Zoya’s P.O.V
The man had been near hysterical as he tried to explain to Cam and I what happened to him and his brother. Cam did a great job of keeping the man calm as we gathered the necessary emergency medical supplies and stuffed them all in the car. The clinic had one for emergency purposes like this one, so we didn't have to suffer with my shitty, beat-up car.
As soon as he calmed down, we got into the car and asked him to lead us to the scene. As soon as we got there, I noticed that there were a number of people crowded in the area. Upon closer look, I realized that it was a team of rescuers, and leading the group was the man I met the day earlier, the one whom I recognized as the sheriff.
“Oh!” Cam seemed to recognize him. When she got out of the car, the first thing she did was lead me toward him and his team. “Zoya, meet Ezra Hunter,” she introduced us. To me, she turned and said in a low voice, “He is the sheriff and is one of the most respected people in town. People love him, and I know you would never, but please don’t anger him. He is… in mourning at the moment.”
I wanted to ask her what that meant, and what had happened to him, but I also understood that now was not the time. There was a man in need of our help, and I could not afford to lose precious seconds gossiping about the town sheriff when I could use the time to help the man in need.
Besides, I still felt wary of him, of Ezra, because he had regarded me with so much hostility when we first met, and even now it seemed like he did not like me one bit with the way he looked at me with apprehension, his lips pursed as if in disapproval of my whole existence. He turned away from me immediately, and I could not help but assume that he was avoiding me at all costs.
But enough of that. I was not here to psychoanalyze this man who seemed to hate me for no reason at all. I was here to help the brother of the man who stumbled into the clinic, asking for help from a medical professional.
With that, I shifted my attention to one of the rescuers who was heading down the hill with the assistance of a rope. He went down slowly and as carefully as he could, as much as the dangling rope and the rocky terrain would allow him.
At one point he was struggling to continue his descent as the rope limited his actions. “Could you please stretch the rope a little more?” he asked, looking up at us. “I’m having a hard time moving here.”
“On it!” I called back, and just as I reached out to do as the rescuer said, another hand also extended itself to help. I looked up at the man’s face to find Ezra.
It seemed that, since the both of us were here at the same time, we both had the same idea to help the rescuer. And as we both did so, our hands touched, meeting in the middle, and I could not deny the fact that I felt a spark when it happened, a jolt of electricity that traveled from the tips of my fingers to my arms and up my brain and heart.
But Ezra moved away with lightning speed, as if the zap had burned him to the core, and went back to ignoring me. I was going to wonder whether he felt that spark too, but there was no time to ponder on that now with a man on the ledge, probably battling for his life.
But even as I loosened the rope to help the rescuer, I couldn’t help but let my mind wonder to all the thing I could’ve done wrong to offend the sheriff.
I really did think he hated me, but for what reason, I could not figure it out. I was a hundred percent sure that I did nothing to offend him. How could I, when I had just gotten here the day before? Did he fault me for not being able to help his investigation yesterday? Was he angry that I did not have the answers he wanted when he asked me whether I noticed anything odd in the area?
But surely even the most unreasonable person would not hold a grudge against me for something that was clearly not my fault. So it must be something else, but what? I really did not remember doing anything to offend him. Recalling our short-lived interaction when he came knocking at my door, as that had been the only possible opportunity for me to have said or done something to anger him, I tried to think if I had done anything, but came up with nothing.
Also, as far as I could remember, he had been kind to me in the initial phases of our encounter, and it was only halfway through when he started to become hostile, closing up against me as if he was on guard. I was about to fall into a rabbit hole, thinking of why he hated me and what I had said in that conversation to make him dislike me this much, when I forced myself to redirect my attention to the matter at hand.
The rescuer resurfaced with the man in his arms, saved from what would have been his imminent doom. My mind immediately switched to my professional self, seeing that we now had pressing matters to deal with.
As the rescuer laid him down on the ground, I sat next to the man and took his pulse, feeling the unsteady beat of his heart under my fingers. And then I went on to checking the source of his agony.
There was a lot of blood oozing out of his legs and upon closer inspection, I found that his left leg was broken, and there was some damage to his spine too.
The leg however, was in worse condition where the bone had perforated the skin and I could see the broken bone sticking out of his calf, blood still gushing out of the wound.
“What’s wrong with him?” Harvey, the injured man’s brother, was immediately by my side. “Is my brother going to be alright?”
“I can give you the basics right now. Broken leg and damaged spine.” I told him as I worked on his injuries. “All I can provide is a temporary treatment, enough to keep him from suffering permanent damage to his spine. But I must insist that he be taken to larger hospitals with better facilities immediately. I regret to inform you that the clinic here does not have the appropriate equipment for your current needs.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” the man tried to say, perhaps thinking about the cost that came with getting treated at main hospitals. “I don’t really need to be admitted.”
Alas, when it came to the condition and treatment of my patients, I was quite stern. “No,” I said firmly. “As your doctor, I can assure you that you need to be transferred immediately. Do you want your spine to be damaged permanently, causing further impairments on your limbs? Or do you want to have most of your mobility back and get better at the earliest possible time? If you want the latter to happen, then I suggest you listen to me and let me do my work.”
I didn’t know if my words would come off as unnecessarily strict, but I really meant it when I said that I wanted only what’s best for him, and for him to get better. An injury like this could leave him a vegetable for the rest of his life. If he didn’t do as I said.
For now, all I could do was to tie his leg up as tightly as I possibly could and give him necessary antibiotics and painkillers, to stop an infection. An X-ray at most but we could all tell that his leg was his horrible condition.
“Get the stretcher.” I called out to the rescuers. “Get him on it immediately; we need to move him down the hill. Make sure his spine is always straight. Do not put pressure on his back!”
As I spoke and worked, I could not help but notice a certain someone’s intense eyes drilling holes in the back of my head…but for the time being, I chose to ignore it. The patient’s life came first. Always.