Chapter 19

I t should have been a simple procedure.

That thought kept repeating in Salem's head like a mantra, even as machines blared out warnings, people scrambled around the table, and something like panic shot up his spine. It should have been a simple procedure. He shouldn't have a twelve-year-old girl crashing on his table when all he was supposed to do was come in here and take out a damn appendix.

All of his experience, training…it started clicking over in his head even as he tried to diagnose the problem. She was crashing, not breathing. He'd barely gotten her open, the laparoscope cued, when she'd crashed so suddenly.

"Beth, did you check if she was allergic to anesthesia?"

Beth had ten years under her belt as an anesthesiologist and didn't make rookie mistakes, but he had to check because right now, anything could be the culprit.

"Yes, she wasn't allergic."

Shit, so it wasn't that.

"Pull out," Salem commanded sharply. "Tape those incisions shut, I don't need her hemorrhaging blood— shit !"

Her pulse flatlined.

Salem leapt into doing CPR, both palms flat on her sternum as he pulsed. One, two, three—come on, kid, come on—four, five, six—do not fucking die on me—seven, eight, nine?—

For all of his experience, despite his training, there was so fucking little he could do right now, other than perform CPR and pray. Even his magic was no help here. There wasn't a single fucking spell he knew to magically get this girl breathing again, her heart beating. What was even the use of magic if he couldn't save one child?

Her pulse leapt back up, jerky, but at least there. She sucked in a ragged, full breath, then another, coughing a little around it.

Salem disengaged, sweat beading his forehead, his own heart going a mile a minute.

Beth had already shut off the anesthesia flow; the other nurses assisting removed the robot and taped the incisions shut. Surgery wasn't happening today, not until they knew what had caused this madness. Salem was just glad they were only delaying a surgery and not prepping for a funeral.

He watched the monitors like a hawk, and while her numbers weren't great, she at least had a pulse on the screen and not a flat line. Frankly, he wasn't going to rest easy until those numbers improved.

"What the hell happened?" His fellow surgeon, Tren, looked at him, a mirror of all the confusion he felt, a hard tic in her jaw. "This should have been an easy in and out. Beth, you sure this wasn't an allergic reaction?"

"I tested her," Beth insisted. "The kid's got weird allergies as it is, I wanted to make sure she was fine. And she should have shown a reaction before even making it to the room."

That was true. They started all medicines and fluids a few minutes before wheeling into surgery to make sure there wasn't going to be a reaction before cutting people open. If Beth had gone the extra mile and tested her as well, then it likely wasn't because of the drugs.

Salem had become a pediatric surgeon for one simple reason: He liked kids. He wanted them to grow up to be healthy adults. It was simple as that. To see a child under his care nearly die shook him to his core, and to say he was upset was a very gross understatement. His whole being trembled. Part of him was angry.

"Salem…you don't think the parents fed her something, do you?" A dark frown swept over Tren's face. "They better not have."

Tren was one of the best surgeons they had in this hospital and Salem had always enjoyed working with her. She was a month out from completing her residency, and he hoped to keep her once she was done, mostly because she thought things through like this. And he saw her point almost immediately.

If the appendix hadn't burst—and they'd be seeing very different symptoms if it had—and if she wasn't allergic to the anesthesia, then what options were left?

Someone did something stupid.

Unfortunately, it was a real possibility.

First surgeries of the day—generally speaking, about seven a.m.—they rarely had this problem. Kids were brought in about five a.m., and breakfast wasn't really a thing so early in the morning, so it wasn't a struggle to keep the kid from eating anything before surgery. But this surgery was at two p.m.—a whole different ballgame. Kid got hungry, parents often tried to sneak a snack in or something, and if they weren't caught by a nurse? Then real trouble came crashing in.

Like now.

Salem wasn't certain that was what had happened here, but he unfortunately saw it far too often, so the chances were good. Snarling, he whirled around, heading for the door. Over his shoulder, he snapped out orders.

"Clean her up, get her into a room, monitor her closely. I do not want anyone leaving her side for more than two minutes until we're sure she's out of the woods. Tren, with me. We're getting to the bottom of this."

"Oh, I'm right with you." Tren cracked her neck to either side, anger creeping into her voice. "I'mma bitch slap someone if they did feed her."

"Only if you beat me to it."

Salem took off his gloves and tossed them in the can, removing the outer surgical gown but not bothering to change beyond that as he speed-walked down the hallway and into the waiting area. There were several anxious parents waiting on news of their children, and he had no true recollection of Clarissa's parents, having only met them briefly for five minutes.

He stopped in the doorway of the waiting area and called out, "Clarissa Anderson's parents?"

Three people responded immediately. Unless he missed his guess, it was mother, father, and grandmother. Or at least, the ages looked about right. The blonde woman in jeans and a sweatshirt had to be related to the grandmother, as they had similar heart-shaped faces, their blue eyes a perfect match for each other. Clarissa took after her father with her dark brown hair and olive skin tone.

"Is she all right?" the mother demanded, nearly running for him. "You just went into surgery, it was supposed to be longer than this, right?"

He had no interest in answering her questions until he had an answer for his own. "Did you feed her?"

The mother stopped dead in front of him, baffled. "No, of course not. She didn't even get a sip of water after midnight. Did something happen?!"

So she hadn't done anything. But the grandmother had gone deathly pale, cringing with guilt, and Salem had a feeling he knew what had happened.

His attention zeroed in on her. "What did you feed her and when?"

"It-it was just a granola bar," the grandmother stammered, her voice reedy and thin. "She was so hungry, and?—"

The mother whipped around, aghast and spluttering. "Mom! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

The father started muttering in Italian, sounding disgusted. Also distraught. He switched to English to demand, "My daughter is fine?"

"No. No, she's not. She damn near died on the table." Tren muscled in closer to face the grandmother down, body language saying she was this close to pushing up sleeves and starting a fight. "We nearly lost her. We nearly had a dead child on our hands because you couldn't follow simple instructions."

Clarissa's mother latched on to Salem, eyes pleading. "Tell me she's alive."

"She's alive." Something he was glad to say. "Tren's correct in it was a damn near thing, but she is alive."

"Tell me exactly what happened."

It was a demand he was willing to respond to because the grandmother needed a wake-up call. "She stopped breathing, heart stopped, literally all life functions were shutting down." The next part he delivered while staring at the grandmother, who was looking quite corpse-like. "That's why we say no food before a surgery. The body goes into shock and often there's precious little we can do to reverse the situation if the child crashes. Fortunately, CPR got her back to breathing. I have a nurse watching her closely until we're sure she's out of the woods. I'll let you two back in there shortly so you can sit with her as well. But you?" Salem looked at the grandmother. "You don't see her at all until she's out of this hospital."

"Not even then," Mom snarled at her own mother. "Get out. Now. Do not try to contact us before we call you. It might be years before you get to see Clarissa again. I've had it with your stupidity."

The tears were overflowing. "She-she was just hungry. I was only?—"

"Out!" the father snapped at her. "Now!"

Salem didn't blame him for the outburst. He shared in the anger.

Tren took it a step further, signaling hospital security and having her escorted out. The grandmother cried and wailed the entire way, but no one had sympathy for her.

"I am so sorry." Clarissa's mom had tears ready to fall. "My mother has always been stupid with anything medical. She tries to sneak Clarissa cookies all the time too, despite Clarissa being a severe celiac. It's been a nightmare. Please, please tell me you can still do the surgery."

"Not today." Salem said this firmly because hell no. "Right now, her whole body is dealing with the trauma it was just dealt and a surgery is absolutely not wise. I know her appendix isn't in great shape. I know it needs to come out soon. This is going to be something of a balancing act. I want to give her at least two days before we try the surgery again. I'll keep her on antibiotics to make sure that appendix doesn't burst on us until we can get to it. She needs the antibiotics anyway to make the surgery more viable. I also want her admitted the night before because—no offense—I just can't take the risk again."

"Completely understandable." Father was still looking hopping mad, his accent growing thicker with his anger. "I do not want to take risk again. You keep her here."

"We will. Please, whatever instructions you receive, follow to the letter."

"We will," Mom promised fiercely. "And my mother isn't going to see her for a long time."

Good. Maybe Clarissa would actually make it to adulthood safely. Salem was one hundred percent a believer in the philosophy that stupidity was the number one cause of death worldwide.

"We'll get you back soon once she's in a room," he promised again. "Sit tight."

"Thank you."

With a final nod, he turned and walked to his office. He had a little downtime now that his surgery was cut short, and he needed at least ten minutes to decompress before he went and checked on Clarissa. He was still shaking.

He got to his office, sat down, and put his head in his hands, just breathing. Just pulling in air through his nose, releasing it through his mouth, and trying to get over the scare.

Kid was fine. Clarissa may have taken five years off his life, but the kid would be fine. Salem repeated those words about five times before he started to believe them.

Still, this whole situation grated. Anyone who worked with people would say how stupid the general public was. Things like this happened. It wasn't the first time, wouldn't be the last. God, what a depressing thought, that he'd have to deal with a situation like this again. Hopefully without losing a patient.

Sitting back in his chair, his eyes caught the calendar hanging on the wall. A joke from Alexis, the art featured dragons in full flight—a beautiful picture. Seeing it made him wonder what the past had been like. Before modern medicine came on the scene, when the mages had all sorts of spells and potions to do the same jobs. Would he have been able to heal an appendix without needing to take it out? Would surgery look entirely different if he just knew the right spells and potions?

But of course, it had all been lost in the Dragon Wars. All of the medical knowledge, all of those spells were lost, rendering the magic known today impotent in comparison.

Gregori insisted he was a mage, a mate. But how could he possibly believe that when he couldn't even save one kid with his magic?

"Universe, if you're trying to pull a joke on me, it's not fucking funny."

Sighing, he got up and headed for the door, pulling on his doctor's coat as he went. He needed to check on Clarissa. If she was fine, maybe he'd head home early. Right now, he wasn't in the right headspace to help anyone.