by Emily Garnet
Matt conceded that point, gritting his teeth as she used a handful of gauze to clean the wound. After that, she started injecting the lidocaine. The first injection hurt, stinging badly, especially when she raked the needle along the wound. He felt the next injection, but none of the subsequent ones.
The gash was a good three inches long, and it was deep. She went straight to work, but within the first stitch, it was clear she knew what she was doing. She used a pair of scissors to hold one side and something she called a needle pusher to push the curved needle through his skin. He could feel a tugging sensation from time to time, but it didn’t hurt. As she neared the end of the wound, he felt the needle go in, and he winced. “Ow.”
“The lidocaine’s wearing off, but we’re almost done. It would hurt just as much to get another injection of it as it would for me to do the last closure. Here we go.” She pushed the needle through the other side of his incision before grasping it with the scissors and pulling it up and over. Then she twisted it into some kind of knot in midair before pulling it through and knotting it one more time. After that, she clipped the thread. “It might scar, but at least it’ll hold, and you’ll heal.”
“Thanks, Ivy.”
“That was amazing.” Keiko spoke with clear awe, hero worship shining in her eyes. “Can you help Bryce?”
Ivy looked at his ankle briefly before shaking her head. “I would if I could, but I think it’s obviously broken. You’re going to need someone to set it. As bad as it looks, Bryce is likely to need surgery anyway.”
“Oh.” Keiko looked disappointed, but no less in awe of Ivy. “Where did you learn that?”
“My dad insisted we have training in basic first-aid.” Ivy spoke dispassionately as she covered the stitches with the gauze pad and wrapped a length of self-adhering tape around it to keep it in place.
“That’s a lucky thing.”
“Yeah,” said Ivy, sounding a little sour. Keiko didn’t seem to notice.
Matt hated to mention it, but he could still feel the head wound trickling from time to time, so he leaned forward. “Can you check out my head wound too, Ivy?”
She hadn’t stripped off her gloves yet, so she paused in the motion of doing so. She leaned forward, and he could feel her fingers moving over it a moment later. He winced at the light touch, because the area around it was swollen.
“I think you need a few stitches up here too, Matt.”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m sure. Can you give me lidocaine before you pull off the butterflies?”
“No,” she said as she ripped off one.
Matt thought he might’ve grayed out from the pain. The next thing he felt was a needle going into his incision, and he recognized the sting from the lidocaine. It was going to be a long night.
Chapter Ten
Ivy looked up as she was finishing the last stitch in Matt’s head, aware of the receptionist at the desk with whom she’d tangled glaring at her a few feet away. Ivy glared back. She hadn’t made an unreasonable request. She hadn’t asked them to put Matt at the head of the line. All she’d requested was a suture kit and some supplies to clean his wounds.
When the nurse refused, she’d taken matters into her own hands. Since she was pretty much done with Matt’s wound now, she could do battle with the nurse if she chose to escalate it. Technically, Ivy had committed theft by stealing some of the supplies, but she’d be happy to give them her black AmEx to cover any charges. As worthless as it was soon to be, they could keep the card and charge whatever they wanted on it.
After a moment, the nurse looked away, distracted by other people. Ivy let out a small sigh of relief. She was prepared to battle if she had to, but she’d prefer that the incident just go under the radar. Now that Matt was taken care of, she could rest a little bit.
“Are we done?” he asked from his awkward position, with his head dangling down.
“Just let me finish the bandage.” She had clipped as close to his scalp as she could, trimming the hair around the incision enough that she hoped the bandage would adhere. It would’ve been better to have a razor, but she hadn’t thought to look for one, and they hadn’t kept any in the supply cart, at least not in the drawer marked “Sutures.” She hadn’t had much time to browse, certain at any moment someone would realize she didn’t belong, so she’d grabbed what she could and fled. She’d have to make do.
The bandage adhered, though she hadn’t been confident it would since she couldn’t wrap his head with a self-adhesive bandage, and she had to rely on the paper tape instead. Even if the bandage came off, the stitches were good, but they needed to be covered for a short time to reduce the risk of infection.
She wished she’d had a chance to grab antibiotics, but those were probably kept in a different area. Finding the bottles of lidocaine beside the suture kits had been a logical pairing, but no doubt drugs like antibiotics were kept locked up somewhere in the ER. In a pinch, should he start to develop an infection on the road, they could find a pet supply store and get him some fish amoxicillin. It was the same drug as used for humans, though created with less oversight and quality control.
“I need a little rest. How about you, Matt?”
He leaned back, looking pale. “Yeah, I think so.”
She figured the paleness was more from events of the last half-hour than from blood loss. He’d definitely lost his share, but not enough that she was worried he’d need a transfusion. She moved to sit beside him, bracing herself against the wall and resting her head on his shoulder. It was a comfortable and familiar pose, and she soon fell asleep.
She woke to the sound of shouting, stretching her aching back and opening her eyes as she became alert in an instant. She shook Matt, and his eyes opened immediately too. “We should get out of here.” She pointed to the emergency room doors that had been locked. She’d had to use the ruse of helping the injured man inside to get through them.
Apparently, the crowd had grown tired of waiting, and they were hammering at the doors and trying to push their way through. She wasn’t certain if the locks would hold, but she hoped they would for the sake of the people on the other side. She looked around, noticing Bryce and Keiko were gone. “Do you know what happened to Keiko and Bryce?”
“They took him back about an hour ago,” said Matt. “I remember Keiko waking me up to tell me they had called his name.”
That was a relief. She didn’t have to worry about how to help Bryce through this crowd. “Let’s go.” She stood up, slipping the last three suture kits and the lidocaine, along with a syringe and an irrigator, into her pocket. She left the bottled water and the gauze, since she had no way to carry them without using one of her hands, and she might need to keep those free. She hoped they wouldn’t need any more of the suture kits, but since they had them, they might as well take them.
Matt was able to walk better than she’d anticipated. He was a little bit slow and limping, but he was moving freely on his own. He didn’t require her assistance, which was beneficial. As an added bonus, he still had his rifle. No one had taken it from him in the chaos, and she was glad of it.
She had left hers in the truck without thinking, and she could well imagine it was gone now, likely with the truck itself. The keys were in her pocket, but that didn’t mean anything to someone who was determined and had enough knowledge to hotwire an older vehicle—especially one with a missing window that allowed easy entrance.
She led Matt to the door she’d exited from when she slipped out of the ER. It was unlocked, and as soon as it closed behind them, she pressed the button labeled Lock. The ER department should be in lockdown to protect everyone from the crowd outside.
They split off from the main area and followed another corridor, which took them around and down, passing Radiology and a few other departments before they took a right, following the Exit sign. The route took them back into the hospital rather than outside, and Ivy was glad of that. She wanted to find the Haskins and check on them if she could.
There was a sign for the cafeteria going one way, and another one identified as Main Campus. She assumed that was the one they needed, and they started walking that way.
They’d gone a few feet when a voice behind them called, “Hey.”
Ivy froze, turning slowly. The voice was familiar, and she wasn’t at all surprised to see it was the receptionist she had tangled with at the ER intake desk.
The woman was mid-fifties, with iron-gray curls that looked like they didn’t dare move even in a hurricane, and a name tag that identified her as Eileen. She marched closer to them. “I know what you did.”
Ivy shrugged. “He’s not dead, and he’s no longer waiting in that madhouse. I’m not going to apologize.”
Eileen’s lips pursed, but she nodded after a moment. “I’ll concede you seemed to know what you’re doing. What is it you’re doing here though?”
“I assume you know what it was like in the waiting room?”
Eileen nodded. “We have a lot of frantic folks out there. A lot more have shown up with bodies of their relatives, who have expired from lack of oxygen and other equipment that kept them alive. I don’t know what they expect us to do after the fact.” A hint of sadness appeared on her face, ruining her iron bitch routine. “But why are you here, in this area?”
“We’re trying to find our friends. They came in earlier. The Haskins family? There was a car accident, but it was caused by someone shooting at us, and one of the bullets hit one of the kids, David Haskins.”
“I think I remember the family, but I don’t know what happened to them. If you go around to the main campus, you’ll find a patient directory. It’s an automated system, so all you have to do is type in the name, and it’ll show you what room they’re in unless they requested privacy. Since the generator is running, it should still be getting enough power to function, though less critical systems are turned off or receive reduced priority in a power outage.”
“Thank you.” Ivy managed a genuine smile.
Eileen apparently did the same, and it softened her significantly. “Good luck finding your friends and getting to safety.”
Ivy hesitated a moment longer. “Do you realize this isn’t temporary? It could go on for months or years?”
Eileen looked around, and then she nodded once. “My husband is stationed at Nellis, and he sent me our special code a few minutes before all the power went off. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I know I’m supposed to get to our cabin near Tahoe as fast as I can.”
“Why are you still here then?” Ivy couldn’t imagine that she’d had hours of warning, and yet here she was.
“Because I have a job to do first. I’ll be leaving in a little while. I hope you have a plan too?”
Ivy nodded. “One more thing, Eileen?” At the older woman’s nod, she said, “Don’t tell anybody about your cabin in Tahoe. When you go, slip away quietly and don’t take anyone with you.”
Eileen shrugged. “I’m going to take a couple of my colleagues here, but I understand what you’re saying. I definitely won’t be divulging the information of where it’s located to anyone else.”
With a nod, Ivy and Matt continued on, finding the directory Eileen had mentioned just a few minutes later. Fortunately, the Haskins hadn’t requested privacy, so they were able to get the room number.
“Do you think you can climb four flights of stairs?” asked Ivy as they neared the elevator and stairs.
Matt groaned. “I’d rather not.”
“I understand, but there’s no telling how well-maintained the generator is. If it goes offline while we’re in the elevator, we could be trapped for hours. Do you really want to take that risk?”
Matt’s answer was another groan, coupled with bypassing the elevators and going to the door with the Stairs icon. He entered first, and she remained behind him, wanting to offer a steadying hand should he need it. Other than being slow, his progress was independent, and he made it to the fourth floor with her right behind him several minutes later. In other circumstances, they could’ve jogged up the stairs and covered as much distance in a third the time, but she was relatively satisfied with how quickly he’d been able to do it, especially since he clearly hurt.
Once on the fourth floor, it wasn’t difficult to find the Haskins’ room. As they reached it, Ivy knocked and hovered outside. “May we come in?”
Jolene appeared at the doorway, and she seemed surprised to see them. “Of course.” She moved back so they could enter. There was a bandage on her temple, but otherwise, she appeared fine.
When they entered the room, Ivy saw Dean sported something similar on his forehead. The bandage wrapped around his head like a sweatband, and it was a fluorescent-green shade. She couldn’t help wondering if the supplies had been running low, or if Dean had chosen that color. Either way, he was awake and fine, or appeared to be.
Her gaze moved to David, and he was asleep in the bed. There was an IV leading into his hand, and he looked pale, almost grayish in color. “How is he?” She found herself subconsciously whispering.
Jolene spoke in a normal tone. “He lost a lot of blood. They had to give him a transfusion, and it can take a day or so before his color starts to return, according to the doctor. He’s been awake, and they didn’t see any permanent damage. He might have a little trouble using his shoulder for a few months, and there’s a slight possibility of permanent nerve damage, which can cause some numbness and tingling from time to time, but he’s going to pull through.”
“I’m so glad to hear it.” Ivy moved closer, seeing heavy bandaging on the right side of his head. “Was he shot there too? We thought it was blunt impact, but we couldn’t tell.”
“Not shot. He slammed into the passenger window, so he has a concussion too, but the doctor didn’t seem too concerned about that in light of his other injury.”
Matt moved closer, putting a hand briefly on David’s foot and squeezing lightly. “Hang in there, buddy.”
“He should be out in a couple of days.”
Ivy looked at Jolene when she spoke. “Just be careful. The main floor of the hospital is overrun already with desperate people. If they have a way to shut down the wards, they probably will and should. I hope they’re stocking supplies on each floor first.”
“Surely they are. It’s only for a couple of days though.” Jolene patted her hip. “They let me keep my weapon as soon as they found out I was a cop, so I have a way to protect them if needed.”
Ivy wasn’t certain how many rounds her pistol had, but twelve or fifteen was likely. Up against a crowd like the one downstairs, she didn’t know if it would help, but she wasn’t going to be negative. “We’ll stay here with you until you’re ready to travel, and then we’ll all go together.” She almost surprised herself by making the offer. She was frantic to get to Lacey, but they wouldn’t have survived without Jolene’s help, and it didn’t seem right to just leave them there.
Jolene blinked for a minute, looking like she might cry. Instead, she cleared her throat. “That’s very sweet of you, but it really isn’t necessary. I’ve called Nathan, my ex, and he’s on his way from Houston. He has an old farm truck that he promises will make the distance, and he’ll be here before David is discharged. Then we’re going to go camping at Red Rock Canyon for a while until all this blows over, if the power’s still out by then.”
Ivy nodded. “That sounds like a sound plan.” She licked her lips, hesitating for a moment. “Do you have a long-term plan if it doesn’t blow over?”
Jolene blinked. “Why wouldn’t it? The government will come and fix everything. They must have hardened vehicles. We just have to get through the next few weeks.”
Ivy pressed just a little. “Just in case the government doesn’t show up, assuming maybe they’re too overwhelmed to make Vegas or Nevada a priority, do you guys have a plan in mind?”
Jolene looked like she wanted to argue for a minute, and she even opened her mouth to do so before she closed it again. She tilted her hea
d slightly to the right, as though truly contemplating for the first time that maybe this wouldn’t end. “I… I suppose we could go back with Nathan to Houston. He has a nice hobby farm there, and I’m lucky enough that he hasn’t remarried, so there wouldn’t be any conflict with a new wife. He and I sometimes want to kill each other if we’re in the same room, but we can overcome that for the sake of our boys. I guess that would be our long-term plan.”
“I’m glad you have something in mind.” It was a weight off Ivy’s mind. Now that she’d planted the seed, she imagined Jolene would think more about it and come up with a plan that would ensure their survival. “In that case, we should get going. Matt and I still have a long way to go to get to our families.”
“I understand. Thank you all for helping us get to the hospital.”
“And thank you for rescuing me and for helping Matt.” Ivy shook Jolene’s hand and moved back. Matt came over, and he hugged Jolene. Ivy wasn’t surprised. Matt was always more of a spontaneously affectionate type than she was. She barely liked to be touched by people she knew, with Matt being the exception. She never was the kind to hug strangers. It was one of the worst parts of being famous, when people would come up and put an arm around her and ask for a selfie or something. It’d taken her a long time to train herself not to shove them off and yell at them for being overly familiar.
After saying their goodbyes, she and Matt walked down all the flights of stairs again, this time following the signs for the exit. It led them out on the side of the hospital opposite from where they’d entered, and this side wasn’t quite as crazy. Together, they walked around the side of the hospital to where Ivy had parked the truck. It was a long trek, and Matt was clearly getting wary, so she hoped she was wrong that someone had likely stolen the truck while they were inside.
It came as no surprise when they reached the place where she had parked, and there was an empty spot. Just to be sure, she walked around the spaces, but she knew where she had parked. The truck was gone. Inside of it, there’d been three rifles that were also gone. Now they just had the one Matt still carried.
