the guy standing. He falls to the ground riddled with bullets.

  “Is that you, LJ?” Luke says to the stocky guy on the ground, trying not to be too loud.

  “Luke?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  LJ gets up and walks to Luke. “What the fuck happened?” he asks.

  “One of our guys fired early and gave away our surprise,” Luke replies.

  Just then another person steps out from the corner of the house and pops off two rounds. Luke flinches automatically as he gets a spray of hot blood in the face. He hits the dirt and returns fire but the guy disappears around the corner of the house.

  “LJ,” Luke whispers in his ear. “LJ, you okay?”

  Luke feels for a pulse but cannot locate one. LJ is dead.

  “Fuck!”

  There’s still sporadic fire, but for the most part it’s over. As Luke is sprinting through the neighborhood to where his bike is hidden, he hears sirens coming from several directions. If he doesn’t get out of there fast, the whole neighborhood will be sealed off and he’ll get caught.

  A couple of minutes later Luke reaches his bike. He’s pleased to see that some bikes are gone too, so at least three of guys have made it out so far. He starts his bike and peels out of there. When he pulls into his driveway, he is greeted by his crew. They’re sweaty, tired, and more than a little spooked, but they’re alive and that’s all that matters right now.

  Chapter Twenty

  Blowback

  Same night, two hours later…

  Sometimes, something happens that is so traumatic, so unbelievably tragic that even those trained to deal with it, stumble away shaking their heads in disbelief. That is exactly what happened when Kayla walked out of the second floor nursing lounge to start her shift at Highland Hospital.

  The first indication that something is truly wrong happens when a code blue announcement comes over the intercom.

  “Code blue Trauma 2 all emergency personal please respond to Trauma 2; code blue Trauma room 2.”

  Kayla’s trot turns into a rapid jog towards the closest stairwell. When the second announcement goes out over the hospital’s intercom system, she thinks it must be a mistake.

  “Code blue Trauma 4 all available emergency personnel please respond to Trauma 4, Code blue Trauma room 4.”

  Kayla steps her pace up to a sprint and hits the stairwell door at a dead run. She takes the stairs two at a time, hanging onto the rails to make sure she doesn’t do a header on the way down. The third emergency announcement just about makes her completely stop in her tracks.

  “Code red Ambulance Bay. All security personal please respond to the ambulance bay. Code red Ambulance Bay; STAT.”

  Kayla skitters and just about stops at the bottom of the first flight of stairs. What the hell is happening? she thinks to herself.

  She renews her pace and continues down to the first floor. The hospital has three levels of security threats, code yellow, code orange, and code red. The most serious is the code they are running now and that means hospital personal have been assaulted and injured in the process, and with a weapon. Kayla racks her brain as she reaches the landing. She’s just about to push the door open when she hears the first gunshot! Now she does stop. But just for a second; then she pushes the door open and screams assault her ears. She sprints down the long hall on the way to the emergency department as more screaming, shouting, and more gunfire erupts ahead of her. She’s terrified, but nothing will keep her from doing her duty as a trauma nurse no matter how dangerous that duty might be. Sirens penetrate the other sounds of battle as Kayla nears the end of the hall where double doors separate the hall from the ER.

  A huge man, dressed head to toe in leather and tattoos, comes bursting through the doors with what looks like a machine pistol to her. She can scarcely slow down and crashes into him. She literally bounces off him and hits the ground so hard that it knocks the air out of her. He stumbles but quickly finds his balance. Kayla sees he is a Suicide King when he orients the barrel of his weapon on her chest.

  Kayla is so shocked, so stunned that barely a thought crosses her mind before the man depresses the trigger. At first, it doesn’t even register when she hears a light metallic crack instead of an explosion of gunfire. Surprised, the man looks at his weapon, and then points it back at Kayla. The gun misfires a second time. This time he drops it and charges past her down the hall. She’s still sitting on the floor when two police officers burst through the door. Unable to say anything, she just points to the direction the biker disappeared a moment ago. Without a word, one of the officers collects the machine pistol before they both sprint down the hall after the fleeing biker. Kayla takes a deep breath, gets up and opens the doors to the Emergency Department.

  The first sight is a lot to handle. There are pools of blood on the floor, great smears of blood against the walls. The whole place bathed in the eerie blue and red from the police cars that are pulled up just outside the glass doors of the emergency landing. Looking down the main hall to the trauma rooms, Kayla nearly faints from shock. Everywhere she looks there are fallen bikers and hospital personal. Clusters of hospital workers flit around the victims performing various emergency procedures. She counts at least two groups in the halls performing CPR. For the first time in her life as a Nurse Practitioner, she does not know what to do. Her mind is blank. She’s not sure how long she just stands there staring, before another announcement over the intercom system sets her to motion.

  “Code blue first floor nursing office, code blue first floor nursing office.”

  Kayla sprints down the hall towards the nursing offices at the very end. But just before she can get there, one of the ER doctors sticks his head out of Trauma room 3 and calls to her.

  “Kayla, I need you in her,” he shouts.

  She skids to a halt and changes direction. He disappears back into the room and she follows. She nearly trips on a body lying on the floor in front of her. She doesn’t recognize the face, but she certainly recognizes the cut. The dead man on the floor is another Suicide King. She steps around him taking great care not to slip in the pools of blood.

  When she gets to the trauma table in the middle of the room, she gasps in spite of herself. It’s the guy that brought Luke over to her house early this morning. He’s been intubated and a nurse is using an O2 mask and bag to breath for him. He’s got a half inch tube sticking into his ribs on his left side and a machine on the wall is sucking out blood from his lungs. He has two bullet wounds; one to his ribs on his left side and another dangerously close to his heart. He’s wearing a pair of Military Anti Shock Trousers and they’re inflated all the way up to his abdomen.

  As she prepares to start another IV, she glances up at his heart monitor. His pulse is rapid. His blood pressure is 98 over 53. If she were a betting woman, she’d bet against this man. Her first attempt to get a line in fails, and so does her second one. His blood pressure is so low now his veins are collapsing right and left. Finally, on the third attempt she hits a vein. She connects it and runs it wide open. She vaguely hears the doctor ordering blood and a sudden thought comes unbidden into her mind. This is the fallout from Luke shooting his best friend. It has to be. Unless she sees Harbingers, it has to do with Luke. She’s seen three bikers…no four bikers and every one of them are Suicide Kings.

&
nbsp; Where is Luke? she screams inside. She feels a sudden overwhelming urge to leave the room and look for him. She almost does too when she considers the possibility that one of the people in the trauma rooms might be Luke.

  “We’re losing him, Doc,” yells one of the other nurses, making Kayla return to her duty.

  Doctor Harris turns to Kayla. “Go to one of the other trauma rooms and find a crash cart; we’re gonna need it in here.”

  Kayla glances at the biker’s blood pressure read-out before she runs out of the door; it’s 86 over 43. She sprints down the hall to T2, the nearest room, and bursts in. It’s empty save for a body on the table. Before retrieving the cart, she takes a look at the man on the table. Right away, she sees it’s not Luke. She glances around the room until she finds a ragged black leather motorcycle jacket. It just identifies him as a fully-patched Suicide King.

  She grabs the crash cart and hurries back to the room she just left. She arrives just in time. A male nurse is straddling the biker doing chest compressions. As Kayla readies the defibrillator, the nurse stops the compressions, so they can get a read-out before applying the paddles. The monitor shows an irregular rhythm. Kayla applies the paddles.

  “Clear!” she shouts.

  Everyone takes a giant step back away from the table and the fallen biker and the machine works its magic. After several revolutions of chest compressions, various medications, and more defibrillating, Doctor Harris glances at his watch and calls the code. It’s 1:25 am.

  Shouting farther down the hall reminds Kayla that she is still involved in the battle of her professional life. Having done everything she could for the guy on the table behind, Kayla steps out into the hall and looks both ways. To her right lies a fallen paramedic. Another paramedic and a nurse kneel over him. The nurse is sobbing miserably. Kayla considers going over to them to offer her help, but just as she is about to say something, the paramedic reaches out to her fallen co-worker and places her hand on the victim’s forehead for just an instant before sliding down and closing the fallen medic’s eyes; it is too late. Before Kayla looks away, the nurse suddenly glances up and sees Kayla.

  They lock eyes for the briefest of time and share the unbearable hurt they are both feeling, knowing that there is nothing they can do about it. It’s these helpless feelings that cause Kayla to question whether she is still suited for trauma nursing. She hasn’t felt this way since her very first days as a trauma nurse when she was working nights and going to school during the day to become a PA.

  Yet another siren breaks through Kayla’s gloomy thoughts and she walks out onto the landing to wait for the ambulance. She stands there for a couple of minutes before the rescue vehicle pulls up and kills the siren. The doors burst open almost before the ambulance has come to a full stop. The paramedic grabs the gurney and shouts to Kayla over his shoulders.

  “Where to, boss?”

  “Uh…T1…Trauma one… Here, let me give you a hand.”

  Together they pull the gurney out and start wheeling their victim into the emergency department. The paramedic gives Kayla a brief rundown about their newest patient.

  “GSW to right thigh with an exit wound in the lower buttocks and another one in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen, no exit wound. BP is 110 over 64, pulse 98, respirations 17, and a pulse ox of 93%.”

  “Got it. This guy’s another King, right?” she asks.

  “That’s right.”

  “And have you seen any Harbingers tonight?” Kayla persists.

  “None! This is my third scoop and run and it’s all been Suicide Kings. You got any Harbingers in here?”

  “No, just the Kings…weird, right?”

  “Very,” he replies. “Hey, before this guy we took another one to Summit Medical Center for multiple knife wounds. He was their fourth King so far tonight. What do you think’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” Kayla lies. “Whenever there’s a war going on, you always see some of both sides. We have yet to see a Harbinger or any other of the lesser clubs.”

  “That is odd,” the Paramedic replies, as he helps to transfer their patient from the gurney to the trauma table. “Well, gotta run. The night’s young, so I’ll probably be seeing you later.”

  “Yeah…be careful out there.”

  “You too,” he replies, as he wheels out the gurney.

  As Kayla and another nurse go to work on their new patient, he begins to stir and opens his eyes. He is surprisingly focused, so Kayla decides to try to get some information from him.

  “What happened to you?” she asks.

  “Fell down a staircase,” he replies.

  “Looks like you ran into a couple bullets on the way down.”

  “You know what they say about walking and chewing gum at the same time,” he replies.

  She’s just about to answer when the Paramedic returns with a plastic bag.

  “Here’s his stuff,” he says, putting the bag in the corner.

  Kayla walks over to the bag and lifts out a leather cut. He’s a King alright, but not the president. Under his club patch is another smaller one that reads Sergeant at Arms. That makes him the number three guy in the club hierarchy. She returns the jacket to the bag and proceeds to examine the man.

  “So you’re pretty high up in the King’s organization…” she says tentatively.

  “Who?” he asks.

  “Don’t play coy with me; I just saw your cut.”

  “You seem to know something of bikers,” he replies. “You’re somebody’s old lady?” he asks.

  “Not officially,” Kayla replies, not wishing to disclose anything more.

  “Then you’ll know—"

  He stops mid-sentence when another person walks up. It’s Doctor Harris. The conversation turns purely medical as Kayla gives the doctor her report and they prep him for surgery. When the crew from upstairs OR come for him, Kayla is in much need of a break. She glances at the clock and it’s only 2:30 in the morning. She can scarcely believe it. She has been assaulted from all sides this morning and she could have sworn it had to be close to sunrise. She collapses behind the triage desk and rests her head in her hands. Grateful for the lull in action, she closes her eyes in an effort to recharge her lagging batteries.

  “Kayla!”

  Kayla jumps in her seat and looks up. Doctor Harris is standing in front of her frowning.

  “Just got a call from Summit,” he begins. “They had to turn away another trauma victim and the medics are bringing him here. They’re four minutes out, so look alive, Kayla.”

  Wearily, Kayla forces herself up and gets ready to receive the new patient. She forgot to ask if it was another biker.

  Oh well, Doctor Harris probably didn’t know anyway, she thinks and walks out onto the landing to wait for the ambulance.

  She sees a scary-looking biker approaching her. He is well over six feet tall with long raggedy greying hair and a beard several inches long. This guy looks familiar. Kayla’s eyes fix on the only detail she is concerned with at the moment; his patches. He is most definitely a Suicide King and…and he’s their president! Kayla shivers in fear. Here is the man responsible for Luke’s dark side; the man who has ruined Luke’s childhood and tries to ruin his adulthood as well. He looks like the personification of evil to her. But if he is truly that bad, how can there be anything good left in Luke?

  “Excuse me,” he says, as he walks up.

  She has to force herself not to step backwards when he addresses her. He is one formidable character to say the least.

  “I’m wondering if you have seen this man,” he asks, waving a photo underneath her nose.

  Kayla looks closely. It’s not a super recent picture, but it’s definitely Luke there sitting on a tricked-out motorcycle.

  She falls back on the standard line. “I’m sorry sir, but I cannot divulge patient information to anyone without written permission.”

  “Wait a second, I know you. You’re that helpless doctor who didn’t even try to save
Mack!”

  “You failed to do the right thing. You chickened out and didn’t get your friend here for help. You guys are just a lot of cowards! Without written permission, I’m not giving you any information.”

  He chooses to ignore the coward remark. “This is my son,” he replies. “Surely, you can tell me if you have seen him. You don’t have to tell me his condition. I need to find him and none of the other hospitals have him in their care, so that leaves just you.”

  The guy is lying. He could not have gotten any information out of the other area hospitals either, especially when his son would have been the victim of a crime. They would be breaking the law and jeopardizing their patients.

  “Look, I’m not going to argue with you, sir...”

  “Then maybe you should get out of my way then,” he replies, taking a step towards Kayla.

  “You picked the wrong day to harass a hospital employee, mister,” Kayla replies, and then she turns and yells in a loud voice, “Security!”

  The man stares at her for a moment like he can’t believe someone half his size, and female, is actually refusing him. Of course, no way is Kayla going to tell him she slept with his son twelve hours ago, or that he had murder in his eyes when he left her house. He opens his mouth to say something else, but instead turns and leaves without another word.

  “You alright, Kayla?” asks one of the newer male ER doctors. Two Oakland Police officers are with him.