𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐄

ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ - ꜱɪx

"Excuse me!" a new voice interrupted.

Emiko had less than a second to move out of the way before the doctor was shoving her shoulder absentmindedly into her collarbone, brushing past her without so much as a huff of breath. She would have voiced her reservations about the obvious mistreatment, but the only thing her mind was trained on was the fact that this doctor had left the door ajar just a crack.

She was about to go against everything she thought was right—which was letting the doctors do their damn jobs unbothered—but as she reached toward it, the bustling crowd of EMTs crossed through the threshold, pushing her even further away.

"Wait!" she turned on her heel, "Where are you going?!"

"Our job here is done," one of them looked at her sympathetically.

"She's still dying in there!"

"We're not doctors," he said briefly, "It's out of our hands."

Anger almost had her pressing him more, almost had her telling him to shove it where the sun didn't fucking shine and assist anyway, but her eyes caught sight of a confusing commotion in the emergency waiting room and her words fell short, sticking to her tongue. 

It took that moment of solace and aloneness to realize that her journey chasing the gurney had been done solo and that Caycee was not stuck to her side but at Kai's. Her fingers were shoved deep into the mess of brown and green on her head, in clear distress, and it made her want to dwell on the fact that she hadn't even noticed him when they got here, but all of that changed as she understood the situation.

Caycee's frantic cries landed in her heart like a deadly virus as Kai was slammed to the ground so hair, blood from his nose painted the dull tiles. Two to three cops pinned him down, and despite his struggles, managed to click a pair of handcuffs on.

Is he getting arrested?!

A foot in their direction was all she was allotted before reality snapped at her, reminding her what was serious and what was not. If he was spending a night in jail, he had to do something to earn that vote—it wasn't her problem; swinging around, she paid attention to what was.

Loud voices filled the depths of her eardrums as she looked over her shoulder and watched Blake once more being wheeled out of the trauma bay room.

"Where are you taking her?" she said to a nurse.

He shot her a glance, but other than that, merely brushed her off and followed the crowd.

"Hello!?" she shrieked at him, "Will anyone answer me!?" 

"Momma, you're scaring me!"

Emiko sucked in a fat gulp of air as she glanced a chin-length down and spotted those beautiful jade saucers that belonged to her adopted son. His thumb was pressed to the inside of his baby teeth as he nibbled on it, clearly trying to stop the flow of tears that were already steadily running down his soft brown cheeks.

In the midst of all the chaos, even though he was curled into her arms, she completely negated his existence, caring solely for the woman that was dying, rather than the living, breathing child in her arms. Part of her wanted to curse herself out for being so negligent toward his feelings, but most of her just wanted him to be somewhere safe while she dealt with losing the second person she loved within a handful of days.

Kneeling, she placed Tripp on his feet.

"I'm sorry, baby," she cooed, "I didn't mean to freak you out—mommy is just worried about Auntie Blake right now."

"What's wrong with her?" he whined.

"The doctors have to figure that out," she emitted a small white lie.