She knew in this case she was fighting the inevitable, but did it matter? As long as she fought for the young woman lying in front of her?
She completed several rounds of CPR before her head finally reined in her heart.
‘Pulse check?’
Even as her colleagues were checking one source, she was checking another.
‘No pulse.’
No, not for her either. Anger and frustration coursed through Anouk as she lifted her head to the clock and announced the time of death.
‘We didn’t stand a chance,’ one of her colleagues muttered, tapping her lightly on the shoulder as she passed.
Anouk dipped her head. Much as she knew that, it didn’t always help. She reached for the curtains. There wasn’t time to stop and grieve; the casualties were coming in thick and fast. No sooner would she step out than there would be another emergency to deal with.
Normally this was what she thrived on—not the losses, of course, but the challenge, the wins, the lives saved. But tonight there were too many other fears racing around her brain, and not all to do with Sol.
In some ways she was almost grateful for the distraction. Perhaps she’d been impulsive thinking that she could have a one-night stand with Sol. With anyone. Maybe it was a good thing they hadn’t ended up back at his apartment. At least now she had time to think and realise what a bad decision that would have been.
Wouldn’t it?
So why could she only think about surrendering to the temptation that had been haunting her ever since their intimate encounter?
Her head was reeling.
She told herself it was the fear of knowing that the explosion was so close to her and Saskia’s apartment block. She’d tried calling her friend on the way to the hospital, but it had gone straight to voicemail. She had no way of knowing if Saskia was all right. Or even where she was.
So that was definitely a concern. But it wasn’t what filled her mind with such a confusion of thoughts.
No, she suspected that tangle was more to do with the man who she would have been with, right now, if that accident hadn’t happened.
It was why she needed a good save more than anything. She needed Saskia and she needed the high of saving lives to push the unwelcome thoughts of Sol from her brain. Given the emergencies flooding in, and not enough staff yet able to get to the hospital, there was plenty for her to do.
As the porters dealt with the deceased patient in the bay, Anouk pushed the loss out of her head and moved on to the next bay, only for Sol to catch her before she went in.
For an instant her heart jolted madly and everything seemed to come into sharper focus.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Someone paged Neuro,’ he replied evenly. ‘A thirty-two-year-old cyclist with T12 and L1 fractures?’
‘That’s one of my cases.’ Whatever her body might be feeling, her brain flipped immediately, locking back into professional mode. ‘In here.’
He followed her quickly into a bay, nodding a brief greeting to the girl who was sitting, terrified, at the bedside of her injured boyfriend.
‘This is Jared,’ Anouk told Sol. ‘He came in earlier and we’ve already had him up to CT.’
‘He was caught in the blast?’
‘Yes, we understood from witnesses who spoke to the air ambulance team that Jared went over the handlebars and was thrown into another vehicle. He was wearing a crash helmet. The head to pelvis CT scan showed fractured third and fourth ribs with a right-sided pneumothorax. Fractured T12 and L1 with possible evidence of neuro-compromise. He had a deep gash on his right thigh, which we have dealt with. He’s had a total of around fourteen mils morphine.’
‘Understood,’ Sol agreed. ‘I need to look at the imaging and decide what to do about the spine.’
‘Agreed. I was working on the basis that if he has broken vertebrae at T12 and L1 there are likely to be depressional fractures through the endplates.’
It shouldn’t have surprised her how well, h
ow slickly, the two of them were working together. Almost as if the gala evening had never happened.