“Where are you?” I whispered, pulling out my phone again, but all the lines were busy.
“Sorry, ma’am, no reporters.” A police officer pushed me back.
“I’m not a reporter,” I said, trying to think quickly. “I’m a doctor. I was close by and rushed over when I heard the news.” I patted the side of me. “Shit, my bag. I’m with Dr. Callahan. Do you know where he is?”
“I got no idea, but thank God more of you are here.” He lifted the tape for me to come under. “Hey, Charlie, we got a doc!”
Shit! He nodded me over to the man on the EMT wheeling over a cop to me. Fake it.
“What have we got?” I asked, rushing over to the man’s side.
“GSW to in hip.”
Suck it up, you little pussy-bitch! I though, glancing at the man breathing heavily and shaking, though he just seemed to be in shook. “Keep both his legs stable, he’ll make it to the hospital. Do you have gabapentin?”
“No. Is he about to have a heart attack?” he asked, glancing down at him.
I didn’t fucking know. He was breathing heavily and gabapentin was the only thing I could fucking think of to help his weak nerves.
“Yes, get him to Sharon Med, Boston is filling up fast!” an older woman said, dressed in scrubs and a mask over her mouth, her brown eyes familiar as she glared at me. “Doctor, a little help here!” she yelled at me, rising to pour water over a firefighter’s neck, his brown-gray hair covered in ash as he coughed down.
“You’re a Callahan not a doctor. I’ve seen your face on the Internet.” She frowned, packing something in the man’s coat. “This smells like you all’s doing—”
“Ouch…” the man grumbled and she bared her teeth at him.
“All? You mean more than one? Is Wyatt Callahan here? Where?”
She nodded, leaving the firefighter and reaching into her own truck, pulling out a med bag. “He’s going to need this and you.” She pulled back my jacket, seeing the wound. “The bullet is still in. You’re going to need this.” She pulled off the paper towel, putting a pad on the wound and it burned before freezing. “Ambulance six.” She nodded toward one of the other ambulances across the street. I didn’t even wait, gripping onto the bag, and rushed.
I ignored the other calls until I saw him, dressed in scrubs, trying to feed a tube down some man’s throat.
“Wyatt!”
His head snapped up and he looked at me, confused. “Ivy, what the hell are you doing over here? Get back across the tape!”
“Where the hell is the police? We can’t have people just running around.” The female EMT grabbed me, but I pulled back.
“La famiglia viene prima di tutto,” I said the line I’d seen written on one of the photos in Giovanni’s shop.
“Seriously, ma’am.”
“Let her go.” Wyatt was already up, taking off his gloves. “He’s gone.”
“You can’t just g—”
“I can. I have. The patient is dead. There are a dozen more I need to see, so unless you’ve gone to medical school in the last five minutes move.” He snapped at her, jumping out of the van and walking with me as I did my best not to run back across the street. “What happened?”
“Not here,” I said gently, trying to make sure no one was looking at me.
“HELP, PLEASE!” A man ran toward us, but I stood between him and Wyatt. “Ambulance seven, he’s injured.”
I didn’t care about anyone else. I just needed to get him to the house.
Thankfully to the side, the burning house began to collapse, drawing the attention of everyone, including the reporters. It felt like hours had passed since I’d last touched the door.
“Ivy Callahan,” I said, feeling the doorknob vibrate once before unlocking.
“What is going on? Where is he?” he asked, but I just closed the door and locked down the house again.
I took a deep breath before yelling, “ETHAN!” I ran back into the living room, seeing the pool of blood now beside him, the body slumped over. “ETHAN!” I dropped the bag I’d forgotten I was holding, kneeling in his blood, my hands shaking as I touched him. He was so pale…so very pale.
“Ethan…look, I got him. I got Wyatt,” I whispered, touching him. “Ethan, open your eyes, come on. WYATT, HELP HIM!”
Flinching first before moving his hands, he moved far too slowly toward Ethan’s neck, so I grabbed them and put them to his pulse.
“He’s not dead. He’s not, so fucking save him instead of everyone else.”
He took a deep breath thankfully, before rolling him over to see the gunshot wound. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but if we get him to the hospital—”
“No hospital.”
“Have you lost your mind? He is barely hanging on!”
“THEN FIX HIM! SAVE HIM!” I screamed. He wasn’t doing anything I couldn’t do! “Did you forget who you are? Who he is? He is a Callahan! You are both Callahans. How bad will it look if he goes out like this barely hanging on? He knew you’d be out there. He told me to find you. So I did. Shot…and…ugh…” I cried out, reaching over to place my hand on his wound. I bit back the pain.
“Ivy—”
“Shot, bleeding, in pain, and having a miscarriage, I found you. So save him, please…please, Wyatt, please. Save him, please,” I cried, putting my head on Ethan’s chest. Everything hurt and I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want to think it. How could I tell Ethan when he was in that state when I hadn’t even told him I was pregnant to begin with?
“Get off him, Ivy,” Wyatt said and when he did, he started to rip Ethan’s shirt, exposing his bare abs and chest. “Are you strong enough to move?”
“What do you need me to do?” I wiped my face and nose.
“Dump out what is left in the med kit,” he said, on his knees, pressing around Ethan’s wound. “Hopefully there is a scalp—”
He paused, hearing the mountain of shit that poured out on the ground.
“What do you need?”
“Everything,” he muttered, somewhat amazed. “First the gloves. You put on a pair.”
I handed them to him. But he didn’t put them on, instead reaching for something else. “Pour the antiseptic, the one in the brown bottle, over his wound first then the rest on his stomach. He’s going to need blood, and since that’s the one thing this bag doesn’t have, I have no other choice.”
He muttered, tying a tourniquet over his own left arm. He tore the small alcohol pad on his arm before sticking the needle and tube into his vein, doing the same to Ethan. “You’re going to live and I’m going to hold this shit over you for the rest of your life,” Wyatt muttered, pinching the tube for a moment before blood began to flow. “Wyatt, grow up. Wyatt, remember who you are. My reply to any of your shitty one-liners will now be, do you remember that time when I became your human blood bag while I operated on you?”