Page 31 of Careless Whisper

Bang.

The screen flickered.

Static.

Black.

“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no?—”

“Get it back online!” someone shouted.

But all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.I’d never been more afraid in my life. Not during my first code.Not in med school.Not even when I missed a tear in the atrium during a valve replacement and watched my patient bleed out in under two minutes.

This was worse.This was Reggie.

CHAPTER 11

Reggie

Icould still feel the cold press of the gun against my temple, even though it was gone—even though the prisoner had collapsed and security had stormed the room—I could still feel it.

Phantom pressure.

A ghost of fear.

Everything had happened fast after the shot. The bullet hadn’t hit me—it had struck the wall, fired wild as Hauser dropped. He passed out mid-threat, bleeding out on the floor. The gun clattered beside him.

Then, officers secured the room. Nina was rushed out. I stayed because Hauser was my patient, and he was crashing, and I was the only one in the room who knew what to do.

But I wasn’t alone for long.

“Move!” Elias’s voice cut through the chaos as he burst through the OR doors.

Someone shouted that he wasn’t cleared yet, but he didn’t stop. He shoved through the cluster of trauma nurses and corrections officers like they were made of air to reach me.

His eyes scanned me first—head to toe, frantic. He was looking for blood, for wounds, for…

“I’m okay,” I said gently.

“Gigi, you’re bleeding.” His voice was raw, tinged with hysteria.

I softened with understanding. “The blood is not mine, Eli.”

He exhaled hard, shaky—then turned to the patient.

“He’s tamponading.” I kneeled beside Hauser’s body on the floor. “I can’t get a pulse.”

“He’s coding,” Elias confirmed, already snapping on gloves. “We’re opening him up. Now.”

“Get him up on the table,” I shouted.

The trauma team was with us, and Hauser was back on the table. As a nurse hooked the instruments to him, I grabbed the trauma tray.

Elias used shears to open the gown, then made a clean incision from the sternum to the abdomen. I retracted the tissue and exposed the ribs. He cracked the chest open with the rib spreader, fast and brutal.

Blood surged out.

“Pericardial sac is distended.” I watched it balloon.

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