Page 9 of The Heart We Guard
And I’m pretty sure I just failed the whole shebang.
I’m too exhausted to be doing this. But when I saw him lying on the ground, that day with Eli, my inability to help him, was all I could remember. And the hospital is hostile to those outside the law. I’ve seen women give birth in handcuffs. And Nicholas isn’t entitled to any break in healthcare fees, all because he wears a leather cut.
“I want you to keep breathing. Slow and steady.” I check the rearview mirror. “Lower your heart rate and you’ll slow the bleeding.”
“Humph,” the biker says. “No control…over it.”
“Well, I don’t have all the right equipment to bring you back to life if you don’t. So, for both our sakes, please try.”
The biker chuckles of a fashion. A snort, a huff, with mirth.
“Why are you…doing…this?” His words are punctuated with gasps of air. I don’t like how breathless he is. But we’re close to home. And keeping him engaged in a conversation where I do most of the talking will give him something to focus on, other than not dying.
“I just got fired. They called it leave while they follow some archaic process, but they’re not gonna have me back, I’m sure. It’s way too long of a story, but yeah, that’s the truth.”
“Why? Do you…suck?”
I laugh at that. “No, quite the opposite. I’m pretty damn brilliant, if I do say so myself. So, don’t worry, you’re in safe hands.”
“Why…did they do…it?”
I think about the poverty Eli and I grew up in. About the soaring crime rate and the street gangs that roamed our neighborhoods. How I always managed to stay out of trouble and keep my head down by being the nerdy girl. The one who loved science and knew the difference between a photo-oncogene and a pseudogene long before my first kiss.
And yet, Eli? Man, he was a handful. Hyperactive. Always moving. Into everything. Never knew when to keep his mouth shut and thought he was funnier than he really was.
And he finally felt as though he’d found the family he had been missing for our entire lives when he joined the motorcycle club.
But not one of them had been brave enough to drive him to a hospital like Smoke had brought Butcher. And because of that, I’d felt compelled to help.
“It was a lot of things. But mostly overwork and a policy decision that didn’t align with my personal code of ethics.”
I bring the car to a halt outside my ranch-style home in one of the nicer west Denver suburbs. The houses are spaced far enough apart that you have privacy, but close enough that I know my neighbors. Takes me twelve minutes to get to the hospital but only forty-five minutes to the nearest ski resort.
I’m blessed that, as a thirty-six-year-old surgeon, I’ve paid my dues and make good money, in spite of the loans I’m paying back. I got some scholarships, but I was still left with low six-figure debt.
In hindsight, maybe I should take this man’s money after all.
The house, though, isn’t paid for yet, so I have mortgage payments to make. But I have some savings, so I won’t need to sell if I don’t find a new job immediately. I’ve got a year to convince somewhere else to hire me, which shouldn’t be too hard in this climate.
Or perhaps it’s time to start living out the dream I’ve considered. Setting up a way to help kids like Eli. Kids who are trapped and scared and have no insurance, worried about bills and legal questions.
The usual twitch of fear settles in my stomach when I think about it. I know it dances across the very laws I wish everyone would follow. I hate the termunderground clinic, but maybe there’s something that skims close to it. A mobile clinic that offers something beyond basic medical support without any obligation to involve the police.
“Okay. No two ways about this. Getting you inside is going to hurt and be messy. So you need to help me as much as you can while following my instructions.”
“Recline…the seat. Do…it here.”
I huff and shake my head. “This might be field surgery, but we’re not doing it in a car unless you intend on lying here like this for the next week.”
I step outside into the damp air. It rained hard earlier in the day, then heated up in the afternoon. The combination is muggy and sticky.
With strenuous effort on both our parts, we manage to get the man whose patch said his name is Butcher onto his feet. With his arm over my shoulder, so much weight is placed on me that I feel my spine compressing.
“About twenty steps on the driveway, then three steps up to the door. We’re not stopping because I don’t want anyone to see us.” Thankfully, it’s dark.
“Worried they’ll think…you’re banging… a criminal?”
I huff. “The homeowners association would be more concerned about any blood you might drip or flowers you might trample, rather than your occupation and what the two of us might be doing together. But I don’t want anyone to see us, for your benefit. I have no idea what you did or might be wanted for. Some people are very much in favor of calling the cops for every unfamiliar sighting.”
