Page 73

I pounded on the door for several minutes, furiously slamming my hands on it until they were red raw, and finally, the nurse let me in. “Sorry, Mr. King,” she said. “We were too busy working on your father to open the door. I didn’t even realize it was locked.”
I pushed past her to see my father lying on a bed, eyes closed and a thick surgical dressing covering his neck. I’d never seen him look so pale. So powerless. He was hooked up to a heart monitor, and the resident doctor was standing over him.
“Dr. Paulson,” I said, striding over. “What’s going on?”
He rubbed his hooked nose and sighed. “It’s not great, Elias. I managed to seal the wound and stop the hemorrhaging, but he lost a lot of blood. I suspect he’s in hypovolemic shock.”
“What’s that?”
“A condition caused by massive blood loss. The loss of fluid makes it nearly impossible for the heart to continue pumping sufficient blood around the body. It can lead to multiple organ failure.”
“Shit.”
“The guards have radioed for a MEDEVAC airlift to the nearest hospital. Obviously, we can’t treat him properly here. We aren’t properly equipped for situations like this.”
I rubbed my jaw. My pulse seemed to be racing a million miles a minute. “When will the helicopter arrive?”
He sighed again. “The weather outside isn’t great at the moment, as you know. Very strong winds. They said it could take up to thirty minutes to get here.”
“Thirty fucking minutes?” My right hand reflexively curled into a fist. “That’s not good enough. He could be fucking dead in half an hour.”
Dr. Paulson nodded miserably. “I won’t lie to you, Elias. It’s going to be a very tight situation. But I’m doing my best, and he’s holding on for now.”
I waved my hand around the crisp white-walled room. “Isn’t there anything else you can do here?”
“No. He needs a blood transfusion to increase the fluid volume inside him and get his heart pumping properly again. But we don’t have any O-neg here, or any blood bags at all, for that matter. This facility is basically a glorified birth control dispensary and STI testing lab for all the young ladies here.”
“Fuck!” I clenched my hands into tight fists again. “Wait… could you give him some of my blood?”
“Are you O-negative?”
“No. B-positive.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. O-neg is the universal donor type. Not yours.”
“But we’re the same blood type! Doesn’t that make it okay?”
The doctor frowned. “Are you sure? How do you know?”
I hurriedly told him about my childhood antics, when I used to hunt around the house for anything to do with my mother.
“I ended up finding all this stuff on her, including old medical records and blood donation cards,” I went on. “I know for a fact she was A-negative. And I know I’m B-positive. That means my father is too, doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. He could be AB-positive.”
“Oh. Yeah. But a B can give blood to an AB, right?” I racked my brains, trying to remember everything from my prep school bio classes.
“Well, yes. But still, I can’t just put your blood into someone when I’m not a hundred percent sure. That’s not how this works. Luckily, there’s a simple way to find out his type,” he said, briskly stepping over to a computer. “I’ll quickly look at his medical records to confirm. Yours too. If you’re indeed an appropriate donor, we can take some blood from you and give it to him.”
He tapped at the keyboard, then swore under his breath.
“What is it?” I asked.
“The damn winds outside… they must’ve knocked out the phone lines. I can’t get online, and that means I can’t access his medical records.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I snapped, slamming my fist into a nearby table. “Jesus, just give him my fucking blood!”
Dr. Paulson’s eyes widened. “Elias, I told you I have to be sure. Giving someone the wrong blood type can be catastrophic, especially when they’re already compromised. It causes a very serious immune response. If he’s somehow actually an O-type and we—”