Marked by Sarah Fine Page A

stretcher wheels; Len and the others were on their way. Cacy twisted out of Eli’s grasp and was at her father’s side in less than a second. Eli took a moment to check the vitals of the other victims before handing them over to Len and the other crews. He looked up in time to watch Cacy wave a shaking cardiac wand over her father’s chest. It beeped.
    “Daddy. I’m here.”
    Patrick Ferry moaned. The fingers of his left hand, lying limp at his side, flexed. “My . . . darling,” he rasped. His head rose briefly from his chest but then bobbed back down, too heavy for his weakened body.
    “Tachycardic,” she whispered as Eli squatted down next to her.
    “The others have been shot. Is he bleeding? Did you assess for trauma?”
    “I . . . I don’t know,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.
    Eli’s hands closed gently around her shoulders. “Cacy, move aside and let me help him.”
    She scrambled backward, and Eli got to work. Patrick Ferry’s lips were gray with shock. The streetlight above them reflected off the blood that soaked his dark suit. Shit. He yanked the man’s shirt open to reveal a puckered hole in the lower-right quadrant of his chest.
    “Cacy, hand me an autostaunch.” Eli held his hand out as he leaned around to check for an exit wound. “Wait. No. Make it two.”
    Cacy let out a low sob and began to dig in the med kit as Eli maneuvered his patient onto his back. “Shears too, please.”
    Cacy handed him the shears and bandages. Eli cut the perfectly tailored suit away from her father’s arms and chest, wishing to God she didn’t have to witness this. The soaked fabric soon lay in a pile next to them. He hoped the autostaunches would do their job and keep Patrick Ferry from bleeding out before they could get him to the hospital.
    Eli glanced up and saw Len and the two other teams carting victims away. He could tell by the urgency of the paramedics’ movements that the patients were at serious risk if they didn’t get to the CMC fast enough. He focused on prepping Cacy’s father for the same journey. He clipped an oxygen minipump to the man’s nose and a blood-pressure ring to his neck.
    The cardiac wand chirped. A disruption in the patient’s heart rhythm. Patrick Ferry’s eyelids fluttered. He turned his head toward his daughter. His hands shifted restlessly at his side, and his eyes went wide. “No,” he mouthed.
    Eli whipped around to see Cacy staring back at her father, her full lips open in a silent scream. Her eyes were wild. She clutched her round pendant in her hand. Tears coursing down her beautiful face, she looked down at the engraved metal disk as if it had betrayed her.
    Eli’s hand shot out, and his fingers closed around her wrist. He yanked her close and spoke right into her face. “It’s going to be all right, Cacy. I’m going to take care of him. But you’ve got to help me.”
    He released her arm. “Get over here and help me get him on the stretcher.” He kept his voice firm, trying to snap her out of panic mode. Cacy obeyed him, and together they lifted her father onto the stretcher.
    Eli looked down at Cacy as they jogged toward the rig. She was steering the stretcher while he injected chemical defib into her father’s chest. She looked shaky and pale, like she’d seen a ghost. “You’re going to drive, all right? I’m going in the back with your dad.”
    She nodded. They loaded her father into the ambulance. Eli grabbed the suction device and got to work, but when he looked up again, Cacy was still standing in front of the open rear doors, staring at her father. She touched her tearstained cheek and looked blankly at her fingertips, like she hadn’t known she was crying.
    “Cacy, dammit, get up there and drive!” Eli reached forward and slammed the rear doors in her face, praying she would understand.
    The driver’s side door opened, and Cacy climbed into the cab. A second later, they lurched into motion.
    Eli’s heart pounded as he