Paint it Black

Chapter 2: Where Everyone is Worried and Nobody is Talking

Clumps of hair dropped to the floor with every pass of the clippers, exposing the jagged hole three inches up from the patient's right ear. He was due in surgery in the next ten minutes.

His bare scalp was treated with antiseptic. While one attendant drew out lines where the incisions were to be placed, another prepped the second bullet hole in his upper left chest. Still another attendant checked the tubes feeding oxygen before moving on to the saline drip. Plasma flowed steadily down another tube fighting for space among the lines leading into both arms. The final step was to place a draping over the scalp – leaving plenty of room to slice into the tissue surrounding the wound. After that, he was ready for the surgery bay.

Once under the operative lights, the real work started.

Skin was cut back to expose the damaged bone beneath. Fissures and cracks led off from the point of penetration – some smaller fragments missing as they'd been pushed deeper into the skull from the force of impact. Debridment with saline solution followed – a long process of flushing contaminants from the traumatized pinkish-gray brain matter inside. Dirt, blood, and tiny fragments of bone were evacuated by the solution while larger pieces were painstakingly picked out with narrow forceps.

A sudden flood of thin red into the opening was accompanied by urgent beeping from one of the machines monitoring blood pressure. There was hemorrhaging somewhere out of sight. Suction kept the area clear while urgent searching tried to locate the source of the bleed. There! The vein was clamped, but now the heart monitor was going off. Pressure continued to drop, but it wasn't from the head wound.

Other hands busy at the shoulder were covered in blackish spatter from another hemorrhage. This one was much worse – involving an artery. An arc of blood spurted from the open wound as the surgeons fought to control it. Bags of plasma were replaced as so much was lost. Clamps pinched, saline rinsed, suction cleared, and pressure dropped further.

Seconds later, the rapid beeps became a single, long whine.

0o0o0o0

He hated waiting rooms. For a career that too often involved homicide, waiting rooms were forever linked together with the dead and dying. The last stop for too many family members desperate for news of their loved ones – only to be told they wouldn't be coming home again. It was where being a cop meant having to tell someone else he'd been too late – that the only thing he could do would be to find the killer – to solve the case. Any power he'd had as an officer was lost here. All faith he'd ever scrounged had been tested and lost on too many occasions to dredge any now. Sure, his son had been behind these walls in the past and had emerged whole if not completely hale. But never for something...

Henry stared at his hands rather than the wall – pale green and reminiscent of those horrid little mints they served at weddings. Like solidified toothpaste. Staring at his hands was better. They were mostly clean now, though with all the creases and valleys it had been taking longer than he'd had the patience for to scrub them back to pale tan. He'd wanted to know what was happening with Shawn. But there'd been no news. So he'd waited. He was still waiting.

Movement beside him reminded him that he wasn't the only one waiting.

Henry glanced at the younger man at his side...

0o0o0o0

He actually didn't mind waiting rooms. Antiseptic bathed the air in a germ free no fly zone and everyone walked around him in pristine garments of white. Clipboards and computers kept regular tallies of what came in and out. It was ordered and routine and it settled Gus's nerves with the promise that someone was in control. Sure, he knew the action beyond these soothing tea green walls was far more dramatic than this sedate setting implied, but that was okay. As long as he didn't actually have to see the drama for himself, everything would be fine.