Page 8 of Rescuing Baylee

Mendez turned to place him into the incubator Jaylynn had just arrived with. Baylee stood at the mother’s side for a moment, unsure exactly what to do. Normally, the NICU team would take the baby and the surgeon would repair the mother. This had not been a normal case though.

“Baylee, where’s the bulb syringe?”

Baylee scrambled to the cart and snatched it from the drawer, handing it over. Mendez pulled a bunch of gunk from the baby’s airway, and he gave a weak cry. Almost immediately, his skin started to pinken up. There was blood leaking from somewhere, though. It was staining the blanket beneath him. Baylee grabbed a cloth and started cleaning him up, stimulating his response. She found the bullet hole in his chubby little arm, and she pointed it out to the doctor. Mendez manipulated the limb.

“Doesn’t seem to be broken. It’s just a flesh wound, I believe. This little man is incredibly lucky.”

Baylee wasn’t so sure about that. He’d been injured in a gang fight and lost his mother in the span of an hour.

Leona bandaged his little arm, and they cleaned him up the rest of the way. He would have to go to the NICU for a while to be sure he was breathing okay, but he seemed to be holding his own.

She dared to share a grin with Leona across the incubator.

That was when the gunfire started.

CHAPTER THREE

With memories of the Rebellion so close at hand, Baylee didn’t believe what she heard at first. It had to be a flashback. An incredibly realistic one. More realistic than any other one she’d had before.

Then people began screaming, and three more shots echoed through the closed confines of the emergency department.

Baylee hit the deck, scrambling for cover. There was no cover, though, only concealment. The entire ED department was separated by privacy curtains. There was a central horseshoe shaped nurse’s desk which was the command center, and a few offices along the side of the room for the supervisors, and it was all circled with beds. She peered under the edge of the blue curtain. Feet were running helter-skelter as people realized they had nothing to hide behind.

Then a man’s voice rang out, screaming Spanish. It was kind of garbled, though, like he was crying.

She scanned the floor and spied a dark uniformed older man lying on the floor near the entrance to the ED. Hank the security guard blinked at her as she met his eyes, then they fluttered shut. Her heart sank as she watched him breathe his last breath. Hank had been a great guy, and he’d saved them several timesfrom irate patients and relatives. She glanced down his body. His weapon was still in the holster. He hadn’t even had a chance to draw it out.

She heard the voice again, and she thought he said Catalina. Oh, God, he was looking for their patient.

The woman who had just died.

She watched the man’s feet. He wore black tennis shoes and was moving toward the far side of the room. As she listened, she heard him start swiping curtains back. People screamed, scared they were going to be shot.

Then she heard the ED supervisor’s voice. Dr. Grant was a good guy, though a little too cocky for his own good. He ordered the man to put the gun down, but the man responded with gunfire. Several nurses screamed, and she knew Dr. Grant was down.

Baylee scanned the area, praying she saw more security guard’s feet, or cop feet, but she didn’t. She also didn’t see the gang member’s feet. They’d disappeared on the other side of the central nurse’s counter.

Before she could second-guess herself, she crawled the fifteen feet across the floor to old Hank. “Sorry, buddy,” she whispered, and very carefully pulled the man’s sidearm.

What the fuck was she doing?

She looked up into the eyes of women she knew. Several of them were sobbing, hands clasped over their mouths to muffle the sound. They were hiding in the center of the horseshoe shaped counter, pinned down because they didn’t know where the gunman was. All he had to do was lean over the counter and he would see them. Kill them.

Adrenalin was pounding through her veins, and she checked the weapon. She pulled the slide back enough to make sure there was one in the chamber. It had a full mag in it and was ready to fire. Leaning out, she tried to catch a glimpse of the gunman.She could still hear curtains being swept back, and people crying out. It sounded like he was working his way back around, toward Catalina’s body.

Baylee’s heart thundered in her ears, and she had to fight away images of another surgical room, with other injured and dead people sprawled across the floor.

“Sir, are you looking for Catalina Hernandez?”

Baylee could have screamed at Dr. Mendez. What the hell was she doing?

“Where is my Catalina?” the man said, rushing toward the short woman.

Baylee could see him now. Hispanic, with dark hair and eyes, he looked ragged, his eyes full of tears. Blood coated his front, and he was staggering, like he was nursing a gunshot wound.

Dr. Mendez held her hand out toward the curtained off area. Baylee was glad to see that the others were gone. Even the baby was out of the incubator, and she wondered where they’d gone. They were beyond her line of sight. That was all that mattered. She had a perfect view of the scene taking place in the room, though, with Mendez off to the left a little. If she had to draw down on the gunman, she could do it.

The man neared the bed, his gun hand falling to his side. Baylee watched to see if he would set it down, but he didn’t. He cried out as he caught sight of the woman on the bed. Baylee had draped her belly with cloth, but blood had seeped through. They hadn’t even had a chance to close her up.