Fucking back-alley surgery on my potentially dying sister… that’s what this is turning into. I’m struggling to breathe. There’s a reason why doctors never treat family members, and my racing heart is part of that reason. I’m losing my mind, and trauma surgery is an art form. Not many people can do it—it’s all about remaining calm in the face of extreme pressure, blocking out the chaos, the shouting and panic taking place around you. Your hand needs to be steady one hundred percent of the time. Right now, my hand is shaking so bad I don’t think I could pick up a pen.

“Tell me what happened. Tell me exactly what happened so I can visualise.” The guy that was here a moment ago has vanished, on a mission to find the items I asked for. Another guy steps forward, late twenties, wearing a smart shirt and a tie of all things. He’s wearing skinny jeans, which seem just as out of place as his tie. “Soph got shot,” he mumbles, scrubbing his palms against his jeans. His hands are covered in blood. I want to smash him in his face.

“I can fucking see that she’s been shot, asshole! What kind of gun was she shot with? From how far away? From what angle? ”

The guy just looks at me blankly. It’s a woman who provides the answers, a tall blonde with piercing green eyes. “We were at a meet. It went bad. We copped heat and had to run. Soph got hit with a Glock 22. A .40 calibre. The shot came from about twenty feet away, from the side, like this, but from high up.” She moves to my left, lifting her hand in the shape of gun, aiming it directly at my chest.

So she was shot from a distance, down and to the right. The bullet could be anywhere, could have torn absolutely anything apart. A sense of sheer hopelessness washes over me. If we were in a hospital, if I had a surgical team, if I had a sterile environment and life support machines and time, there might be a chance I could save Alexis. As it stands, in a domestic kitchen with none of those things…

“Here, I got everything you asked for.” The guy returns; he is indeed carrying all of the items I’ve asked for in his arms. He dumps it all out on the table next to Alexis, whose shallow, rapid breathing, almost unnoticeable, has quickened since she was brought inside. Her body is in massive shock. And if I do this, if I cut her open, I’m about to make it ten times worse. It could kill her.

The alternative is that I just leave her to die on this kitchen table, though, and that seems infinitely worse than not trying at all.

“Naomi?” Zeth’s larger-than-life frame fills the doorway, his face utterly blank as he takes in the fiasco in front of him. A number of the people in the kitchen turn to see who this newcomer is, but the others remain staring at Alexis. Soph, the guy called her. They know her as Soph—the girls mentioned a Sophia last night in the other house—and they all seem to care about her. “What’s going on?” Zeth asks. His voice is like a grounding rod; his presence has a strangely calming effect on me. My hands quit shaking quite so hard.

“I need the room to be cleared,” I say, my voice sounding methodical and in control. I’m not, but at least I sound like I am. Zeth nods, and I turn to my patient, snatching up the plastic bag and the duct tape. I tear the bag using my teeth and I lay a square patch of it over the wound in Alexis’ chest. I fix it in place, making sure the plastic and the duct tape form a perfect seal.

“This is her, isn’t it? What are you doing?” Zeth’s voice is the only one in the room, now. I hadn’t noticed everyone leave while I worked, but I’m thankful for the silence.

“Yeah. This is her.” I quickly tell him what the blonde told me, while I hold my hands over my mouth, watching and waiting. I count to twenty, with my hand resting on Lexi’s chest, checking to make sure she’s still breathing.

“Sloane?”

“I need to find out if her lung’s been punctured. If it has, air will be escaping through her lungs. The plastic bag will inflate as it leaves the wound.” Another five seconds. Ten. Alexis is still breathing, but the plastic doesn’t inflate.

“Her lung’s fine,” I say, ripping the plastic bag and tape from her skin. Shame I can’t do a similar sort of triage test to tell if her heart’s been grazed. The tachycardia could mean that it has, but it could also just mean that she’s in shock. Which she definitely is.

“Now what?” Zeth’s not panicking. His eyes are fixed on me, steady, focused and alert.

“Now I have to try and find the bullet.” I press down Lexi’s stomach, waiting to feel the firmness that signals peritonitis—that there’s an internal bleed somewhere. I don’t feel it, though. This means I can just follow the trajectory of the wound with the tweezers I’ve been given and hopefully, if fate is on our side, I’ll find the bullet and not have to open her up to assess the damage visually.

Zeth reacts swiftly and decisively, handing me what I need when I ask for it. I run into problems pretty much immediately. The tweezers are too short; they’re regular cosmetic ones and only reach a couple of inches into the wound. The alcohol they’ve given me to sterilize with is fucking schnapps. I have to send Zeth in search of something with less sugar and added crap; he comes back with high-grade Russian vodka and I feel like kissing him. But then, Lexi worsens further, topping everything off with agonal breathing—gasping, labored breaths, a desperately bad sign that tells me either her heart is under massive strain or she’s in renal or liver failure.

“Fuck. I don’t know what to do. Fuck!” I’m cracking. I can’t fucking do this. She’s going to die. I’ve been worried for years that she’s dead, but she hasn’t been, and now the most colossal irony of all is that she’s dying right in front of me and I can’t do a fucking thing about it.