It takes three hours to reach the hospital in San Jacinto—Julio knows about the hospital in San Bernadino, so we had to take a detour—and I think Alexis has died a total of seven times on the journey. Her pulse is barely there anymore, weak, irregular and thready, and I feel totally numb. A heavy silence reigns supreme inside the car as Zeth drives, and I try to forget where I am. To forget everything that’s happened since I woke up this morning.
It’s pitch black by the time we pull up outside the hospital, and just the sight of the place makes me burst into tears. The ambulance parked up out front and the lights blaring from every single window, promising help, promising rescue, is more than I can take. We got her here. Somehow she made it this far.
Zeth collects her from the backseat again, and we run inside. Michael stays with the car. Michael takes the car away. I don’t know what happens to Michael. All I care about is Alexis.
The nurse on duty at reception drops her pen when she sees us. We must look like hell, covered in blood and dust, carrying a half dead girl between us. I’m rattling off Lexi’s stats before the girl can even process what she’s seeing.
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Severe kidney damage, hemodynamically unstable, tachycardic and hypertensive. She needs to be booked into an OR now!”
The nurse responds quickly, sending out an emergency page for all available bodies; a crash team and two doctors arrive almost immediately, taking Alexis without so much as a backward glance at me and Zeth. The nurse sticks around, though. What’s happened to her? What’s my relationship to the patient? What treatment has she received? Allergies? End of life, do not resuscitate wishes? I answer everything through a daze of exhaustion and a level of adrenalin that now feels toxic.
After that it’s just Zeth and me. Alone. In a hospital waiting room.
“Sloane?”
I can’t force myself to look at him. Instead I burst into tears. I let him wrap his arms around me, and I bawl my eyes out for god knows how long, feeling weaker and weaker with each and every passing moment. The likelihood of Lexi making it is so slim that I can’t even calculate such low odds. And what happened back at the compound… Zeth killing Teo…
“Sloane, she’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“How can you say that?” I push him away, batting the tears out of my eyes. “How?”
Zeth is just as composed as he’s been throughout this whole nightmare day; he reaches out to me and sweeps my hair out of my face, shaking his head. “Because she’s your sister, angry girl. If she’s half as strong as you are, then she’s gonna be just fine.”
I can’t believe he thinks that. I stand up on shaky legs and start pacing, my arms wrapped around my body. “I hesitated. I took too long. She’s probably gonna die now, and if I’d acted quicker…” I pull in a deep breath, fighting against the tears. How many times have I told interns you can’t hesitate? How many times? And then the moment when I need to concentrate the most, I freeze. Lexi needed me and I froze. My limbs feel boneless, like I could collapse any second. Zeth comes and stands behind me, placing his arms around me as though he knows I need to be standing for this.
“You were brave. And you were fucking strong. You did what you had to do.” His voice is so deep, rumbling through his ribcage and vibrating into my back. I have to admit it to myself—I was terrified of him back in the compound when he attacked Teo so viciously. Absolutely terrified. But his words have been playing over and over in my head ever since I asked him if he had to do what he’d done, and sick as it may sound, I understand why he told me to work it out on my own.
In between freaking out, thinking that my sister was dead on the way here, I’ve run the scenario through my head over and over, time and time again. I’ve watched it play out a thousand times, and I’ve imagined every single outcome I can, too: Zeth not acting, and Teo shooting Michael; Zeth taking the time to try and wrestle the gun from the guy and getting shot himself in the process; Zeth attacking him in a million different ways, and each time the outcome is the same. Someone dies. I’m probably a terrible person, but I’ve come to the conclusion that he…he did the right thing. And by letting me decide that, to figure it out on my own, I know it’s the truth. A guilty man will plead innocent until he runs out of breath. That it was all an accident. That it was someone else. That he had no other choice. I wouldn’t have accepted Zeth telling me that he had to do it at the time. I would have just been afraid. And I still am afraid…just not afraid of him.
I carefully place my hands over his, folded on my stomach, and I let my head fall back against his chest. He’s got me. He’s got me now, and he had me back in Julio Perez’s kitchen, when I needed someone the most.