Chapter 13 - The Sterile Sanctuary of the Hospital and the Crimson Ice
The ambulance pulled into the emergency bay with a screech of tires,
the rear doors bursting open to reveal a team of nurses and residents waiting for us.
Dr.
Caldwell jumped out first,
instantly barking orders as they wheeled Mia through the automatic sliding doors into the bright,
white interior of the hospital.
This was his domain,
a place where his word was law and where no one dared to question his authority or his commitment to his patients.
They moved her into a private trauma bay,
the curtain snapping shut behind them,
separating us from the chaos of the general emergency room.
The nurses moved with a frantic efficiency,
cutting away her pink leggings to reveal the full extent of the damage to her knee.
I had to turn my eyes away for a second,
the sight of her joint so swollen and misshapen making my stomach heave with a physical sickness.
The skin was tight,
shining,
and already turning a deep,
angry shade of purple where the blood was pooling beneath the surface.
"We need an immediate set of x-rays and an emergency MRI,"
Dr.
Caldwell ordered,
his eyes scanning the monitors as he checked her vitals.
"The swelling is accelerating rapidly,
and I want to know exactly what we're looking at before I take her back to the operating room."
He turned to me,
placing a heavy,
reassuring hand on my shoulder,
his eyes filled with a deep professional empathy.
"I need you to step out into the waiting room for just a few minutes while we get these images,"
he said softly.
"I promise you,
she is under the best possible care,
and I am going to fix this personally."
I nodded weakly,
unable to find my voice,
and allowed a nurse to guide me out of the trauma bay into the quiet corridor.
The waiting room was empty,
the lights dimmed,
the silence heavy and oppressive as I slumped into a uncomfortable vinyl chair.
My clothes still smelled of my parents' house,
that suffocating mixture of roast beef and expensive perfume that now felt like poison in my lungs.
I pulled my phone from my pocket,
noticing for the first time that it was blowing up with texts and missed calls from my family.
Mark had sent five messages in a row:
'Call Dad right now.'
'Don't do anything stupid,
man.'
'We can sort this out without the cops.'
My mother had left a long,
rambling voicemail,
her voice shrill with a frantic panic about their reputation and their social standing.
I didn't listen to it;
I didn't read the rest of the messages.
Instead,
I went to my settings,
selected each of their numbers one by one,
and pressed the block button,
erasing their access to my life with a few taps of my finger.
They were gone,
deleted,
reduced to nothing more than static in the background of a life they had no right to participate in anymore.
As I sat there in the quiet,
the heavy wooden doors of the emergency department swung open,
and two uniformed police officers stepped into the room.
They looked around before spotting me sitting alone in the corner,
and began walking over,
May you like
their heavy duty belts clinking with a ominous weight.
The reckoning had finally begun.
