Chapter 59: Chapter 60 Part Eighteen‘Family’

Family Richard It feels unreal. It can’t possibly be real. The mind rejects such things. This isn’t reality. It is the stuff of nightmares.

The awful sight of James as the bullet impacts. His body jerking and jolting as he takes the shot intended for Charlotte. The agony and the shock when he cries out as he falls, unconscious, to lie in a pool of his own blood; a pool that spreads and grows, fed by the spurt of red where Corby’s bullet speared into his flesh.

Michael, gasping for breath, his blond hair dark with sweat, and eyes opaque with shock from the failure of his desperate attempt to bring Corby down before he could fire the shot.

And Charlotte, howling in horror and disbelief, on hands and knees, covered in blood, James’ blood, as she clutches and scrapes at his body.

Is he dead?

No….

The blood is pumping….

I have never seen Charlotte in anything like this condition. Always before, no matter how dire the situation, she has handled it. More than handled it. She has risen above and been the victor.

But right now, utterly panic-stricken, she is completely out of control.

In the time I have known her she has faced down terror, assault, rape, possible murder charges, and never has she backed down. But with the fall of her beloved Master, she has all but lost her sanity.

Reality clicks back and time moves again.

Snatching for my phone, I call the emergency services….

Michael strides across the room. “Charlotte don’t fall apart now! This is not the time.”

She pays him no heed, shrieking denial, screaming over James, spattering herself in even more of his blood where it spurts from the wound in his leg.

Michael brings his palm across her face, and it’s no love-tap. He slaps her, hard, jolting her back to the real world. “He’s just taken a bullet for you. An artery’s been cut. If we don’t stop the bleeding, he’s got minutes.” She stares at him, the white of her eyes highlighted against her blood-stained face.

The voice on the end of my phone comes through, “Fire, police or medi….?”

“Medical emergency!” I snap. As I rattle off the details to the operator, Michael continues to calm Charlotte. “Through everything that’s happened, you’ve kept your head. Don’t lose it now. Keep thinking straight, for him.”

And before my eyes, she freezes over. Devoid of expression or tone, she says, “What do I have to do?”

Michael holds her hand against a pressure point on James’ thigh. “Press there, hard, and keep pressing.” Then to me, “We need medical help fast.”

“There’s an air ambulance on its way.…”

Charlotte, her face sheened with sweat, is taking instruction from Michael, pressing above James’

wound, slowing the blood flow. All the while I keep talking, first to the operator who answered my call, then as I am passed across to the crew on the ambulance.

Michael checks James’ pulse. I see him swearing under his breath, his eyes opaque with anxiety. He swings to me. “Richard. How long for that ambulance?”

“Five minutes. I’m talking with the medics on board. Talk to me. They’ve got questions. I’ll relay them.”

“Shoot…”

“They’re asking what medical training you have?”

“I’m a first-aider for a fitness centre. I’m not trained for this….”

Could have fooled me….

He strips off his shirt, tearing it into rags and making a pad of the fabric. He speaks to Charlotte. “When I say, lift your hand. I’ll push this in there, and then press down again hard.”

“What is it I’m doing?” she asks.

“Blocking the flow of blood to the wound, from the side nearest his heart. One, two, three… now!”

She lifts her hand and he pushes the pad into place. “Press again, now. As hard as you can.”

Almost before the movement is complete, he is looking around the room, jabbing instructions at Elizabeth. “That chair. Yes, that one… bring it over.”

He lifts James’ feet, placing them on the chair.

“Almost there,” comes a voice over my phone.

A silence falls on the room, broken only by Charlotte’s sob-ridden words.

“Don’t let him die….”

Michael touches her face. “He’s my friend too.”

At the chop chopping of rotor blades, I dash out. The medics exit the ambulance at a run.

“In here,” I yell.

The medics make straight for James, one stopping to look at the blood-soaked Charlotte, but she simply shakes her head.

“It’s not her blood,” explains Michael, voice curt.

One medic fits face-mask and breathing equipment. Another checks pulse and vital signs.

The third attends to the wound, slicing open the clothing. As he takes a scalpel from his case. Michael pulls Charlotte to himself, spinning her and pressing her face into his chest. She struggles and screams but he refuses to let her see as the medic slices into James flesh, snapping a clip over the severed artery.

James’ shirt is stripped away, pads fixed to his skin. A monitor beeps quickly but irregularly with his heartbeat. Then, as the medics move to lift him on the stretcher, the tone stutters then flatlines, morphing to a continuous whine Charlotte screams again, the white-faced Michael hanging onto her as she wails and struggles.

One of the medics leans forward over James' chest, his weight on the heels of his hands as he almost bounces the rhythm to try to restart his heart. The line remains flat and he tries again, trying to massage James heart back to life. Still, it fails.

Another medic snatches up electrodes, placing them on chest and ribs. The third fiddles with the controls of a defibrillator unit. There is a rising whine, then a steady tone.

“I’m clear,” yells the one with the electrodes.

The others stand back. “I’m clear.”

“I’m clear.”

James body flips and jerks. All eyes turn to the monitor, but the line remains flat. Again, the medic massages the chest.

“Again.”

Once more James jerks, but the line remains steadily flat.

“Again.”

Charlotte has fallen silent, trembling against Michael, her face pressed to his chest.

“Who’s the next of kin?” asks the medic in charge.

Michael glances down at Charlotte, then, “I am.”

“Epinephrine?” asks the medic. “You know what that means?”

“Yes, adrenaline to kick-start the heart.”

“It’s risky. What do you want me to do?”

“Riskier than not having a heart-beat? Do it.”

Charlotte is sobbing quietly. And so, I now realise is Elizabeth. Like Michael, I hold her close while, as one medic administers the drug to James’ uninjured thigh, another continues to massage his chest….

And with a ping, the trace kicks back into life with a steady pulsing rhythm.

Charlotte moans and I think her knees give. Michael catches hold of her.

James is still unconscious, but at least he has a heartbeat.

“Where are you taking him?”

“City Central. They have the specialist unit there. Once he’s been treated and stabilised, they’ll decide from there.”

As they stretcher James into the helicopter, Charlotte comes to life again. “I want to come.”

“Can she?” asks Michael.

“I thought you were next-of-kin?”

“Her too. Do you have room for two in there?”

“Get in. You have to sit still and quiet.”

*****