Steady Hands | E.D.

Chapter 6

   I think I might die today.
   I rushed out of Ethan's house before he could get out of the shower. It was a drunken mistake and will never happen again. Unless he wants it to.
   I'm not ready for work, I'm tired, confused and hungover. And overall I just have a bad feeling. I'm not sure what it is though.
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   "I can't believe you slept with him! It's going to be so awkward now." Christina laughed as she stepped off the elevator, leaving me alone. I stepped onto the fifth floor with an even weirder feeling. There was just something not right. I shook it off and ran over to the O.R. board to see if any surgeries needed a resident to scrub in. At least if I get a good surgery I'll be distracted.
   "Dr. Lorraine!" Someone shouted from a room I was walking past. I looked over to see Dr. Mark Sloan trying to save a patient whose heart stopped. Dr. Sloan is a big shot around here, he's very attractive and one of the best surgeons around. I gulped and took a step closer. He's intimidating to me.
   "Do you need something Dr. Sloan?" I asked kindly. He nodded and signaled me to come into the room.
   "I need you to go into the supply closet down the hall and get me a chest tube for my patient. Hurry up." He demanded. I obeyed him and hastily made my way over. The supply closet is very big and it's hard to find things quickly. I was panicking a little. Where are these damn chest tubes?
   Just then my pager went off.
   "What?? There's a lockdown?" I whispered to myself as I read the notification. Whatever, it's probably just a drill. A faint scream was heard from the hallway, but that doesn't phase me because patients scream all the time.
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   I stepped out of the closet with the chest tube in my hand to be confronted by dead silence. It was a creepy, eerie type of silence. When I looked over to the desk, I saw blood, a lot of blood, and a body laying on the floor. I rushed over to see it was a nurse. My eyes widened as I felt my heart beating louder than a drum; she had a bullet hole in her chest. She was dead.
I am in a hospital.. One of the safest places on earth, and now there is a shooter in here. What the hell?!
   I started tiptoeing back to where Dr. Sloan was, in fear that I would be heard. The silence is too much for me; it's scarier than the dead nurse at the desk. As soon as I turned the corner I came to a dead stop, almost dropping the chest tube. There he was, right in front of me. He was wearing a big green trench coat with dark denim jeans and blood stained shoes. And sure enough, there was a gun in his hand. Shit shit shit. When I turned the corner I shut the automatic doors that were open behind me. Since we're in lockdown, those doors aren't going to open again.
   The shooter is in the place I need to be, but the only way to get away from him is to walk straight down the hallway, without turning the corner, before he can turn around and see me. Here goes nothing..
   I slowly tiptoed across the long opening, trying to remain as quiet as possible. The only thing I could hear was my own heart rate. As I continued walking, I didn't realize there was a fucking paper on the ground. I stepped right on it, and the crinkly noise filled the hallway. I stopped instantly and snapped my head towards the man. In one swift movement, he turned and shot at me. I covered my head and started sprinting, and he shot at me two more times.
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   I sprinted down the hallways making turn after turn, just trying to get as far away as possible. The first room I saw that had a lock on the door is the on-call room, so I ran into there and harshly leaned my back against the door. The sound of my uneven breaths filled my ears as I tried to catch my breath.
  As soon as I calmed down, it felt like there was a knife turning in my stomach. I quickly pinched my stomach, trying to remove the pain, but I couldn't. Nonono. Adrenaline.
   I slowly looked down at my shaky, fragile hands to see they were drenched in blood. I got shot. I lifted up my shirt to see a bullet hole in my lower stomach. I helplessly searched my back for an exit wound, but I couldn't find one. I got shot, and the bullet is still inside me...