Mercy 6

The steps changed pace, and a low voice asked questions, the answers silent — a cell. Mendenhall felt cold, helpless beneath the sheet. Foolish.

“Ask them for help,” she whispered. “Ask them for escort. To open the door for you.”

She slipped her fingers beneath her waistband.

“Please.” Silva’s voice sounded all wrong as she called to them, almost begging.

The boot steps quickened. Mendenhall’s lungs tightened. She locked her knees, tried to count, to remember with her fingertips which colors were where. She could hear the men moving fast, the familiar squeak of heels on linoleum, a sound that triggered the best in her. The pair surrounded the gurney. Silva gasped. Mendenhall let them yank the sheet, let them fill their hands.

She gripped a syringe in each hand, thumb on plunger. She had never injected anyone without knowing what, without knowing how much, without getting to assess them at least in a glance.

When the sheet whipped off her, she stabbed both men in the femoral triangle, her one clear decision.

They opened their mouths with the pain, made no sound. They both reached for Silva instead of her, an odd gesture that gave Mendenhall confidence. She maintained needle pressure, eyed the colors. The bigger man was getting Demerol. But the plunger there was kicking back against the grip of thumb. She was in the artery.

She gave an extra thrust to counteract the blood flow, to get the dose in and through before the gush. He staggered back, snapping the needle, leaving the empty syringe in her hand. Blood spurted in pulses from the needle. Silva dodged the spray and it speckled the wall.

The smaller guard was getting a dose of adrenaline in his femoral vein. He froze. His arms and legs went rigid, his eyes wide. The fate of his partner terrified him. She hoped he had a strong heart. The bigger guy went down and out. Silva tended to him. She removed the broken needle and applied pressure with two fingers. She pressed with enough force to roll the man flat. His arms flopped.

“Any tear?” asked Mendenhall. They were staring at the rigid guard, waiting for him to fire loose.

Silva shook her head.

Mendenhall removed the needle from her guy. She scrambled off the gurney, stood by him, touching his shoulder. She assessed Silva and her guy.

“Main?”

Silva’s hair was falling loose from her ponytail. “No,” she replied.

“Inferior epigastric.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“We can stash them. Really push. Tuck the vessel. Count to forty.”

With her fingers pressed to the point of the man’s pelvis, Silva looked at Mendenhall. Then her eyes questioned the guard who was still standing. His jaw was clenched, and he was breathing quickly through his teeth.

“Don’t worry,” said Mendenhall. “I have something for him.”

They put the men in the elevator and sent them up to the ER. They would both be out for at least four hours.

“You’re clear of all this,” she told Silva.

The tech said nothing, hung her head, gazed at the base of the elevator doors. On the worst nights in the bay, when every drunk falls, every addict ODs, every bar breaks into a fight, the moon is full, great new stuff hits the streets, no questions asked, everybody knows everything, nobody’s saying nothing, Mendenhall would take hold of Pao Pao’s forearm. The nurse would pause and lift an eyebrow.

Without a word Mendenhall would release and turn and face the next arrival, the next scream, the next sour breath, the next open wound. She touched the cool bend of Silva’s hair.

She led her to Julia’s room.

“I need you. You’re the one to do this. They got me. They get to have me.”

62

Claiborne was with Covey in the makeshift room. They stood on either side of Julia. Claiborne was running a new IV, something fresh he must have brought from his lab. Mendenhall had never seen him — or any pathologist — do this, tend to a live patient. She wanted to start all over, to be as he was, run as he ran. To be what you had to be, do what had to be done. Even in the ER, her world, where she was most confident, she still always felt she was winging it, fighting herself, off center, leading with the wrong fist.

He had also brought a soft light to add to the green exit sign’s glow, a quaint-looking lantern set on the nightstand. With her thumb Covey was applying pressure to Julia’s forearm vein.

“I drew some more blood.” Claiborne kept his eyes on his work as he spoke. He seemed reluctant to look at Silva. “I took arterial blood first. Hypoxemia was pretty clear, anyway. I tried testing parasympathetic—”

Mendenhall cut him off. “Parasympathetic, enteric, and sympathetic will cross-indicate. Forget those.” She moved to the foot of the bed to get a long view of the patient. Julia’s eyes did not track her, appeared to see her once, then lose her. Mendenhall held her hand out and up, trying to catch her vision. She snapped her fingers. Covey, Claiborne, and Silva looked; Julia did not. “One pupil might be dilated, the other constricted. All three ANSs are vying at once.”

Claiborne and Covey watched Mendenhall. She turned to Silva.