Chapter 4 - THE PATIENT WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE
Three days later, I returned to St. Catherine.
The emergency department was overcrowded.
Every bed was occupied.
Ambulances waited outside.
And the charge nurse looked as though she hadn't slept since Christmas.
“Emma,” she said, “we need you in trauma three.”
I pulled on gloves.
“What happened?”
“Male. Forty-six. Multiple injuries. Possible internal bleeding.”
I entered the room.
The patient lay unconscious.
His face was swollen.
His shirt had been cut away.
A deep bruise spread across his ribs.
Dr. Nathan Ellis stood beside the bed.
“Emma, get another IV line.”
I moved immediately.
The man's pulse was weak.
His breathing was shallow.
We stabilized him enough for imaging.
Then I noticed something.
A small tattoo beneath his collarbone.
A black compass surrounded by four stars.
I had seen that symbol before.
Two nights earlier.
On the wrist of the man standing outside my apartment.
My hands froze.
“Emma?” Dr. Ellis asked.
I looked up.
“Nothing.”
But it wasn't nothing.
The patient regained consciousness twenty minutes later.
His eyes opened.
He looked around the room.
Then grabbed my wrist.
“Where am I?”
“St. Catherine Medical Center.”
His expression changed.
He pulled me closer.
“Don't tell them I'm here.”
I stared.
“Tell who?”
His breathing quickened.
“The people who did this.”
I tried to calm him.
“Sir, you're safe.”
He shook his head violently.
“No.”
May you like
Then he whispered something that made my blood run cold.
“Moretti's going to die.”
