Run by emily_michele
Nick let out a strangled cry as he slammed the door shut behind him and locked the deadbolt. He waited for the thud of Frank’s shoulder against the door as he attempted to get in and continue the assault, but it never came. Instead, he heard the distant ding of the elevator as the doors opened and closed down the hall. He breathed a sigh of relief as he leaned his back against the door and sank down onto the tiled foyer floor. The tile was cool against his sweaty hands, and he fought the urge to lay down and press his hot face against it. He feared that once he was down, he wouldn’t get back up. He winced in pain as he drew in a deep breath and looked down at his abdomen. Blood seeped through his grey shirt and pooled in a fold in the cloth before soaking back through to his pants. The red stain grew larger by the second as Nick stared down at it, gulping back the bile that rose in his throat. He needed something- anything- to help stop the bleeding. With bated breath, he slunk across the floor in a half army crawl into the kitchen, his arms shaking violently as he struggled to hold his own weight. The thousands of push-ups he’d done over the years seemed futile as he leaned against the kitchen wall and stretched to grab and pull a dish towel off the handle of a cabinet drawer. In that fleeting moment, he was thankful for Annie. He tended to leave the dish towels in a heap on top of the counter by the sink while she always hung them neatly to dry. He’d never be able to reach the counter top in this condition.
Annie. He choked back a sob as he raised his shirt and winced as the fresh air stung his wounds, temporarily overshadowing a deeper ache that terrified him. Blood rushed out of his side and he hissed as he pressed the towel against it. A sharp pain seemed to shoot through his entire body. He needed Annie. Annie had been an emergency room doctor for years. She’d know exactly what to do. Yet, the thought of her seeing him like this-- weak, vulnerable, and hurt-- killed him. Yet, he didn’t want to die there in his kitchen floor, and Annie was his closest medical aid. He had to call her. His hand shook violently as he reached into his pocket and pulled his cell phone out. Red liquid streaked across the screen as he dialed his fiancé. She answered immediately. “Nick?!” she said frantically.
“Annie…” He breathed.
“Nick, what’s wrong?”
“I-- help--” he stammered. Nick could feel the blood draining from his face, and a wave of nausea washed over him as the room started to spin. “Annie, I love….”
“Nick?! Nick!!” Annie shrieked into the phone. She jumped out of the passenger side of the car and slammed the door shut, taking off for the stairs, as she had no intention of waiting for the elevator. She bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until she made it to the third floor and ran into the hallway. Her lungs burned as she struggled to catch her breath, but there was no slowing her down. She gulped when she saw the blood spatter across Nick’s door, but grabbed the knob anyway and pushed her way inside. The scene inside made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as she screamed. A large, bloody handprint was pressed across the doorframe when she turned to close the door behind her, and a bloody trail led into the kitchen. She immediately knew it was Nick’s blood, and she took off through the foyer and into the kitchen. It didn’t occur to her that whoever did this to Nick may still be around and she may be in danger, but she think for just a moment that this must have been how Nick felt when he found her in her bedroom back in January.
She gasped when she found her fiancé laying in the kitchen floor, blood rapidly pooling around his lifeless body. “Nick!” she shouted. “Nick!!” He didn’t answer, but she was relieved to see the slight rise and fall of his chest as she knelt down beside him. “Nick, what happened?” she whispered distraughtly, placing her hands on either side of his face. His skin was pale and clammy, and his eyelids fluttered ever so slightly, but he never roused. Annie grabbed the bloody cell phone in his hand and immediately jumped into action, dialing 911 and placing phone to her ear, and holding it in place with her shoulder as she got to work. She found the bloody dish towel splayed across his stomach, and gently moved his large, limp hand off of it so that she could take a look. Multiple stab wounds gushed dark red blood, and she immediately pressed both of her hands onto the soaked dish towel.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m at 907 Sunset Drive, condominium K. I have a thirty-two year old male with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen, currently unconscious, and losing large amounts of blood,” Annie rattled off the information as if she were the dispatcher himself.
“I’m sending an ambulance now, ma’am. Is the victim breathing?”
Annie watched Nick’s chest continue to rise and fall with each rattling breath, but his breaths were already slower and more shallow than they had been when she arrived just moments ago. “Shallow. Slow and shallow,” she answered solemnly.
“Do you know how to deliver rescue breaths?”
Annie gulped. “Yes,” she whispered. “I know how to give rescue breaths. I’m-- medically trained.”
“Good. Would you like me to stay on the line with you until help arrives?”
“No,” she answered hastily. “I-- I have work to do.”
“The ambulance should be there shortly.”
Annie dropped the phone and stared at the kitchen drawers that were just outside of her reach. Warm, sticky liquid seeped through her fingers as she continued to apply pressure to Nick’s wounds. She needed more towels. Quickly, she dove for the drawer, removing her hands from her fiance’s abdomen for just a moment as she grabbed more towels and pressed them down onto him. She prayed for a scream, a wince, anything from Nick to express that he was in pain. Not that she wanted him to be in pain, but his lack of response frightened her.. Tentatively, she took one hand away and reached for his neck, feeling for a carotid pulse. Thankfully, it was there, but it was weak-- too weak-- and erratic. Without a steady pulse under his cool, clammy skin, it was obvious that his heart wasn’t pumping blood efficiently to the rest of his body, evidenced by his ashen skin color. “Nick!” she hissed. “Stay with me, Nick.”
His breath was coming in short, agonal gasps now, and she realized it was time to start delivering those rescue breaths. She hesitated as she removed her hands from the towels over Nick’s stomach. Blood gushed onto the kitchen floor, but there was no point in trying to stop the bleeding if there was no oxygen in said blood. Swiftly, she tilted Nick’s head back to clear his airway and pinched his nose, covering his mouth with hers as she pushed her own air into his lungs, pausing briefly to check for the rising of his chest. She was satisfied with the rise and fall of his chest, so she delivered another breath, then another, then paused to check for a pulse.
“Los Angeles County EMS!” A man’s voice bellowed out into the hallway from the front door.
“In the kitchen!” Annie yelled back. “Down the hall and to your right!”
Two EMTs appeared in the kitchen and quickly went to work, asking Annie all the relevant questions as they came up. “How long has he been down?”
“Half an hour or less.” Annie started giving Nick chest compressions after she realized she could barely feel a pulse.
One of the emergency workers placed a bag-mask ventilator over Nick’s mouth and nose and began squeezing the bag as the other moved a stretcher beside Nick on the floor. Annie paused with her compressions long enough to help him gently roll Nick’s body onto the board,and resumed them just as quickly as she stopped. “Pulse-ox 75 percent.”
“We need to intubate!” Annie answered him.
“Let’s try the bag first,” the other man said calmly as the raised the stretcher. Annie climbed on top of Nick, straddling his hips so that she could keep giving him chest compressions as they rolled him to the ambulance.
“Call Cedars-Sinai and tell them we’re in route with an unstable stabbing victim,” one of the EMTs directed the driver.
“Pulse-ox 70 percent,” the other reported as he kept bagging.
“Switch places with me!” Annie demanded. “And get me an intubation tray!”
“Get you an intubation tray?”
“I’m a licensed emergency physician in Kentucky,” Annie answered hastily as she squeezed the ambu-bag.
“Kentucky?”
“Are you going to keep questioning me, or are you going to help me save this man’s life?” The man hesitated as he reached for an airway tray and handed it to her.
“Check for a pulse,” she demanded.
“Faint, but still there.”
“Do you have any epi?” she asked as she grabbed a flashlight to visualize Nick’s vocal cords and inserted the tube into his throat.
“Yes, but he still has a pulse, ma’am.”
“I’m aware of the protocols. Keep giving compressions,” she answered curtly. She looked down at Nick’s lifeless body and prayed as the EMT completed another cycle of CPR. “Pulse?” she asked meekly.
He placed two fingers on Nick’s carotid artery and paused for much longer than Annie felt was comfortable. “Get the epi ready,” he instructed his partner. “Call the medical center and tell them we have a code blue!”
Chapter End Notes:
If I don't go into labor (and that's a big "if"), I plan to get another update up relatively soon. Don't hate me for this chapter. *hides*
