ver stop. The sounds of women screaming was all around me. I took several deep breaths, willing my body to remain calm. “Stay down!”
There it was. A brief reprieve. Silence, along with the distant metal-on-metal sound of a gun being reloaded, a sound I’d grown familiar with during my time in Panama. Then I heard it, another sound.
Gurgling.
My eyes darted around, first to the left where the bachelorettes seemed shaken but physically safe. With a sickening feeling I looked to my right and found Rocky curled into a ball and breathing too fast.
“Rocky,” I whispered. “Breath slowly or you’ll pass out. In with me and out like me,” I told her until her breathing matched my own. Panic attack but otherwise okay.
I ignored the cries and whimpers behind me as bullets continued to fly and my gaze landed on Jana. Her long golden blonde hair was spread out on the floor but the rise and fall of her chest was off.
“Jana!” I crawled as quickly as I could without rising more than a few inches from the floor while the bullets continued to spray the shop, ruining everything in sight. “Jana, say something!”
“I…” that was it other than more gurgling sounds and my chest squeezed so tight I had to take a minute. Thankfully the bullets stopped and tires peeled away.
There was a long moment of silence before someone yelled. “Oh my God! What the fuck?” I didn’t know who said that, only that her thoughts echoed pretty much everyone inside the Rainbow Canvas.
Jana coughed and that’s when I saw it. The blood spurt out of her neck. It wasn’t a good sign and in that moment I’d never been so grateful to my overbearing parents who insisted I go pre-med at Columbia, or for the time I spent working as an EMT in Panama and then in New York. It all came back to me as I watched Jana bleeding out at my knees. “Okay Jana save your energy. When I ask you a question, squeeze my hand. Once for yes and twice for no. Okay?”
One squeeze. Two.
“Perfect. Vision blurry?”
Two squeezes. No.
“Nausea?”
Another no.
“Pain?” She squeezed my hand as hard as she could and I had to blink back tears and move into action.
“Rocky, I need you to call 911.” I issued orders while I removed my white tank top and applied pressure to Jana’s neck while my other hand took her pulse at the wrist. “Tell them a pregnant woman, approximately twenty five weeks with a nicked artery. Shooter is off-site,” I told her, suddenly back in New York stitching up wounds from knife fights and pimps with heavy fists, abused children and women. The worst of the worst and it had been my job to stitch them up just enough so they could go back out there and wreak more havoc.
I kept pressure on Jana’s neck. “Just breath slowly, we need you calm so the baby is calm, okay? She will follow your lead Jana. She will.” Her green eyes were still lucid, staring up at me afraid and trusting.
“Holy shit, Moon, who the hell are you?” Rocky looked up with wide, terrified eyes.
“Breathe, Rocky. I’m just me, good in an emergency.” I’d had plenty of training and I knew I was capable, despite what people saw when they looked at me in my colorful flowing fabrics, bangles and fascination with all things non-traditional. “Someone open the door for the emergency workers.”
“Got it,” Rocky said, walking hesitantly to the door, gaze darting out the big broken window every other second until she was surrounded by police, fire and paramedics.
They swarmed my small shop but I couldn’t focus on them and I couldn’t answer their questions. Not now. Not with Jana rapidly losing blood. “Ma’am, please.”
I looked at the two paramedics hunkering down next to me, their combined age younger than me. “I can’t,” I told them and impatiently explained the dilemma. “So get her on the damn gurney while I keep her alive.”
“Yes ma’am,” the blond one said and quickly they maneuvered around me and we practically ran out of the shop and to the ambulance. I stayed beside Jana the entire time, hand fused to her neck thanks to the white fabric between us, sticky with her blood.
The ride to the hospital was eternal, as in eternal hell because I knew what all the beeps meant, what the shouted stats meant and they all spelled out trouble. For Jana and her baby.
Rocky must have been busy on the phone because when we arrived at the hospital, crashing through the doors with me kneeling over Jana’s nearly unconscious body, I saw several members of the Reckless Bastards motorcycle club staring at me with stunned expressions on their faces.
Max’s in particular stayed with me, the anguish and worry on his rugged features was heartbreaking. But I couldn’t focus on them, I had to keep my hand where it was and focus on Jana.
She was a kind, brave soul. I knew the forces of the universe wouldn’t let such a woman leave this world too soon. Jana and her baby would be safe.
They had to be.
Chapter Three