Scythe & Sparrow: Chapter 2

Fionn

I’m rounding the corner for home, walking briskly after my evening run. It’ll be the perfect night to sit on the porch with the glass of Weller bourbon I’ve definitely earned, not just from this run but from the unholy combination of Fran Richard’s ingrown toenail and Harold McEnroe’s massive boil that I had to deal with at the clinic today. My little house is within sight when an alert comes through on my watch.

Motion detected at front door.

“Fucking Barbara,” I hiss as I pivot on my heel and retrace my path into town. I pull up my phone to open the video doorbell app. “I know it’s you, you fucking crazy—”

I stop dead in my tracks. It’s … it’s definitely not Barbara at the office.

There’s a woman I don’t recognize on the camera. Dark hair. Leather jacket. I can’t make out distinct features of her face before she looks away down the street. But she’s unsteady on her feet. Probably drunk. Maybe someone who’s come into town for the circus and had too much fun at the beer garden down the road from the fairgrounds. I consider pressing the button to speak to her, and though my thumb hovers over the circle, I don’t touch it. Maybe I should set the alarm I hardly ever use now, thanks to Barbara triggering it one too many times in the middle of the night. I should call the police, I think as I start walking, staring at my screen. But I don’t do that either.

Not even when she somehow manages to open the locked door.

“Shit.”

I pocket my phone and run.

I do the math in my head as I sprint in the direction of the clinic. I’ve just finished a long run and can’t push much faster than a 5:30-minutes-per-mile pace, so I’ll be there in seven minutes and nine seconds. I’m sure I’ll make it to the office in less time than that if I push as hard as I can.

But it feels like an hour. My lungs burn. My heart riots. I slow to a walk as I round the last corner and a wave of nausea rolls in my stomach.

There are no lights on in the clinic. Nothing to indicate anyone is inside except the faint smear of a bloody handprint on the door handle. A motorcycle with a dented fuel tank lies on its side in the grass. The key is still in the ignition, the polished chrome engine ticking as it cools. A black helmet painted with orange and yellow hibiscus flowers sits discarded on the walkway to the door.

I clasp a hand to the back of my neck, my skin slick with sweat. I look down one end of the road. Then the other. Then back again. There’s no one else on the street. I take my phone from my pocket and grip it tightly.

“Fuck it.”

I turn on my phone’s flashlight and stalk toward the door. It’s unlocked. I pan the light across the floor where it reflects on a bloody boot print. A streak of crimson paints the tiles in a long track that snakes through the waiting room. It passes the reception desk. Curves down the hallway like a horror script. This way to your violent death.

And like any idiot in any horror film ever made, I follow it, stopping at the mouth of the corridor that leads to the exam rooms.

There’s no sound. No smell aside from the astringent burn of antiseptic that clings to the back of my throat. No light except for the red emergency exit sign at the end of the hall.

I guide my flashlight to follow the blood on the floor. It leads beneath the closed door of Exam Room 3.

With a single deep breath, I follow. I hold that breath as I press my ear to the door. Nothing comes from the other side, not even when I push it open and it meets resistance. A boot. A limp leg. A woman who doesn’t stir.

My thoughts snap like a glow stick. From darkness to light. I hit the switch for the overhead fluorescents. Urgency and training propel me into the room, and I drop to my knees beside the woman lying on my exam room floor.

A makeshift tourniquet made from her shirt is tied around her right thigh. A fresh one from the cabinet is loosely knotted just beneath it, as though she couldn’t tighten it with her waning strength. Medical supplies are scattered across the floor. Gauze bandages. Sterile cloth. A pair of scissors. Blood trickles down her calf and pools on the floor. The scent of pineapple and banana is a sweet contradiction to the broken bone that pokes through the torn flesh of her lower leg. Her leather pants are cut all the way up to the wound, as though she got as far as exposing the fracture and couldn’t bear it anymore.

“Miss. Miss,” I say. She’s turned away from me, her dark hair strewn across her face. I press my palm to her cool cheek and turn her head in my direction. Rapid, shallow breaths spill past her parted lips. I rest two fingers against her pulse as I tap her cheek with the other hand. “Come on, miss. Wake up.”

Her brow crinkles. Thick, dark lashes flutter. She groans. Her eyes open, inky pools of pain and suffering. I need her conscious, but I hate the agony I see painted in her features. Regret twists like a hot pin lodged deep in a cavern of my heart, a feeling I learned to shut away a long time ago so I can do my job. But somehow, when her eyes fuse to mine, that long-forgotten piece of me comes alive in the dark. And then she grabs my hand where it rests on her throat. She squeezes. Locks me into a moment that feels eternal. “Help,” she whispers, and then her hand slips from mine.

I stare at her for just a moment. A heartbeat. A blink.

And then I get to work.

I pull a wallet from her jacket and dial 911 as I stride from the room to grab ice packs from the freezer. I relay the details of the woman’s license and condition to the dispatcher. Twenty-six-year-old female, unconscious, possible motorcycle accident. When I return to the exam room, she’s still unconscious, and I place the ice packs and my phone on the counter so I can hook her up to the blood pressure monitor. Lower leg open fracture. Blood loss. Hypotensive blood pressure. Her pulse is climbing.

I’ve gotten a line in for an IV and tied a proper tourniquet around her leg by the time the ambulance arrives. But she still doesn’t wake up. Not when the paramedics fit a brace around her leg. Not when we lift her onto the gurney. Not even when we load her into the back of the ambulance and the motion jostles her. I take her hand and tell myself it’s so I’ll know if she wakes up.

And eventually, she does. Her eyes flutter open and latch onto mine, and regret pierces me again. The paramedic across from me fits the oxygen mask to her face, and the plastic fogs with her increasingly rapid breaths as the pain settles into her consciousness.

“I’m Dr. Kane,” I say as I squeeze her hand, her palm cool and clammy. “You’re on the way to the hospital. Is your name Rose?”

She nods in the emergency neck brace.

“Try to remain still. Do you remember what happened?”

She presses her eyes shut, but not fast enough to veil the flash of panic in her eyes. “Yes,” she says, though I can barely hear her over the wail of the sirens.

“Was it a motorcycle accident?”

Rose’s eyes snap open. The crease between her brows deepens. There’s a brief pause before she says, “Yes. I … I hit a slippery patch and crashed.”

“Do you have any pain in your back or neck? Anything else aside from your leg?”

“No.”

The paramedic cuts away Rose’s makeshift tourniquet and a fresh waft of piña colada floods my nostrils. I lower my voice and lean a little close when I ask, “Have you been drinking?”

“Fuck no,” she says. Her nose scrunches beneath the mask, and she reaches up to lower it despite my protest. “Are you, like, a real doctor?”

I blink at her. “Yes …?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“I’m pretty sure. Put your mask back on—”

“You look like a TV doctor. Dr. McSpicy or something. What are your credentials?”

I look over at the paramedic who tries to chew her grin into submission. “You only gave her morphine, right?”

“Why are you in activewear?” Rose barrels on.

The paramedic snorts.

“Are you one of those CrossFit guys? You look like a CrossFit guy.”

I try to say no as the paramedic says, “Doc is definitely one of those CrossFit guys. My husband calls him Dr. Beast Mode.”

Rose’s cackle becomes a wince as the paramedic repositions fresh ice packs around the wound. Her grip tightens on my hand. “Who are you?” I ask the paramedic across Rose’s body. “Have we met?”

She smirks as she checks the infusion pump. “I’m Alice. I live around the corner from you on Elwood Street. My husband, Danny, is a personal trainer at the gym …?”

“Right, of course. Danny,” I reply convincingly.

Rose grins, her dark eyes pinned to Alice. “He has no fucking idea who you mean.”

“I know.”

“How long have you lived in Hartford?” My glare shifts from the paramedic down to Rose and softens—but only into wariness. Her blood pressure has improved a little with the fluids. But pain still carves its marks across her features, creasing little lines into the sides of her nose and between her brows. I try to pull my hand from hers so I can get a better look at her leg, but she doesn’t let go. “How long, Doc?”

I shake my head just a little to clear it, as though I might free myself from the way she looks at me. “Until we get to the hospital …?”

“No. How long have you lived in Hartford? Or maybe we should go back to the credentials question. I don’t want you amputating the wrong leg. Do you have short-term memory loss?”

Her faint smile is full of pity and mischief. But her dark eyes betray her. They’re searching. Filled with distress. Filled with fear.

“No one’s amputating your leg,” I reply, gently squeezing her hand.

Rose swallows. She tries to keep her face set in a neutral mask, but the heart rate monitor betrays her. “But the bone is sticking out. What if—”

“I promise you, Rose. No one is amputating your leg.” Rose’s liquid eyes stay fused to mine, dark pools of molten chocolate. I slip her mask back up over her nose and mouth. Even though she says nothing in reply, I realize her words have been repeating in my mind since the moment she passed out in my exam room. Help. Help. Help. “I’ll assist with the surgery,” I say. “I’ll be right there with you.”

Rose tries to nod again, and I place my free palm on her forehead, where her bangs cling to her skin. I tell myself I’m just doing it to keep her still. But something aches beneath my bones when she closes her eyes and a tear rolls down her temple. When I pull my palm away, I let my fingertips graze the streak it leaves behind.

What the fuck, Kane. Get your shit together.

I refocus on her vitals. Try to concentrate only on the blood pressure monitor and the steady beat of her quickened pulse. I can’t count the number of procedures I’ve done or medications I’ve administered or patients I’ve treated in my short career so far. But there’s only been one whose hand I’ve held in an ambulance. Only one whom I’ve brought through the emergency bay, one for whom I’ve sat in the blue vinyl chairs outside the imaging ward to wait for her X-rays, my knee bouncing with impatience. Only one for whom I’ve asked to scrub in at the surgical suite so I could assist the orthopedic surgeon with the hours-long internal fixation procedure. So I could be there to reassure her that I would keep my promise as she fell unconscious on the surgical table.

Only one whose whispered plea for help still keeps me here at the hospital, hovering near her bed in the recovery room, her chart clasped in my hands even though I’ve read it enough times that I could recite it from memory.

Rose Evans.

I’m absently staring at her sleeping form, her leg splinted and suspended. I wonder if she’s comfortable. If she’s warm enough. If she’ll have a nightmare about the accident. Maybe I should get the nurses to check on her again. Make sure her other minor injuries have been properly addressed.

I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I don’t notice Dr. Chopra until she’s standing right next to me.

“Know her?” she asks. She pulls her reading glasses down from where they’re nestled in her silver hair so she can skim the details of Rose’s chart. I shake my head. She presses her lips into a line, the fine wrinkles around them deepening. “Thought you might, given the request to scrub in.”

“She showed up at my office in Hartford. I felt …” I trail off. I’m not sure what I felt. Something unfamiliar and urgent. Unexpected. “I felt compelled to stay.”

Dr. Chopra nods in my periphery. “Some patients are like that. Reminding us why we chose our path. Maybe you might want to scrub in more often? We could always use the help.”

A smile teases the corners of my lips. “I thought you’d given up asking.”

“It only took me four years to wear you down. Now that I know it can be done, don’t think I’m going to stop.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you,” I say as I cross my arms and straighten my spine.

“Shame. I know it’s not as exciting as Mass General must have been, but we do still get some interesting surgical cases in the boonies. I had one tonight shortly before you came in. A patient of yours according to his records, actually. Belligerent prick, if you ask me. Cranmore? Cranburn?”

“Cranwell? You had Matt Cranwell in here?” I ask, and Dr. Chopra nods. “Yeah, I don’t think you’re far off with the belligerent prick assessment. What was he in for?”

“He had a handful of cocktail sticks in his eye.”

“He … what?” Dr. Chopra lifts a shoulder. My brow furrows as I turn to face her. “He wasn’t transported out to a level-one trauma center?”

“No. There was no salvaging the eye. Dr. Mitchell performed the surgery. Must have been an interesting story, but the delightful Mr. Cranwell wasn’t willing to share.” Dr. Chopra passes Rose’s chart back to me with a faint, weary smile. “You should go home and get some rest. When are you in next?”

“Thursday night,” I say absentmindedly as I stare down at Rose’s name on the chart.

“See you then,” Dr. Chopra replies, and then she disappears, leaving me on my own with my sleeping patient.

The one who smelled like piña colada. The one who didn’t call an ambulance despite her injury, choosing to break into my clinic instead. Who seemed surprised when I asked her if it was a motorcycle accident.

I head to where Rose’s clothes are folded on the vinyl chair next to her bed. Only her boots and her black leather jacket are left. Everything else was cut from her body. There’s a small black pouch in one pocket. Inside it are metal tools, some of them streaked with dried blood. Realizing they must be the tools she used to break into my clinic, I put them back. Her wallet is still in the inside jacket pocket, and I take it out next. I pull out her license, the one I skimmed for vital details when I was on the phone with the emergency dispatcher. The card is registered in the state of Texas, an address in Odessa. I look through the rest of her wallet but there’s not much to find, just a debit and credit card and twenty dollars in cash. Nothing that confirms or denies the twinge of intuition that creeps through my guts.

At least, not until I replace her wallet inside her jacket and my fingers graze another card, one that’s loose in the interior pocket.

Another driver’s license. One belonging to a man.

Matthew Cranwell.