Radiation Point

Sixteen

I followed the medics into the infirmary in a daze. The bullet went through her spine. Her spine. It was nauseating to think about. I could really lose my sister.
My hands shook and the floor looked like it was rising up to meet me. I could feel my knees wobbling beneath as I walked.
"You're not gonna need one of these beds are you?" the man asked, glancing up from Mia's gurney.
"No," I swallowed. I had to be strong for Mia. She needed me more than ever. I tried to focus my distraught mind on anything other than the fear of losing her.
"Good," he said. "We wouldn't have anywhere to put you."
Looking around the room, I could see that he wasn't joking.
Every cot was taken with battered patients. To my surprise, most of the patients were guards and renegades, as seen by their respective uniforms. The gaurds wore dark green shirt and pants and the renegades wore black.
I followed the medics through the room, glancing around to see where they would put my sister. With a gunshot wound through her spine, they didn't have time to waste looking for a cot. Apparently, the woman shared my thoughts because she stopped in front of a cot where a man was sleeping.
She lifted his arm, then turned to the other medic.
"We'll put her here. Just put him with the rest."
He nodded and looked back at me, "Can you take the other end of her stretcher?"
I nodded in silent confusion. Put the man with the rest?
The male medic unceremoniously lifted the man from the bed, his body stiff like a board. It was then that I realized-the man was dead. Once the medic had lifted the man, my sister was placed on the dead man's cot.
I followed the medic's progress as he carried the man to the opposite end of the room. He dumped the man in a pile of what appeared to be sleeping people. They looked fragile and pale-like dolls-their very souls gone from their bodies.
My stomach squeezed at the sight and I had to fight a wave of nausea. Was that really all the medics thought of their patients? Just bodies taking up room? I turned from the macabre sight and focused on my sister, who continued to breathe in measured, shallow breathes.
"Hang in there," I whispered, grasping her hand. It felt cold and her grip was limp in my hand. I watched with a detached sense of shock as the medic pulled back my sister's wrappings and poured peroxide on Mia's wound.
That made Mia sit up and scream, her shriek ear shattering. The medic ignored her screaming, dabbing the wound gently with a washcloth. With a shutter, Mia fell back against the cot, unconscious.
"Mia," I sobbed.
"Let her be. The worst part is coming."
What could possibly be worse than what she'd already gone through?
"I'm going to stitch the wound up and hope it heals. That's the best I can do for her."
She looked apologetic, but continued her work on my sister. Although Mia was passed out, I continued to cry for every stitch put in her, feeling it in my heart as if I were the one getting stitched. After what seemed like forever, the medic straightened up and peeled off her bloody gloves.
Then she met my eyes. "I've done everything I can for her. She needs antibiotics to fight any possible infection, but that's just not an option for us. The best we can do is keep an eye on her and hope she heals."
My heart twisted at her words.
"Why isn't it an option?"
The medic looked surprised at my question. "Well, because we don't have any antibiotics."
"You can't expect me to believe that we've made it this long as a camp with no antibiotics!"
Her brows furrowed. "Of course not. Look around-we've used them all." I followed her gaze to the full infirmary, realizing with a heavy heart that she was right.
"Okay," I said with a sigh. "Where do we get more?"
"We don't," she said. "The commissioner and his men go on all the runs." Then she added, "He says that he has a hidden stash out there just for us. But he doesn't keep it on site, because it would make us a target to the you-know-who." She looked darkly at the Renegade's at the last part. Then she glanced back at me, looking hopeful. "I'm sure he'll get some more for us, though."
My heart sank. I started to tell her that he was gone, but stopped. It wouldn't make a difference. That wouldn't bring him back. And even if he were back, I wasn't so sure that he would give my sister any antibiotics. Instead, I brushed my sister's hair back from her face, taking in her child like features and shallow breathing.
"What about the spinal injury? How do we know if she'll be able to walk again?"
"That all depends on her. Now all you can do is wait."
It felt like she had told me to do the impossible, but I simply thanked her and gingerly held my sister's hand. The medic nodded and moved to help other patients.
When she was gone, I began murmuring to my sister quietly.
"I know it's selfish, but I need you to pull through. I can't lose you. Losing Mom and Dad was enough. I don't think I'd survive losing you, too."
The words hung heavy in the air, but Mia didn't stir. I sighed and focused on controlling the dam of tears that had been unleashed at the sight of my sister. My baby sister. The only family I had left. My heart squeezed tightly, and I felt utterly hopeless.
"You have to fight," a raspy voice behind me said, breaking into my depression. I turned slightly, still gripping Mia's limp hand.
An older woman lay in the bed next to Mia, panting for breath. She had several bandages wrapped tightly around her stomach, but the blood was seeping through anyway. She looked pale and gaunt, but her eyes were strong. Her messy gray hair was held back by a folded over black bandanna. I realized with a shock she was a renegade.
"If you want your sister to survive, you have to fight for it," she said with effort, coughing violently afterward. She winced in pain, gripping her bandage firmly. Then she looked back up at me sadly. "Maybe I would make it if I had someone to care about me."
I shook my head. "What can I do? I'm not a doctor."
The woman leaned closer to me, straining against the pain. "I didn't say you were. I said you needed to fight. Get your sister the medicine she needs-that's the only way."
Her words made surprising sense. It was like the light at the end of the tunnel had opened, and suddenly I didn't feel so hopeless. I could go out and find some antibiotics. There were abandoned shops in the surrounding town, and there had to be a pharmacy that hadn't been hit by looters.
Just as quickly as I felt a spark of hope, it sputtered out.
"I can't leave her," I said despondently. "Me leaving her is what caused this in the first place."
The woman scowled at me, "Don't be stupid, girl. It looks to me like a bullet did that to her-and I'm no doctor." Then she took a steadying breath, as she lay back down on her cot. She continued in a small voice, completely different from her tone seconds before, "I can't abide by having to watch a child die while I lay on my own death bed."
"She's not going to die!"
The woman smiled grimly from her bed, "There's some of that fight. Now you just need to follow that feeling and your sister may survive."
"But what if she never walks again?"
The words felt wrong, but I couldn't stop them.
"That's her fight. Your fight is getting the medication she needs."
Her words had surprising strength to them and I knew she was right. Mia needed me to be strong. That was the only reason we had survived as long as we had after Mom and Dad. And that would be the only reason Mia would survive this. I bent and gave my sister a kiss on her forehead.
"Wait for me," I begged, tears dropping from my face to hers.
Then I turned to the woman behind me, and squeezed her hand. "You hang in there, too. We need more fighters around here." I briskly bent down and kissed her on the forehead. I turned hastily away, but not before seeing tears well up in the lonely woman's eyes.