Justice by Oleander - 2012 Watty Awards, Finalist

Chapter 15

© Carey MacLean, 2012

Chapter 15

Xavier walked in to KGH with an added bounce to his step.  He caught sight of Connor who was talking with a paramedic which seemed to be giving him his account of what had happened.  Off to the corner of his eye, he noticed Mika who was jotting notes down inside what looked like a patient’s chart.  She was deep in thought and when she turned to look behind her, he noticed the bruise on her left cheek.

What the hell?

He marched up to her, fury stiffening his movements.

As he approached, she looked up at him and smiled and then gave him a wincing look, mixed with worry and put her pen down.  His hand lifted and captured her jaw with a feather’s touch as he examined the bruise.

“What happened?”  He asked with a slight growl to his tone.

“It’s nothing,” she told him.  “I’ve had worse.”

“Who did it?”

Mika knew, by his face, that Xavier was furious with the ever pulsing bruise that had begun to form on her face.  To be honest, it hurt like a bitch.

“Who did it?”  He asked her.

She didn’t know how to answer that without causing a raucous.  After all, the man who had done it was still presently in the hospital. 

It had been one of her worst days yet.  She had lost patients before but nothing like that.  When the woman’s husband came rushing in on the Paramedics’ heels, her heart bottomed out into her stomach.

Not again, she had thought to herself. 

After assessing the woman’s injuries, Mika set to perform her duties diligently; checking the fluids and other medications the paramedics had administered while en route, as well as taking note of the status she was in when they had picked her up.

The woman’s status deteriorated within a matter of seconds.  The ECG machine went berserk as she flat-lined.  The husband made a forceful push for his wife, cursing her out, telling her that he hadn’t given her permission to leave him.  Truth be told, from any by-stander, it was a heart-wrenching sight but to the medical professionals she was surrounded with, they knew better.  Mika gave a questioning look to one of the paramedics and the woman nodded.  That nod confirming what Mika had suspected as true – everything pointed to domestic dispute.

As a few porters made their way into the mix to pull the husband back until security got there, the man went ape-shit and started swinging.  Unfortunately, one of those swings happened to land on poor Doctor Mika Stafford’s face.  She rocked back and landed on her ass.  Her cheek numbing slowly from the swelling, her eyes watering, she called the code and grabbed the defibrillator pads and asked the nurse to charge them up.

Every attempt at shocking the life back into the woman, Atropine and other medicinal interventions taken hadn’t worked.  For the first time, she stared into the sleeping face of a woman – one she could have easily become had she not fought back those months before.  It was the first time she had lost a battered woman on her watch.

 

She explained her earlier account to Xavier and he seemed to be taking it quite well so far.  She wasn’t quite sure how it was, but that event, despite sending her blood into an overflowing boil, made her feel different somehow.  She didn’t know how to process it.  It felt like the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.