Skins & Needles (COMPLETE)

The Luckiest Shot Part 2

Arsen

We pulled up to the back of the hospital as Charlotte lost consciousness. Our trusted doctor already waited with a stretcher, and I hummed in relief. I lifted Charlotte out of the limo and carried her over, trying not to jostle her too much in her injury-induced slumber.

"Doctor Shannon," I greeted as I lay Charlotte down. "I apologize for the late call."

"It's all right," she replied, and began wheeling the stretcher in through a door she'd propped open with a brick. "We just need to hurry. You may need to help me, depending on the severity."

"Of course. Anything." It wasn't unusual to have to lend a hand when we brought people in. Just a side effect of operating off the grid.

"So, what happened?" Dr. Shannon asked when we reached the operating room and she began preparing her tools. "I thought tonight was Solstice."

"It is," I sighed. "She doesn't know, and overheard a conversation between us and the Nathair boss, and he, well..."

"I see. It's a shame she had to waste such a pretty dress." As she spoke, she began cutting the dress open, and I had half the mind to look away in respect for Charlotte's dignity. However, if I was supposed to be playing surgeon's assistant, I didn't really have that option.

"How bad does it look?" I asked as Dr. Shannon pulled the dress open and revealed the wound. It wasn't bleeding as much now, with Charlotte unconscious and lying flat, but it still looked like a nasty exit wound. I could see bone through the blood, which didn't lend itself to a pleasant recovery.

"Well, it seems like it went straight through," she said as she inspected the wound. "I'll have to see if or what organs were damaged. She's lucky he wasn't using hollow points."

"Seriously," I agreed, having already thought that myself.

"First thing's first. She's going to need blood."

I watched Dr. Shannon work, helping her set up a transfusion and handing her the necessary equipment when she asked. She took an x-ray of the area, and then got to work checking for any life-threatening damage. It was unnerving seeing someone who just over an hour ago had seemed so completely alive, now lying cut open on a cot. I couldn't help but watch in horrified fascination as Dr. Shannon worked to repair internal damage and patch up the hole.

"She got hit with the luckiest shot," Dr. Shannon told me after a while of working as she sewed up the exit wound.

"How so?" I asked, helping her turn Charlotte over to patch up the hole in her back.

"The bullet hit and cracked two of her ribs, one upon entrance, and one upon exit. But it didn't splinter either, and it missed anything vital in the path it took bouncing off bone. It's possibly, for lack of a better word, the nicest gunshot wound I've ever seen."

"That's good," I nodded, happy to hear that her injuries wouldn't cause any long-term harm, and helped Dr. Shannon take her dress the rest of the way off her back.

When we both saw her back, we glanced up at one another in puzzlement, though it had nothing to do with the entry wound. Around the wound and on her ribs was a shattered ring of scarring.

"Do you know what that's from?" Dr. Shannon asked as we studied the scars.

I shook my head slowly.

"I've only known her for about a week, and haven't ever seen her, you know..."

"Right." The doctor cleaned off the area so she could begin stitching up the wound, and touched the scars lightly. "They look roughly healed, like she never went to a doctor for the injury," she pondered aloud. "The only thing like this I've seen was when someone came in after being stabbed by a broken bottle in a bar fight."