An Arrogant Black Belt Threatens a Rookie Nurse in a Rural ER — Unaware She Was a Navy SEAL Officer
Chapter 10
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Reese stripped her gown. Phelps caught her eye. "What's your real name?""Reese Donovan. That's the real name. The rank is what's complicated.""Mm." Phelps nodded slowly. "Bay One's still bleeding.""I know.""Kessler did the thoracotomy?""He didn't get to. The Navy showed up first. He's been on the phone for the last 40 minutes.""Then Bay One is dying.""I know," Reese said, and she walked out.The stab wound patient was alive, but not by much. Reese took one look at the monitor, ordered the ultrasound back, ran it across his chest herself, and saw exactly what she had expected to see: the knife had not nicked the subclavian artery; the knife was holding the subclavian artery the way a thumb holds a leak in a hose. Whoever had stabbed this man had known precisely where to stop the blade, had told him not to remove it, and had let him live, just barely, for a reason.Reese leaned down close to his ear. "Sir. Sir, can you hear me?"His eyes fluttered."I need you to tell me who you are. I need you to tell me who told you not to pull it out."His lips moved. She bent closer."Tell Dusty," he whispered. "Tell Dusty... they found her."The doors at the end of the corridor opened.Four men in civilian clothes walked in from the parking lot, carrying themselves the way men carry themselves when they have rifles under their coats. They were not Marsh; they were not Navy.The lead man was tall, mid-40s, clean-shaven. He wore a black rain jacket over a flannel shirt, his hands were in his pockets, and his right hand was not holding car keys. His three friends fanned out behind him in the muscle memory of men who had cleared rooms before. The lead man's eyes scanned the bays; his eyes found Reese. He smiled—the smile of a man who had been hunting for a long time and had just spotted the deer.Hannigan was in Trauma 2 with Vega. The crewmen were down the corridor. Phelps was scrubbing out. Vera was at the charge desk on the phone, her back to the door. Pam was 62 and unarmed.Reese counted the people in the room who could fight, and got to one: herself.Her hand drifted slowly toward the open drawer of the Bay 1 cart where a row of stainless steel instruments lay on a sterile blue field. She did not pick anything up; her hand rested on the edge of the drawer.The radio at the charge desk crackled. Marsh's voice came through, calm, clipped, and three minutes early:"Holloway General, Nighthawk 3-1, US Navy, declaring inbound. Two mics out. Request emergency landing."Pam reached for the radio without looking at it. The lead man in the rain jacket cocked his head just slightly, listening; his smile slipped one millimeter. He had not known about the chase bird.Reese let herself smile back at him for the first time. It was a very small smile; it was not friendly."Sir," she said in her smallest rookie nurse voice, "are you here for a patient?"