Page 2 of Egotistical Jerk
When I finally made it to the man, I dropped to my knees and gently moved him onto his back. Bending over him, I held my ear against his mouth. Nothing. I needed to start doing chest compressions, and I needed to do it immediately.
I placed one hand on top of the other and laced my fingers together before pressing the palm of my bottom hand in the center of the man's chest. Keeping my arms straight and my shoulders directly over my hands, I started pushing hard and fast.
One… two… three… four…
I spotted movement in my peripheral vision before I saw a flash of light blue. Keeping up with the compressions, I whipped my head up in time to see a nurse rushing toward me.
"I need to get him to a bed. Now!" I barked before she had time to open her mouth.
Twenty-one… twenty-two… twenty-three…The crowd surrounding us parted like the red sea to make way for the nurses barreling through with the gurney. The patient still wasn't breathing, and I knew that every single second mattered.
I halted my compressions long enough to allow them to get the man onto the bed before I hopped on too. Straddling him, I immediately resumed working on his chest.
"Uh… ma'am," the male nurse stuttered. "We've got it from here."
Still counting in my head, I looked up and spared him a smile. "It's okay, I work here. Now, you better move so we can get this man to a crash cart!"
He looked a bit bewildered, but thankfully he had the good sense to make his feet move. My arms were in a world of hurt by this time, but I refused to stop.
Come on, come on. Please don't die.
Witnessing death was inevitable in my profession and according to most doctors, you grow kind of immune to it. I wasn't most doctors. I believed in helping people and prolonging life—unless it wasn't what they wanted, but that was neither here nor there right then. Most importantly, I took an oath.
We made a sharp turn into an exam room which was flooded with medical staff a second later. Confident that these people could handle it from here, I removed my hands from the patient's chest and jumped off the bed.
Walking backward, I kept my eyes on them as they ripped open his shirt and prepared him for the defibrillator. They moved fast, wiping his chest and attaching the pads.
Everyone took a step back and one of the doctors yelled, "Clear!"
Just as the man's back arched off the bed, mine connected with something hard.
I spun around and let out a little gasp when I found dark, intense eyes trained on me. It wasn't just any pair of eyes. They belonged to none other than Dr. Sebastian Ryker.
The Dr. Sebastian Ryker.
My hero and new boss.
Behind me, I heard the distinctivebeep-beep-beepof a heart finding its rhythm and a little swell of pride bloomed in my chest.
I helped save a man today.
My mouth twitched, a smile just begging to be set free. But one look at the man I'd admired for years, and I immediately pressed my lips together in a thin, tight line.
He did not seem pleased. In fact, he looked pretty pissed off. Dr. Ryker's jaw ticked with unmasked irritation, his eyes sweeping over me in a quick, dismissive manner.
What the hell?
"You're one of mine, right?" The north pole had more warmth than his tone.
I stood a little taller. "I am."
"You can't do that."
"What? Save a man's life?" I cocked my head and narrowed my eyes. "I thought my job was doing exactlythat."
Tone it down, Mia… You don't want to get fired before you even start.
A storm brewed in those dark, dark eyes; the intensity of his stare stealing the air from my lungs. I swallowed the lump stuck in my throat. This was it. He was going to tell me to march my butt off the premises.
