Chapter 6 - The Surgeon's Touch
"Jackson!" Alara screamed, unbuckling her seatbelt and scrambling over the console to check his pulse.
His skin was burning hot, drenched in cold sweat. His pulse was thready, rapid, and weak. The violent recoil from firing his weapon and the pressure from the car chase had completely torn open his internal packing. Blood was pooling beneath his hips, saturating the leather upholstery.
"No, no, no, you don't get to die on me now!" she hissed.
She scrambled out of the car, rushed to the back door, and checked on the infants. Leo and Stella were safe, fast asleep in their seats. She locked the car doors from the outside to ensure their safety, then ran toward the medical bay setup in the corner of the warehouse.
It was better equipped than most rural clinic emergency rooms. She found sterile surgical trays, bags of O-negative blood suspended in a refrigeration unit, scalpels, cautery pens, and advanced broad-spectrum antibiotics.
Alara pulled off her rain-soaked jacket, scrubbed her hands thoroughly at the stainless steel sink, and snapped on a pair of sterile latex gloves.
She returned to the car, dragged Jackson out onto a heavy medical gurney, and wheeled his unconscious body directly under the harsh glare of the surgical lamp.
With a pair of trauma shears, she sliced away his bloody shirt. The wound was a nightmare. The bullet path was infected, inflamed, and oozing dark, venous blood. He was hemorrhaging internally.
"Alright, Alara," she whispered to herself, taking a deep, shuddering breath to steady her trembling hands. "You passed surgical rotation top of your class. You know how to do this."
For the next two hours, the world outside the safehouse ceased to exist.
Alara worked with fierce, singular concentration. She set up a rapid-infusion line, hanging two units of O-negative blood to stabilize his dropping blood pressure. With surgical precision, she cleansed the track of the wound, removed the dead, infected tissue, and used a portable cautery unit to seal the ruptured blood vessels deep within his intercostal muscle layer.
Her hands, once trembling with fear, became completely steady. The rhythm of her training washed over her—clamp, cauterize, flush, stitch.
She placed a drain tube to prevent fluid build-up, then closed the deep muscle layers with absorbable sutures before closing his skin with clean, tight surgical staples.
When she finally pulled off her bloody gloves and threw them into the biohazard bin, the sun was beginning to rise, casting pale golden light through the high frosted skylights of the warehouse roof.
Jackson’s vitals on the monitor had stabilized. His heart rate was steady at sixty-eight beats per minute. His blood pressure was back within normal parameters.
Alara slumped into a stool beside his bed, completely exhausted, resting her forehead against the stainless steel guardrail.
A tiny, soft crying sound echoed from the sedan across the room.
Alara smiled weakly, lifting her head. "Right. Breakfast time for the real bosses."
She walked over to the car, unbuckled Leo and Stella, and brought them over to the living pod setup. She prepared fresh bottles of formula from the safehouse kitchen, holding both infants in her arms as she fed them near Jackson’s bedside.
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As Stella happily gulped down her milk, her tiny fingers reached up and stroked Alara's cheek. Alara looked from the baby girl to the sleeping, formidable man lying on the gurney.
She had entered this night as a lonely diner waitress running from her past. Now, looking at this fragile, fierce little family, she knew she would protect them with her very life.
