Page 95 of The Final Contract

But he won’t. He sits upright, refusing the bed, refusing the pillow. His head wound is grotesque—split wide from temple down the left side of his face, blood running so freely it soaks his collar.

He’s probably going to lose that eye. He’ll lose vision in it, at a minimum.

He’s wearing a tux. “Where were you going tonight, Caleb?” I ask, trying to see if he can remember. Also trying to calm him so we can do our job.

In his hand, gripped like salvation, is a white rose. A boutonniere, maybe.

Only now it drips scarlet with every drop from his wound. The petals stained red, one by one.

“Sarah,” he whispers again, kissing the flower with reverence. “Don’t leave me.”

My throat tightens, but I steady my voice. “I’m not leaving you. Call me Seraphina. We need to give you something to help, to calm you?—”

He cuts me off, eyes glassy, wet. “Sarah Christina.” He says it like a prayer. Like devotion. “I was going to propose.”

Something twists painfully in my chest. I feel for him, I do. But we need to treat him, and he won’t lie down.

He fixes me with a look that burns through the haze of blood loss. “You would have said yes, wouldn’t you?”

The intercom explodes overhead, pulling the breath from my lungs:

“Code Blue, Trauma Two. All available staff to Trauma Two, immediately. Code Blue, Trauma Two.”

That’s Stasia’s patient. The critical.

I jump up so fast the curtain rattles. “Prep him for sedation,” I bark to the nurse sliding in behind me, already rattling through orders as I sprint for the doors.

“Sarah!” His voice cuts after me, ragged.

But I don’t look back.

“Sarah Christina!” He screams it this time, the words splitting with desperation as I push through the doors and vanish into the chaos of Trauma Two.

The doors slam open, and the room is already a storm.

Monitors shriek. Gloves snap. Voices collide in a rush of orders—IV, O2, epi, suction. Someone’s counting vitals, another shouting for blood, another pushing a crash cart closer. The air reeks of antiseptic, iron, and sweat.

And in the center of it, she lies on the table.

Blonde hair matted dark, drenched with blood. So much of it I can’t tell where the wounds end and her face begins.

“Get on compressions!” the attending barks, sharp and fast.

“Starting compressions!” I shout, already moving.

I slide into place, pushing past a nurse withdrawing bloody gauze. My palms slam down, hard and fast, over the sternum. Count—one, two, three, four—my arms locked, shoulders screaming as I drive her chest down an inch and a half at a time.

Across from me, Stasia works with laser focus. She’s at the head of the bed, securing the airway, her voice tight as she calls for suction and adjusts the laryngoscope. Her brow is furrowed, sweat dripping down her temple, but her hands are steady. She doesn’t see me staring at the patient’s face.

Through the blood, through the gashes ripped open across her skin—I see us.

Stasia. Me.

The resemblance is gutting, but there’s no time to freeze.

“Bag her!” Stasia shouts, and another nurse squeezes the valve, forcing air into blood-filled lungs.

The monitor wails. Asystole. Flat.