Shaun listened to her mother for a few more minutes, most of the conversation happening on Fatima’s side.
“Mom, I have to get back to work. Give Fitzy a kiss for me.”
Fatima laughed. “Only if I want my throat cut. That cat lives for you alone.”
Shaun smiled as she thought of her giant ornery orange tabby.
“Thanks for taking him for me.” Shaun blinked away tears as a wave of homesickness hit her. “Love you both.”
“Love you too,” Fatima said before hanging up.
Shaun had barely tucked her phone away when the door flung open. She jumped and turned as it banged into the wall.
“Doctor Patterson, oh thank goodness.” A harassed looking Janet, an American nurse, rushed into the break room. Her blond hair, which had been in a tight ponytail that morning, was now frizzing around her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed from fatigue. She’d only been in the camp for a few weeks, but she would get used to the long brutal hours. Shaun was on her fourth month.
Shaun straightened her shoulders, shaking off her exhaustion and putting on her professional face. “What do you need?”
“Asthma attack in emergency, bed four. 10-year-old male presenting with shallow breathing, coughing and wheezing. He’s not getting enough oxygen. He’s starting to turn blue.”
Shaun strode out of the room, Janet running to keep up with her.
“How long has the attack been going on for?” Shaun asked.
“It started about an hour before he arrived, according to his mother. It’s been 20 minutes since he was first examined.”
“Where is Doctor Zelensky?” One of the local doctors was supposed to be covering emergency.
Janet shrugged and pressed her arm against a door, flipping it open so they could walk through. “Yolanda thinks he went to do a house call. Someone who can’t be moved.”
“Okay,” Shaun said. “I’ll have a quick look, but we may have to intubate. Is the mother calm?”
“No.” Janet shook her head. “Almost as hysterical as I felt when I couldn’t find you.”
Shaun smiled grimly. “I’ll need you to get her out of the exam room and have someone join me for the procedure. Danilo is on desk, so send him in. The patient may need to be held, depending on his level of alertness.”
It turned out the child was no longer responsive when they arrived. Janet rushed the mother out of the room and Danilo, one of the local nurses, stayed to help. Shaun carefully intubated the boy and then gradually filled his lungs with air, essentially breathing for him through a plastic tube.
“Pulse returning to normal,” Danilo said from where he stood across from her.
She nodded and began to relax. The boy would live. His mother should move him out of the city. Too much dust and debris floating in the air from the bombings. This wasn’t the only case of acute and severe asthma Shaun had seen. In fact, it was becoming more and more common for people to wander in complaining of breathing problems, whether they were asthmatic or not.
“Please get a box of the Prednisone,” she told Danilo. “I’ll watch him for a few minutes, then we can invite his mom to come back in and show her how to administer the steroid.”
He nodded and left while Shaun turned back to the table. Scared blue eyes looked up at her, surprisingly sharp considering the ordeal he'd gone through. He must be utterly exhausted. She smiled big for him, forcing her lips to stretch into a grin. Even if she wasn’t feeling it on the inside, she would pretend for his sake. He deserved a smile until he could see his mom again.
“You’re doing great… kiddo,” she said in stumbling Ukrainian, realizing she had no idea what his name was. Usually the nurse told her when giving her a rundown of the symptoms. They'd forgotten in their rush to get him breathing again.
The boy blinked up at her.
She continued to smile and dropped her hand to squeeze his shoulder.
Then his eyes moved past her to settle on something behind her.
Shaun turned her head slowly, intuition lifting the hairs on her neck, telling her to drop to the ground, to run, to scream. Something in the child’s expression told Shaun that there was a threat standing right behind her.
Sure enough, when she turned her head, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. A loud gasp flew from her lips. Her eyes followed the length of the gun to the gloved hand holding it. A man’s hand, a leather glove. Pale skin, tattoos between the edge of his glove and the cuff of his leather jacket. They reappeared from beneath the collar of his shirt and wound their way up his neck. They were both barbaric and beautiful, completely out of place in the hospital.
The man had dark hair, cut close to his scalp. He wore sunglasses so she couldn’t see his eyes, but the set of his face told her everything. Prominent cheekbones, sharp wide jawline, and thin, cruel lips with a scar slashing right through the middle, as though someone had tried to cut his mouth.
She was going to die.
She closed her eyes, deciding to take a moment to come to peace with her destiny. She was okay with dying, even expected it to some extent, given the places she chose to work, but she was sad about the child. Wished she could shield him, from both the danger of a gunman in the hospital and the trauma of seeing her killed.
Pain burst through her cheek and her eyes flew open, her hand automatically coming up to touch her face where he hit her with the gun. She winced. It hurt, but nothing was broken and there was no blood. Tears filled her eyes and she stared at the man who was threatening her. The gun was still trained on her, the sunglasses staring blankly down at her. He was tall. So was Shaun, at almost six feet, she could stand toe to toe with most men. Not this this guy; he was three or four inches taller.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice shaky.
He jerked his head to the door. Her eyes followed, and he nodded, waving the gun, indicating she should walk out ahead of him. Comprehension hit and she shook her head. “No,” she said, stepping back. She wouldn’t leave with him. She wasn’t that stupid.
He stiffened, then shifted his arm, his shoulder flexing beneath the supple leather of his coat. He trained the gun on the bed, on the boy. Shaun moved to stand between the child and the gun. He’d have to shoot her to get to the boy. He lowered the gun a few inches and waved it at the door again.
What was he trying to say, and why didn’t he just tell her what he wanted?
He took a threatening step toward her and impatiently reached up to drag the sunglasses off his face. She stared, her heart pounding in terror. Without them, he should look more human, but he didn’t. His eyes were a startling deep blue, so dark they looked almost black, like the bottom of a frozen lake. He shoved his sunglasses in his jacket pocket and took hold of her arm in a painful grip. He gave her a shake and waved the gun, first at the boy, then back toward the door.
“You want me to go with you?” she asked breathlessly.
His eyes seemed to darken and he nodded, jerking his head again. She really didn’t want to leave the room with him, but she couldn’t allow him to shoot the child either. Maybe if she went with him, she could reason with him once they were away from other people.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Let’s go.”
“I couldn’t find the prednisone, but we have…” Danilo walked into the room holding a bottle in his hand. When he caught sight of the man and the gun he stopped, his back against the door as it swung shut behind him. “Doctor Patterson?”