Chapter 13 UNCERTAINTY

ELIAS'S MIND WAS all over the place as he headed toward the ward where the governor's son was being treated.

It was not as if he could do much, after all. His seniors and more experienced doctors were already handling the case.

Doctor Marcus looked up and saw him approaching, and for once, he was too worried to even hate Elias.

"What's going on?" Elias asked.

Marcus shrugged, pacing the entire length of the hallway.

"Why aren't you in there?" Elias asked. "You're the chief..."

"It is not in my area of specialty," Marcus snapped.

Then he stopped and glared at Elias. "Now, what are you doing here? Don't you have other places to be?"

Before Elias could reply, the door opened and a male nurse came out.

"How is it going?" Marcus immediately asked.

The nurse sighed and shook his head.

"Is he... is he..." Marcus was afraid to even say the word.

The nurse shook his head again. "He is not dead yet. But there is no progress. The doctors can't even stop the bleeding without causing further damage. They need to get him onto bypass, but they can't do that in this theatre...."

"Why are they still thinking about it?" Marcus yelled. "They should do it!"

"It gives us another problem, sir," the nurse replied. "The bypass can't be done here. They have to move him to one of the main operating theatres upstairs."

"Well?" Marcus raised an eyebrow.

"Before we get upstairs, the boy will be dead," the nurse said with a note of finality.

Marcus's legs gave way. Luckily, there was a vinyl chair nearby, so he collapsed into it instead of falling to the floor.

"Sir... are you all right?" the nurse asked, immediately concerned.

"Why did you come out?" Elias asked the nurse.

"I was told to come and give an update so the governor could be informed of the situation."

"What? No, no." Marcus suddenly stood on shaky legs. "The governor can't know. Even the press can't know."

His voice lowered as he continued. "Perhaps we can keep a lid on this and advise that the boy be transferred to another hospital."

"Sir, he would be dead before he was even loaded into an ambulance."

"Well, no one has to know about that," Marcus said.

Elias's eyes narrowed.

Marcus wiped a hand over his face. When he spoke again, his voice was strangely calm, "The ambulance leaves. The patient is alive when he leaves our care. What happens after that... is no longer our responsibility. In our reports, it would be recorded that he left our hospital alive. His death would not be on our hands."

The hallway went silent.

"I want you to go and get an ambulance ready. Immediately."

"No." Elias's voice cut through the hallway. He had a determined look in his eyes.

"Go and call Nurse Lilly. Right now. Tell her to meet me in Operating Theatre Three."

The nurse looked at Elias in surprise before hurrying toward the landline phone.

"What do you think you're going to do?" Marcus asked, following Elias as he entered the theatre.

"I'm going to save the governor's son," Elias answered. He had never performed surgery in a real operating theatre before, but Chen Wei's lessons had taught him enough to know where to begin. He took off his jacket and walked to the basin to disinfect his hands.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?" one of the surgeons asked. "You shouldn't be in here."

The door opened again, and Nurse Lilly hurried inside.

"Good. You're on time," Elias said. "Get me ready for surgery."

"What?"

The doctors looked at one another in confusion as Lilly helped Elias into his scrubs and gloves.

"Excuse us," Elias commanded. "I want you all out of here."

"We cannot possibly leave now," one of the surgeons said. "This is the middle of a—"

"The boy is dying," Elias cut in. His voice was cold and steady. "Now, would you rather he dies at your hands, or that he dies in mine? Don't worry. If he dies, the report will carry my name."

The doctors looked at one another. Each of them considered what Elias had said, most of them did not want another death hanging over their careers. One by one, they quietly filed out of the theatre.

"I am not leaving!" One remaining doctor said. "You do not have the authority to command us."

"But i do," Marcus said from the door. All heads paused and turned to look at him. "Give doctor Barton the room. The tine is counting, Barton." He glared at Elias before he turned and walked out.

Elias was stunned as he watched Marcus just approve of him. Then it dawned on him. Marcus knew how forlorn this operation was, and he hoped Elias would fail. He was going to put the blame completely on Elias. He looked at Nurse Lilly who was prepping up for surgery and he felt slightly sorry for her. If anything happened, they would both take the brunt of it.

"This is a tough one," He said to her as she joined him by his side. "I'm going to need your help, and I'm going to need it quickly."

He looked toward the door. "But first, lock it."

She did as he asked and then came back to his side.

"Suction the blood away," he said. "I need to see what I'm working with."

The more blood she suctioned away, the more seemed to come. But each spurt was weaker than the last. He had lost too much blood, and the inside of his body was a mangled, bloody mess.

Elias placed all of his needles on a tray. As he was about to pick them, his mind immediately flashed to the trance from last night when he touched the needles.

What would happen if he were to fall into such a trance now? The boy would die, helpless and nurse Lilly's career would be over. For a moment, uncertainty washed over him.

"Doctor Barton?" Her voice drew him out of his thoughts.

"Yes, yes." He shook his head to clear the cobwebs before he carefully picked a needle. Lilly watched in amazement as he carefully inserted one into the area around a leaking blood vessel.

The bleeding stopped. Elias smiled beneath his mask.

This was working. He placed another needle carefully at a different point.

It was painstaking work because he had to heal the boy's organs layer by layer.

With each needle, a faint, ominous glow travelled from his hands into the metal.

The organs began to heal, drawing energy from Elias's body.

Lilly's mouth fell open behind her mask. She could not believe what she was seeing. But she quickly understood what Elias needed.

Whenever he extended a hand, she carefully placed another needle into it.

Then she watched in stunned silence as he continued.

The LED lights buzzed overhead. Lilly was too afraid to breathe.

Only the steady beeping of the life-support machines could be heard.

Suddenly—

BANG! BANG! BANG!

A loud pounding came from the door. It was Doctor Marcus. He was with the surgeons Elias had sent out of the theatre.

The sudden banging startled Elias and his hand jerked.

The needle slipped and pricked another organ, which immediately began to hemorrhage. Blood began flowing again.

Shit! Elias cursed.

The machines' alarms grew louder and more frequent.

If he did not do something quickly, the boy's condition was going to deteriorate beyond saving.