Warning

Noon rolled around faster than I had anticipated and by the time I had wandered into the cafeteria and gotten my chicken salad sandwich and fruit salad, I was slightly nervous for the meeting. Neal, Sidney. Sidney, Neal. The two of them here at once, together—it made me sick. I stabbed a piece of cantaloupe anxiously and took a bite, watching the doors.

Neal came in first, walking into the cafeteria in those dark navy blue scrubs with the hair and the smile and those stupid, stupid blue eyes. He smiled at me as soon as he saw me and I returned the grin nervously. Because as soon as he walked in, Sidney followed looking like—looking like himself, giving me that freaking look that made me forget how to function.

“Dr. Hansan.” Sidney said to Neal as soon as they both got to my table.

“Sidney.” He replied and I bit my lip. The two of them both looked at me and I put my fork down.

“I like you.” I said to Neal before turning to Sidney. “And I like you.” I said with a small smile. “And I think I owe it to myself to take my time and explore my options.”

“Explore your options?” Neal echoed and I nodded with a smile.

“Yes. Back in the day, they called it dating.” I replied, taking a bite of watermelon.

“You want to date the both of us?” Sidney asked and I just stared up at the two of them, my expression light and happy.

“Yes. And I can understand if you’re not up for it. But I really, really hope you are.” I said and Sidney turned to Neal.

“Are you backing out?” he asked and Neal just smiled.

“I don’t think so. Are you?” he questioned and Sidney looked at me.

“No. What are you doing tonight, Violet?” He asked and I grinned. So it had begun.

“I don’t know, Sidney.” I said lightly, enjoying the experience that had gotten off to a great start. I was going to date. I was going to be that girl that dressed up and shaved her legs and put on makeup for a boy and free food. I was going to be a dater.

“Oh, Violet is busy tonight.” Neal answered before Sid got a chance to say anything. He turned to face Neal with a confused, yet competitive look.

“Really.” The reply was formed more of a statement than a question.

While the two of them were talking, I peered behind them and noticed Kat and the rest of the residents sitting at our usual lunch table. Katarina had her fork in her mouth and was leaning back in her chair, watching the gathering. In the center of the table was a pile of dollar bills, and in Marks hand was another five that he quickly threw in. I glared at her and she smiled, taking another bite of her salad. My attention focused back on Neal and Sidney.

“Really. Violet is scrubbing in on a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage.” Neal said with a smug smile and Sid just nodded, looking at me. Crap. He was using surgeries to win me over. Kat was right, he did have that advantage. I looked over at Sidney with an apologetic expression.

“I’m sorry. I’m still a resident—I have a lot to learn.” I said and he smiled.

“So do I, apparently. It’s okay, Violet. I’ll see you later today.” He said, turning around and leaving. Neal looked completely pleased with himself and I narrowed my eyes.

“That wasn’t fair.” I said and he just laughed, walking away from my table too.

I finished lunch with the rest of the residents before being paged down the pit along with Kat. The paramedics rolled in a young man in his twenties with a heavy chest wound. A woman followed them with blood all over her jacket and her own hand pressed against her mouth to keep from screaming or just simply freaking out. That’s when I noticed that one of the paramedics wasn’t rolling out the man. His hand was inside the patient, in the chest cavity.

“What do we have?” Kat asked, taking the chart from the paramedic and eyeing the paramedic. “Why is his hand inside the patient?”

“Cameron Donaldson, 28, large chest wound with heavy arterial bleeding. This is Rob, I told him not to do it—“ the paramedic began but Rob interrupted them.

“He was bleeding out and nothing else would stop it except my hand. I tried to stuff it with gauze but—“

Kat nodded, observing the wound. “Do not move your hand. It’s on a bleeder. Will somebody page Savard? And book OR 3.” she yelled above the noise of the pit and a nurse nodded, running over to the phone.

He came down in ten minutes, pressing a stethoscope down on the patient as we scrambled around him trying to attend to the more superficial injuries like the cuts and bruises that littered his body. “I have to do an aortic repair. Lets go to the OR now—is it booked?” he asked and Kat nodded. “Alright, Anderson, Swenn—get him up there and scrub in. I need all hands on deck.” The two of us nodded and snapped off our gloves, rolling him into the elevator and down to the OR with the paramedic looking down at his hand nervously.

“You did the right thing.” Katarina said and he nodded.

“It’s my second week—talk about on the job training.” He said with a short, dry laugh as the elevator doors opened and the scrub nurses took him into the OR to get prepped and put under. Kat and I walked to the scrub room, with Dr. Savard walking in moments later. We tied on our scrub caps and grabbed the surgical soap.

“Lauder is down talking to the friend and the girlfriend and trying to find out what happened. It’s a massive wound for a GSW. “ Savard said, scrubbing down and looking out into the window as the patient was being draped. Kat and I just nodded, drying off our hands and grabbing masks before stepping into the OR. A scrub nurse came over and pulled my surgical gown on over my scrubs and pulled on my gloves. I tied the mask and walked over by the paramedic. He had been given a surgical gown as well, a mask pulled over his face while he stood there with his hand inside the cavity of the patient. He was nervous and jittery, as if the thought of his fingers pressing on Mr. Donaldsons organs was going to make him explode.

Savard wandered over to the table and reached his gloved hand out to the scrub nurse. “Ten blade.” He said and the metal instrument was placed in his palm. Kat was leaning forward, staring at the patients hand when Savard looked up at her.

“Dr. Swenn, is cardiothoracics not interesting enough for you?” he asked and Kat pointed at the patients head.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Savard, but the patient has a wound on the side of his head that looks like severe head trauma.” She observed and he leaned over to look and see where she had been pointing. He sighed and nodded over to another OR attendant.

“Could you page Dr. Hansan and in the mean time, lets worry about repairing his aorta and getting that mans hand out of my patient.” He said and we all nodded. In the blink of an eye, the silver blade was positioned on the patients skin and Savard looked over at the paramedic. “Alright Rob, when I cut, I’m going to need you to lift your hand out. Can you do that?” he asked and the paramedic nodded. “Okay, on the count of three. One, two, thr—“

“Dr. Savard!” Mark’s heavy voice filled the operating room and the blade was pulled away from the skin, with Jackson Savard looking up at Mark; his expression clearly annoyed.

“I’m in the middle of surgery, Lauder.” He said, his tone aggravated. But Mark didn’t waver, he just stared at Savard with that mask held up to his face, his eyes moving between the patient and the paramedic and Savard.

“You really want to talk to me, sir.” He said and Savard handed the blade back to the scrub nurse, walking over to speak to Mark. Kat and I watched them intently, with Savard looking back at the patient to the paramedic and shaking his head.

“Rob, what do you feel inside the cavity?” Savard asked, his voice soft and low. Rob looked back at him with confusion, looking down at the patient briefly.

“I’m not sure.” He answered back and I looked at Kat.

“Dr. Savard, what’s going on? “ I asked, keeping my own voice level and calm. Savard ignored my question, still focused on the paramedic.

“Do you feel anything hard, maybe like metal?” he asked again and Rob’s eyes grew wide.

“Oh god.” He said, suddenly beginning to shake. Savard reached both his hands out, trying to settle him down.

“It’s okay, Rob. I’m going to need you to be very still. Don’t move your hands.” Savard instructed easily, but the paramedic was still nervous. I placed my gloved hand over his surgical sleeve.

“It’s okay, Rob.” I said, trying to look at him. “It’s alright.” Neither Kat nor myself had any idea what was happening, we had been too busy trying to keep the patient alive to pay attention to whatever Mark had been trying to discover about the incident. All we knew was that he had been shot. Rob seemed to know something that we didn’t, as if he put together the pieces of a puzzle.

“No, no. I’m 23 years old. No. I’m just going to pull out my hand. Really fast.” He said with a shaky voice and I knitted my brows together in confusion.

“You can’t, he’ll bleed out to death.” I said calmly but he wouldn’t listen.

“No, no—no. It has to be over. I have to—“ and in a second, his hand was out and my hand was in, touching whatever he had been touching as the paramedic fled out of the operating room. I looked back up to Savard and Mark, who were all watching me with an intense look. Neal walked into the OR then, watching me as I had my hand in the chest cavity of the patient.

“Dr. Savard. What is going on?” I asked again, my voice heavier and more stern.

“Do not move your hand, Dr. Anderson. “ he replied and I swallowed hard, looking down at my hand to Savard.

“You’re holding live ammunition.”