I'm With You

Chapter 10

"Can you wait for me at the hospital to drive me back?" Miguel asked the driver as he turned into the hospital.

"Sure, but I have to keep the meter running." The driver said, sounding apologetic.

"It's fine," Miguel assured him, thanking him quickly before he raced through the doors of the ER and he looked around the waiting room seeing a couple of drunks with head injuries or throwing up into disposable bowls. It hurt him to know that he would have judged those people just twenty-four hours ago, but he already felt as if he'd changed just from one night with Wendy. He shook those thoughts from his head, though, focusing entirely on thinking of what he needed to help Mackenzie. "Doctor Brookes!" Miguel called, finding his boss coming out of his office.

"Ah! Doctor Lagman! I thought you were volunteering tonight?" He asked, walking with Miguel through the double doors to the cubicles. It was overflowing with people and Miguel understood at that moment why he couldn't bring Mackenzie there. No cubicle was empty, no doctor was free.

"I am, but we found a young girl - she's seventeen and has hypothermia. She's unconscious, her heart rate is one hundred and seventeen a minute and her temperature is dangerously low. They wanted us to drive to San Diego with her." Miguel recited and Doctor Brookes's eyes widened.

"She'd have died on the journey! Who told you that?"

"I don't know, Wendy spoke to someone on the phone. But I need an IV. I need IV lines, I need IV bags of sodium and saline to warm her blood and I need a thermometer so I can keep an eye on her core body temperature, maybe some syringes, and a simple blood testing kit so I can keep track of her... her sister needs some basic looking over too, so I might take a few more syringes and kits." Miguel said and Doctor Brookes sighed.

"Look around you, Miguel! I can barely keep track to talk to you right now, we have the burn victims from the fire on their way here in batches, I'm calling in every doctor I can think of, I'm breaking so many rules asking people to stay here longer. Clare is even here tonight and she's due to give birth in a month! I just need the extra hands - I can't spare much equipment." Doctor Brookes said and Miguel groaned.

"No! No, I'll pay for it - you can take it out my wages. Just please, let me take what I need? This girl, she'll die! She's seventeen and she'll die. Her sister is with her right now, using body heat but we both know that'll just keep her stable when she's this bad. She'll die without that IV to warm her blood, Harry... her sister will fall apart without her. Homeless people are already treated like shit, we can't let that continue... please? You won't need the IV I need for the victims." Miguel urged and Doctor Brookes sighed, looking over at him.

"Fine! Take whatever you need - and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but get out of my sight. I need to get to work!"

"Thank you!" Miguel exclaimed, before rushing towards the storerooms, typing in the code and he rushed to search through boxes and IV bags, grabbing a duffel bag from the top of the shelving unit and he started to pile the IV bags he needed, blood-testing kits and syringes. He knew it would be a battle to get Eira to agree to get herself checked over when Mackenzie was so unwell, but he would do all he could to convince her. He also grabbed a couple of boxes of medication and vile of the same medicine too, in case anything were to come up in the blood tests. He zipped the bag shut once he had triple checked he had everything he needed before he ran out, shouting 'thank you' to Doctor Brookes again and he threw himself into the cab again.

"Back to Elm Tree?" The driver guessed and Miguel hesitated.

"No, to McDonald's first - it's on the way," Miguel said and the driver's eyebrows creased in confusion but he started to drive anyway. Miguel wanted to make sure Eira ate something, he could tell she was weak even though she was fighting it. He couldn't imagine the torture she'd put herself under to care for Mackenzie as she got sicker, how many meals she'd skipped just to try and feed Mackenzie.

"You on a food run for the homeless shelter?" The driver asked, chuckling.

"Something like that," Miguel mumbled.

"I don't know why you bother, man... they're all drug addicts, alcoholics... there's a reason they're homeless." The driver said and, at that moment, Miguel's mind went straight to Eira and Mackenzie, how desperate Miguel was to get her better.

"Really? Because I'm helping a homeless seventeen-year-old right now, she's dying." Miguel growled, and the driver stayed silent after that.

Miguel ordered himself and Eira some food and something to drink, paying the driver without saying a word and he carried the McDonalds bag and the duffel up to the sisters' shared room.

His eyes widened when he stepped through the door, seeing Eira exactly where he left her with her arms around Mackenzie, but her skin had paled and her eyes were closed.

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