Elise walked straight to the bed. She didn’t ask permission.
“Dr. Hadley, cancel the CT.”
Hadley stared at her. “You’re the cleaner.”
“Right now, I’m the only person in this room who’s done this a hundred times.” She yanked the glove the rest of the way onto her hand. It snapped tight. “Cut his shirt off. Now.”
“You can’t just walk in here and—”
“He has four minutes, Doctor. Write me up afterward.”
“Maddox!” Commander Dane’s voice cracked. “You are on disciplinary detail! Security! Somebody call security!”
“Commander.”
Admiral Keene didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.
“Step back.”
Dane stepped back.
Elise grabbed the ultrasound probe off the cart and swept it across Redd’s stomach. On the screen, big black patches bloomed everywhere.
“Free fluid in Morrison’s pouch and the left side,” she said. “He’s bleeding inside his belly, and we can’t put pressure on it. Liver, the vessels around his gut, maybe both.”
Her voice was flat. Fast. Calm. It was a voice Dana had never heard come out of her. A voice that expected to be obeyed and had never once considered the possibility that it wouldn’t be.
“Activate massive transfusion. Whole blood, if the bank has it. Two grams of TXA. One gram of calcium.”
Then she turned her head.
“Dana.”
Dana jumped like she’d been shocked. “Me?”
“Supply closet B14. Top shelf. Behind the floor wax. There’s a gray box marked ER-REBOA. Run.”
“Why would that be in a janitor’s closet?” Hadley asked.
Elise didn’t answer him.
Behind them, Commander Dane had gone the color of skim milk.
Dana ran.
She flew down the hallway. Past the honor banner. Past the nurses’ station. Past Kayla, standing frozen with her mouth hanging open.
Supply closet B14 was at the end of the east hall, between the bathrooms. Dana had walked past it a thousand times. She’d never once opened it.
She threw the door open.
Mop buckets. Bottles of floor cleaner. Big orange jugs of floor wax lined up on the top shelf.
She shoved the jugs aside.
Behind them sat two gray boxes. And taped to the front of the shelf was a yellow sticky note in neat, square handwriting Dana recognized from a hundred memos on the staff bulletin board.
Remove from ER crash carts. Budget review. — R.D.
Commander Russell Dane.
Dana ripped the note off the shelf and stuffed it in her pocket. She grabbed one of the boxes and ran.
Seventy seconds, door to door. She would remember that number for the rest of her life.
Adrian Hawthorne is a celebrated author and dedicated archivist who finds inspiration in the hidden stories of the past. Educated at Oxford, he now works at the National Archives, where preserving history fuels his evocative writing. Balancing archival precision with creative storytelling, Adrian founded the Hawthorne Institute of Literary Arts to mentor emerging writers and honor the timeless art of narrative.