Stockholm Syndrome by Melissa Yi

Author:Melissa Yi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: medical thriller
Publisher: Olo Books
Published: 2015-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

As I advanced my fingers into Manouchka’s spongy vagina, I couldn’t kid myself about the size of her vaginal laceration.

It was like my fingers had fallen into a pothole. Or, since it was such a long tear, it was more like a trench. A World War I ditch of blood and soft tissue.

My heart battered my throat. I forced myself to breathe, to try and think logically.

No one talks about this, but pushing a baby out, 90 percent of the time, it’s okay. Minor tears at the most. The superficial ones, you can just let heal on their own. Bigger ones mean a few stitches. But the fourth-degree tears are the ones where you can rip your vagina into your rectum.

I’d sewed up a few of these lacerations, with the help of the consultants, but my brain kind of switched off. They’d say, “Sew here,” and I’d sew. The woman would always ask, “How many stitches?” and the doctor would hedge, “It’s kind of hard to say, because the stitches are running together.” (They’re running sutures, where you keep sewing without tying a knot and cutting the thread in between each stitch—I’m sure you can imagine how challenging that would be inside a vagina.) But whenever we have to sew the vagina, it’s usually a big job. Like, at least ten bites of suture.

I’d never repaired a vagina on my own before.

But I wasn’t on my own. I had Tucker.

I calmed myself and surveyed Manouchka’s private parts, as if I could check the tear with X-ray vision as well as my fingers.

If her perineum were a clock, the tear would be at six o’clock. It felt deep because the swollen mucous membranes enveloped my fingers, but she couldn’t have torn any deeper than a centimetre.

My finger pads crept forward, pressing south and meeting spongy resistance. That was good. I definitely wasn’t just falling into the empty cavern of her rectum. This was not a fourth-degree tear.

Finally, just when I reached the full length of my second and third finger, the tear grew shallower and ended.

I moved side to side to check, but this was the end of the road.

Massive phew. My shoulders sagged in momentary relief.

Tucker was talking to Bastard behind me. “Once we save this woman and her baby, we can find Casey. She’s waiting for us. But right now, we need to do it right. You wouldn’t want doctors who wouldn’t save a woman’s life, do you?”

Bastard paused to think about it.

Tucker waited for him, managing not to swear and/or scare the patient. Good thing one of us was still lucid.

The intercom crackled, but I ignored it. With any luck, the cavalry could hear us, but they wouldn’t tip their hand until they were ready to rumble.

RUMBLE. Please, cavalry, come and rumble this man before he murders us.

On cue, the operator cut in through the hospital loudspeaker. “CODE BLUE, FOURTH FLOOR. CODE BLEU, QUATRIÈME ÉTAGE.”

“What the fuck is that?” said Bastard.

So Tucker had pulled the code rope after all.

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