Page 1 of Seven Minutes
Part One
The Fracture
Chapter 1
Impact
ADRIAN
Iwas halfway through a cold turkey sandwich—the first food I’d touched in six hours—when the trauma doors slammed open. The sound echoed through the ER like a gunshot. I froze mid-bite, mayonnaise clinging to my fingers, as the paramedics’ voices knifed through the din, urgent, clipped, no room for indecision. They rattled off stats with rapid-fire succession.
“Male, thirty-two. High-speed MVC. Unresponsive at the scene. Massive chest trauma, possible internal bleeding, puncture wound left thigh—BP’s crashing?—”
My body reacted before my brain did, the sandwich falling limp into its wrapper as I shoved back from the chair, wiping my greasy hands on my scrubs. The familiar rhythm kicked in like second nature: airway, chest tubes, fluids, transfuse, call surgery. Steps lined up in my head as neatly as a well-stocked supply closet.
A nurse was already moving alongside them, firing questions back. My pulse matched the slap of sneakers and gurney wheels against the linoleum as I closed the distance, grabbing for a mask and a pair of gloves in my haste. I could smell his blood, a sharp, rusty odor that tickled my nose.
“On my count—one, two, three!” one paramedic barked.
With a fluid heave, they moved the patient from the backboard to the trauma bed. The straps were unbuckled, the board yanked clear, and IV lines tugged taut as nurses swarmed to resecure them. Scissors hissed, cutting through fabric, peeling bloody clothing away in strips.
I strode forward, weaving past stretchers and staff, my pulse steady, my focus sharpening. Just another trauma. Another body broken by glass and steel and velocity. Another life balanced on the thread we worked so hard to keep from snapping.
I leaned in for my first real look at the patient, already bracing for the wreckage. The mangled chest, the torn skin, the ghostly pallor, but the second my eyes found his face, the bottom dropped out of me.
Dark hair matted with blood. A familiar curve of jaw beneath the bruises. The silver wedding band, smeared and glinting under fluorescent lights.
Eli.
The word detonated inside me. My breath stuttered as if I’d taken a punch to the gut.
The surrounding chaos dimmed to a tunnel, sound thinning into a faraway hum. For a heartbeat, I wasn’t a doctor. Iwasn’t anything. I was just a husband staring at the ruin of the man he loved.
“Pressure’s falling—seventy over palp,” a nurse shouted.
“Pupils sluggish and oxygen’s dropping—prep for intubation,” another ordered.
“Get blood hanging now!”
Their voices ricocheted around me, a storm I couldn’t seem to step into. I should’ve been calling orders, running the room. But all I could see was Eli’s chest stuttering unevenly, blood bubbling at his lips.
And right there, I knew I had to decide what I was. A doctor. Or a husband.
I chose Eli.
And then his eyelids fluttered. Blood-flecked lips parted. His gaze found mine, hazy but certain, and he rasped one word.
“Adrian.”
The sound hollowed me out. My name, cracked and broken, leaked from him with the last breath he had left.
“O2 and BP crashing,” the nurse barked in sync with three different alarm bells.
“Bag him,” the resident shouted, and before I could answer, before I could even reach for him, a mask was pressed to his face, the bag squeezing air into lungs that wouldn’t work on their own. His eyes rolled back, his body convulsed.
I lunged forward, grabbing his hand, cold and slick with blood. “Hold on, Eli! Stay with me!”
“Breath sounds absent on the right,” someone called. “He’s not moving air.”
