Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“You.” Jill glanced at Timothy, who hovered at the door. “Get inside the driver’s seat in case we need to move her. Shut the doors so no one can see if they go by.”
“On it.” Timothy slammed the doors shut and, a second later, was sliding into the front seat while Jill pulled a plastic cover from off a long, thick needle. She leaned down, biting the inside of her cheek as she felt for a vein in Aria’s wrist. When she found one she could use, she pushed the needle through, then taped it into place.
“Here,” Dani said in a rush, passing her the bag of blood.
Jill pulled the cap off, attached the wire, then hooked it on a peg that jutted out up high on the van’s wall.
Red glided down the tube and into Aria’s arm, and Jill quickly added another bag, one that was filled with a clear solution; then she fumbled around to find something in another box. She produced another needle, which she injected into some nub down near the IV by Aria’s wrist as she mumbled, “Painkiller,” under her breath, keeping me apprised of what she was doing.
Then she ordered, “Switch places with me.”
I kept pressure on Aria’s abdomen, leaning down low as I swung over the stretcher at her legs to get to the other side.
Jill scooted around her front, coming to rest on her knees on Aria’s injured side.
She nudged my hands away and peeled back the sopping fabric.
“Oh God,” she wheezed beneath her breath, blinking one long blink before she swallowed hard and leaned forward so she could inspect it.
It was still gaping. Flayed open wide. But it looked like maybe it’d begun to clot. Like maybe the singe of the tendril had cauterized it in some way. I almost laughed at the thought that any of this bullshit could be counted as a benefit.
“It’s deep,” Jill muttered as she pulled it apart and prodded inside with a gloved finger. It was like she could hear the shouts of questions that whirred through my mind, like she thought I deserved to know the answer.
The outcome.
“It hit the small bowel.”
“Can you repair it?” I begged, back to hanging on to Aria’s limp hand. My other arm was curled up around her head so that I could hold her the best that I could.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. Dread pooled in her being, her breaths shallow and dragging with her concession. “I’m not a surgeon. She needs to be in an emergency OR.”
“But there’s a reason you’re here,” I grated through the clench of my jaw. “A reason you were led here. You wouldn’t have set all this up if you didn’t understand it. You know what’s going to happen to her if she shows up there like this. You can do this. You have to do this.”
Grooves cut deep into her forehead, and she nodded like she was trying to reassure herself; then she started tossing out instructions to Dani and me, asking for different supplies, half of them things neither of us had heard of.
“You, find her pulse in her neck. Watch the clock on the wall across from you, and every thirty seconds, I want you to tell me how many beats, okay?”
Dani bobbed her head, and she came forward, her fingers searching for Aria’s pulse. Her pale gaze met mine when she found it, though there was a foreboding in it.
A dread seeded so deep we were drowning in it.
Sweat drenching her brow, Jill moved quickly.
Fear rolled and banged against the metal walls of the van.
A pressing and pulsing slammed into me with every errant beat.
So thick in the enclosed space that it was difficult for any of us to move in it.
Timothy remained completely quiet in the front, though I could feel the weight of his gaze as he kept peering through the rearview mirror at the commotion happening in the back.
Nausea convulsed in my gut as I watched Jill using a curved needle she held in some kind of metal tongs to sew up Aria’s insides, the fingers of both hands deep in the wound.
Not because I was squeamish at the sight of blood, but because my entire fucking existence couldn’t stomach the thought of Aria not being in it.
Stay with me. Stay with me. We need you. This world needs you. You can’t give up. Your purpose is too great for that. Do you feel it, Aria? It calling for you? I silently pleaded as I kept hold of her.
The numbers Dani muttered every thirty seconds became a mark that promised Aria was still alive.
Though I knew she was. I could feel her, even though she was distant and drifting with each passing second.
Jill kept working, carefully yet efficiently placing stitch after stitch. Tying up all the meaty tissue that was exposed, then pulling the skin together to make a jagged, mangled seam.