The hospital alarm shattered the silence, a shrill, rhythmic shriek that felt like a hammer striking glass.
"Code Red. Mass Casualty Incident. ETA two minutes."
The automated voice blared through the speakers, repeating the message in a sterile monotone that made the rising panic feel exponentially worse.
I hovered in the corner of Benedict's office, watching him. He was still on the floor, his face streaked with tears, clutching the bag that held my locket.
When the alarm sounded, his head snapped up.
For a second, he looked lost. He looked like a man who wanted to stay on the floor and let the building burn down around him rather than face another moment of reality.
But then, the doctor took over.
He wiped his face roughly with his sleeve, smearing the tears rather than drying them. He stood up. His movements were stiff, mechanical, but steady. He put the evidence bag in his pocket, tucking it right against his heart.
He took a deep breath, inhaling the air that I could no longer breathe.
I followed him as he ran out the door.
The hallway was controlled chaos. Nurses were sprinting with IV bags. Orderlies were pushing stretchers. The elevator doors pinged open, and the first wave of patients arrived.
It was a bus crash. A drunk driver had swerved into a school bus.
Blood was everywhere. It soaked the sheets, dripped onto the floor, and the air smelled heavy with iron and fear.
Screams bounced off the walls, a cacophony of pain.
Benedict didn't hesitate. He waded into the sea of bodies.
"Bed 3 needs intubation!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the noise like a scalpel. "Get a central line in Bed 5!"
He was moving on autopilot. His hands were steady as he inserted a tube into a teenager's throat, but his eyes were dead. He was a machine made of flesh and bone.
I floated above him, watching.
I saw the way he flinched every time he saw a child. I saw the way his hand trembled for a fraction of a second when he saw a boy with dark hair.
He was punishing himself. He was taking the hardest cases, the bloodiest wounds, trying to wash away the guilt with work.
"Dr. Sinclair!" a nurse yelled. "We need you in Trauma 1!"
Benedict ran. I drifted after him, pulled by the invisible tether that bound me to him.
Trauma 1 was a war zone. A young girl was coding. Benedict jumped on the bed, starting chest compressions immediately.
"One, two, three, four."
"Come on," he grunted, sweat dripping down his forehead. "Do not die on me. Not tonight."
He pumped her chest, putting his entire weight into it. I knew what he was doing. He wasn't just saving her. He was trying to save Jeremy. He was trying to rewrite the past ten hours.
"We have a pulse!" the nurse cried.
Benedict slumped back, breathing hard. He looked at the girl's face. She was alive.
He didn't smile. He just nodded and stepped down.
"Next," he said.
He walked out into the hallway, wiping blood from his gloves.
That was when the doors swung open again.
Paramedics rushed in, pushing two gurneys side by side.
On the first gurney was a man, his chest crushed, gasping for air.
On the second gurney was a woman in blue scrubs.
Yvonne.
She was covered in blood. Her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, bone protruding through the skin. She was screaming.
"Help me!" she shrieked. "Ben! Ben, help me!"
A nurse ran up to Benedict.
"Dr. Sinclair, it is your fiancée! She was in the parking lot... the drunk driver hit her car after he hit the bus!"
Benedict froze. He looked at Yvonne. Then he looked at the man on the other stretcher.
Yvonne saw him. Her eyes widened.
"Ben!" she screamed, reaching out a bloody hand. "It hurts! You have to help me!"
Benedict stood there, the chaos swirling around him. He looked at the woman who had let our son die. He looked at the woman who was now begging for the very mercy she had denied us.
