Chapter 10 - Underground Surgery
The industrial warehouse sat on the edge of the riverfront, hidden behind rusted shipping containers and abandoned train tracks. A flickering neon sign for an auto-body repair shop provided the only light in the drenched alleyway.
The back door opened before Jack even had time to knock.
Marcus—a burly African-American combat medic with scarred hands and graying dreadlocks—pulled Jack and the limp body of Elena inside without a word, slamming the steel door and sliding three heavy deadbolts into place.
"Get her onto the gurney! Move!" Marcus ordered, already pulling on sterile blue gloves.
The back room of the warehouse had been converted into a surprisingly clean, fully functional field hospital. Two halogen lamps illuminated a stainless steel gurney surrounded by oxygen tanks, an ultrasound monitor, and racks of sterile surgical tools.
Jack helped Marcus cut away Elena’s blood-soaked hoodie. When her emaciated torso and scarred head were fully exposed under the harsh light, Marcus let out a slow, sharp hiss through his teeth.
"My God, Jack... what kind of monsters did this?"
"My mother. And my brother," Jack said, his voice hollow, his hands trembling as he held the oxygen mask over Elena’s blue lips. "Can you save her?"
Marcus clamped a pulse oximeter onto her finger and pressed a stethoscope to her chest. The monitor beeped with an erratic, terrifying rhythm: heart rate 165, blood pressure 60 over 35.
"Her body is in full septic collapse," Marcus said rapidly, grabbing two large-bore IV bags of saline and antibiotics from the cabinet. "Those head sutures are rotting from the inside out. They didn't even clean the bone margins when they stitched the flap back down. If I don't open those incisions, drain the subdural abscess, and debride that tissue right now, the infection will eat her brain within four hours."
"Do it," Jack said.
"I don't have enough general anesthetic to put her under safely, Jack," Marcus warned, his eyes meeting Jack’s with absolute, deadly seriousness. "Her cardiovascular system can't take the propofol. Her heart will stop on the table. I can only use local lidocaine around the scalp margins. She’s going to feel the pressure. She’s going to feel the bone scraping."
Jack leaned over the gurney, taking Elena’s frail, cold hand into both of his own.
As if sensing his presence, Elena’s eyes opened slightly, glazed with agony, staring straight into his eyes.
"Jack..." she whispered, a single tear cutting a clean path through the grime on her cheek. "It hurts so much."
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"I know, baby," Jack whispered back, pressing his forehead against hers, his tears finally breaking free and falling onto her skin. "I'm holding your hand. Don't look away from me. Whatever happens, you keep your eyes locked on mine."
Marcus picked up the scalpel. "Scalpel down. Hold her head, Jack. Don't let her move an inch."
