Scoundrel Supreme

Elias’s eyes zeroed in on a dark bruise marring her pale wrist.

It was a stark reminder of the pain he had caused her unintentionally, when his mind was fogged by agony.

Elias touched her wrist, feeling guilty.

Though she didn’t recognise him, he remembered her very well.

He couldn’t resist the urge to caress her lips gently, savouring the memory of their sweet taste from last night.

But his touch interrupted Callie’s peaceful slumber, and she responded by biting down on his finger in annoyance.

Surprisingly, the sensation sent a jolt of arousal through Elias, his body instinctively responding before his mind could process the complex mix of emotions coursing through him.

Reluctantly, Elias withdrew his hand.

He got out of bed and stood.

She was still wearing the same blouse from the night before.

Its back was ripped open, exposing her fair skin to his view.

Elias swallowed hard and forced himself to look away, a difficult task.

At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a little exasperated.

In her eyes, he was but a stranger.

Did she always let down her guard like this in front of strangers?

Baffled by her audacity, Elias frowned, but he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her rest.

Gently, he lifted her and settled her comfortably onto the bed, draping a cute quilt with little pandas over her.

Her petite frame felt light as a feather in his arms.

Glancing at the drizzle outside, Elias knew the rain last night had likely erased his tracks and thrown off his assailants from the Misehell Organisation.

Yet, he couldn’t stay here.

Her safety was at risk if he lingered.

Just as he was about to leave, a photo frame sticking out from the trash can caught his eye—a picture of Callie with another man, leaning into his arms, looking radiant with joy.

A feeling Elias had never experienced surged within him, and he longed to know what it was like to be genuinely happy like that.

With a final look at Callie, Elias left, closing the door gently on his way out.

***

Callie awoke in a daze, only to find herself in her own bed.

The stranger was gone, leaving her both puzzled and relieved.

But something bothered her more—how had she ended up on the bed, covered with the quilt?

She couldn’t remember doing that herself, which meant the stranger must have done it.

As she pulled away the thin quilt, she realised the sorry state of her clothes, barely hanging onto her body.

Her frustration grew at the realisation that the stranger might have seen her nearly n*ked.

‘Ugh! I’m never buying anything from that online boutique again!’ Callie ground her teeth, furious.

Why were her clothes so easy to tear, while his seemed indestructible?

Right then, Callie’s phone rang, jolting her from her thoughts.

Callie dug around the pile of quilts until she’d unearthed her phone.

‘Hey, Cece, I’ve set up a blind date for you. You better go and give it a shot!’ The voice on the other end belonged to Lily Hartwell, Callie’s best friend and a B-list actress.

‘Hey, Lilypad!’ Callie made a valiant effort to change the subject. ‘So, what exotic location are you off to this time for your ad shoot? Can you hook me up with some freebies? I need them for the orphanage—’

Lily cut her off with a booming voice, ‘Quit dodging the topic, Callista Hawthorne! I’ve set you up on a blind date. You better show up, got it?’

Callie yawned and grumbled, ‘Lily, seriously? I’m only twenty-five. Why do you always act like my mom and meddle in my love life?

‘If I had a clueless daughter like you, I’d give her a good shake.’ Lily’s words dripped with sarcasm. ‘How can I meddle in your love life when you don’t even have one?’

‘I had one,’ Callie protested.

‘Notice the use of past tense.’ It sounded like Lily was grinding her teeth. ‘That jerk Simon cheated on you, and now he has the nerve to invite you to his wedding. Don’t you think it’s time to show him what he’s missing? Going alone would be admitting defeat. Not going is even worse, and I know you’re better than that.’

Simon…

The name brought on a fresh wave of pain Callie thought she had long put behind her.

Simon Moncrieff was her colleague at Rosedale Hospital and her boyfriend for three years.

Well, ex-boyfriend now.

He also held the dubious title of ‘jerkwad,’ in Lily’s words, which had been upgraded to ‘Scoundrel Supreme’ status after he broke up with Callie, betraying her trust by having an affair with the hospital director’s daughter.

The wounds were still fresh, but revenge wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

Callie struggled to find the right words, but Lily seemed pressed for time. ‘Listen, I have to go now. I’ll have my assistant send you the details for the blind date later. You may act tough, but don’t think you can hide under your covers and cry just because I’m out of town. Stay strong, my girl!’

With that, she abruptly hung up, leaving Callie with teary-eyed frustration.

How did Lily always manage to see through her defences when she wasn’t even in the room?

Callie fell back into bed, staring at the ceiling.

She had turned down other blind dates in the past, but this time, she couldn’t refuse.

It was Lily’s way of looking out for her.

***

Time marched on.

The enigmatic stranger from that fateful night had vanished without a trace, as if he were a figment of Callie’s imagination.

Her demanding work as a surgical resident left her no room to dwell on him anyway—morning rounds at 6:30 am, assisting in surgeries from 7:30 till 11:30, afternoon clinics and consultations from 1 pm, then afternoon rounds at 3:00, followed by medical conferences at 5:00…

Meanwhile, Simon and Abby, his fiancée, seemed to revel in flaunting their relationship in front of Callie.

Critical Condition

Callie made a conscious effort to focus on her work, refusing to engage with Abby’s taunts.

At least she had the satisfaction of not giving Abby the reaction she desired.

But fate had a way of throwing unexpected challenges her way.

One day, after finishing her gruelling morning shift, Callie was looking forward to heading home and catching some shut-eye.

Just as she was about to change out of her white coat, she received an urgent notice, summoning her back to duty.

The hospital had received an order from the military, requiring all available doctors to attend to a group of patients.

These were no ordinary patients—they were soldiers wounded in a daring mission, their injuries severe and their lives hanging by a thread.

The army made it clear that every effort must be made to save them.

Callie hurriedly donned a pristine white coat and dashed into the bustling emergency room at Rosedale Hospital.

Inside, she found a total of nine patients being triaged.

Four soldiers were in critical condition and required immediate surgery, while the remaining five faced less severe injuries.

Simon was there, issuing instructions to nurses to wheel two of the four critically wounded soldiers into an operating theatre.

Abby was by his side, seemingly ready to assist.

Simon, already stretched to the limits by taking on two surgeries, couldn’t handle the load alone.

Meanwhile, the other board-certified surgeons were still on their way back to the hospital.

Callie, though just a fifth-year surgical resident, had to step up.

Simon’s voice was grave as he addressed Callie, ‘Dr Hawthorne, you’ll have to do this without an attending surgeon. Can you handle it?’

‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ Callie was already checking on the third soldier in critical condition, getting him prepped for surgery.

‘I’ll leave it to you, then.’ Simon jogged off towards the suite of operating theatres.

‘What about the fourth one?’ a nurse asked anxiously. ‘He won’t last long out here.’

The soldier was lying on a gurney.

One glance told Callie that he was suffering from penetrating thoracic trauma.

His chest and possibly his lungs were punctured by a sharp object, likely a projectile.

His breathing was becoming increasingly laboured.

‘Just keep him alive for as long as you can,’ Callie said to the nurse. ‘Control external bleeding, if any. Try emergency decompression if you see signs of a collapsed lung. I’ll come and get him after I’m done with my patient, or hopefully one of the other surgeons will have come back by then.’

Abby interjected, ‘Dr Hawthorne, there isn’t enough time to wait for either you or the other surgeons. We have to operate on him right now, or he dies. How about I take him?’

‘You?’ Callie felt her temples throbbing at Abby’s ridiculous request. ‘You are a first-year resident, practically just out of medical school.’

‘So what?’ Abby raised her chin. ‘You are a resident as well.’

‘I’m fifth year, and I’ve performed almost two hundred supervised surgeries. If I remember correctly, that number for you is…what, two, three? All I can recall is it’s a single digit.’

Abby opened her mouth, about to retort, but Callie cut her off. ‘Just stay here and keep an eye on Number Four. Monitor his condition. Stop the bleeding. Administer pain relief if needed. And I hope you still remember how to perform an emergency decompression. Brief the other surgeons once they’ve arrived.’

Then she dashed off into Operating Theatre Two, where patient Number Three was already prepped and waiting.

Abby shot a venomous glare at Callie’s back.

How dare that woman call her incompetent?

And in front of so many other people?

She was the hospital director’s daughter.

So what if she was just a first-year resident?

She practically grew up in a house full of doctors!

She’d show that woman that age and experience meant nothing!

Abby scoffed, turning to the nurse by her side, Wendy, and ordered brusquely, ‘Fetch me a set of scrubs. I’ll perform Number Four’s surgery.’

‘Um, Dr Colman, Dr Hawthorne explicitly said that...’ Wendy, aware of Abby’s position as the director’s daughter, tried to reason with her. ‘You can’t perform the surgery without the permission of a supervising surgeon.’

‘I can’t?’ Abby sneered, her tone laced with derision. ‘Wendy, do you even know what you’re talking about? If I say I’ll do it, then I will. I’ll take full responsibility for the operation. Enough with your nonsense, come and assist me.’

As a seasoned nurse, Wendy understood the impropriety of the situation, but then, she had limited power compared to Abby, who could get her fired with just one phone call to Director Colman.

Reluctantly, she helped Abby change into a set of scrubs, and they entered the third operating theatre together.

Abby confidently took charge of the surgery on the anesthetised soldier.

To her, the emergency thoracotomy wasn’t that challenging.

Though she had not personally performed one before, she had watched plenty of training footage.

With a scalpel, she made a midline incision on the patient’s chest wall, then gained entry into the thoracic cavity with a pair of retractors.

She evaluated the lung injuries, deemed them to be manageable, and confirmed her suspicion that Callie’s denial of her request to perform the surgery stemmed purely from personal bias.

She was doing fine, wasn’t she?

Wendy stood by her side, watching with bated breath, handing her the necessary instruments as they were needed.

The surgery progressed relatively smoothly.

Despite some minor flaws, Abby managed to stop the internal bleeding and repair the lung lacerations.

However, just as Wendy began to relax, bright red blood squirted from the patient’s open chest, splattering onto Abby’s face and hands.

Abby gasped, feeling the warmth of the blood against her skin despite the protection of the mask.

The patient’s face rapidly turned pallid, his breath growing shallow and rasp-filled.

‘Dr Colman!’ Wendy’s voice trembled as she observed the alarming drop in the patient’s vital signs on the monitor. ‘His blood pressure is plummeting! Heart rate’s spiking! He’s in severe tachycardia! We have to stop the bleeding!’

Medical Mishap

‘Shut up! Shut up! I know!’ Panic washed over Abby as she futilely attempted to staunch the unrelenting flow of blood with surgical sponges, then suction devices.

The bright red colour of the blood meant she must have nicked an artery somewhere, but with so much blood flooding his chest cavity, it was hard to identify the exact location of the leak.

‘Sh*t, sh*t, sh*t!’ Abby’s hands shook violently.

Her confidence had misled her into believing this surgery would be a breeze.

Disregarding Callie’s warning, she had taken matters into her own hands, operating without proper authorisation.

And now, everything had spiralled out of control.

Not only had she violated the hospital’s rules, but she had also caused a medical mishap.

To make matters worse, the patient lying before her was a soldier.

What if he died on the operating table?

The weight of the consequences pressed upon her, leaving her paralysed with fear.

Her trembling hands failed to halt the bleeding, rendering her helpless.

Wendy, though just as flustered, knew she couldn’t afford to panic.

She tried to keep her voice steady as she admonished Abby, ‘Dr Colman, this is not the time to freeze. The patient’s going to bleed to death if you don’t do something!’

‘I... I...’ Abby’s voice wavered, her distress seeping through her words. ‘I... I don’t know. What should I do?’

Wendy swore under her breath and fought the urge to shake some sense into the young woman.

Abby was the doctor here, even if she was just a first-year resident.

If she didn’t know what to do, what hope was there for a nurse like Wendy?

But Abby was clearly incapable of acting right now.

Wendy shoved her aside, used suction devices to remove excess blood and fluid from the patient’s chest cavity and tried to locate the bleeding source.

But there was simply too much blood.

And even if she did find it, she’d need a surgeon to help stop the bleeding.

Abby stood by the side, watching helplessly.

Wendy shot her a glare of frustration before hurrying off to Operating Theatre Two.

She shouted into the intercom. ‘Dr Hawthorne! We need you in Theatre Three!’

Callie was drenched in sweat, having just closed the patient’s pericardium with absorbable sutures and the chest incision with surgical staples.

She was about to place drains to evacuate any fluid or blood that may accumulate postoperatively.

Continuing her work and without looking up, she asked, ‘What?’

‘Dr Colman performed the emergency thoracotomy alone. Midway through the operation, the patient started haemorrhaging profusely. He’s in tachycardia, and none of his vital signs looks promising.’

Callie’s movements momentarily faltered, but within seconds, she recovered and picked up her pace. ‘Wendy, prepare for a blood transfusion immediately. I’ll be there in three minutes.’

‘Dr Colman, that’s the other problem! The patient is blood type A, MNSSU. We don’t have that in our blood bank. And compatibility test with blood types A or O takes time.’ Wendy’s voice was hoarse from shouting. ‘As far as I know, you’re the only one in this hospital with that exact blood type.’

Callie bit her lip, her grip tightening around the chest drain tube. ‘Is Dr Moncrieff available?’

‘No. I looked into Theatre One. He’s just getting started on patient Number Two.’

Which meant Callie had to do both: treat the patient and donate blood.

There was a flicker of unwavering resolve in her almond-shaped eyes as she repeated herself, ‘Wendy, I’ll be there in three minutes. Set up the transfusion pump. As soon as I find and close the bleeding site, we’ll do the transfusion.’

‘But Dr Hawthorne—’

‘Go. Now!’

With that, she shut out Wendy’s protests, diving back into her patient’s care.

Abby’s disregard for her instructions and unauthorised surgery had caught Callie off guard.

But this was no time for pointing fingers.

That would come later.

Callie picked up her pace once more, closed the incision site, then left instructions for the surgical nurse to apply sterile dressing before darting out of Operating Theatre Two into the adjacent Theatre Three.

She scrubbed up and stormed into the theatre.

‘Is the blood pump ready?’ she asked Wendy, not sparing a glance at Abby, who stood frozen to the spot.

‘All set.’

With Wendy’s help, Callie examined the patient’s chest cavity, gently manipulating the surrounding tissues and structures to identify the injured artery.

It took her about twenty seconds to find the bleeding spot.

With a pair of vascular clamps, she clamped down on the artery until there was no more blood seeping out.

Then she sutured the artery with a curved surgical needle.

Once haemostasis was achieved, she relaxed slightly.

She turned to Wendy. ‘Let’s do the transfusion.’

She sat on a stool and rolled up her sleeve. ‘Let’s do 300cc first.’

‘Got it.’

Wendy drew Callie’s blood with practised ease, collected it into a sterile canister, then processed it in the blood salvage machine to separate the red blood cells from other fluids.

Once separated, the red blood cells were washed with a sterile solution to remove any contaminants, then filtered to get rid of any remaining impurities or clots.

Finally, it was transferred to a blood bag and immediately administered to the patient with a transfusion line and a blood filter.

Throughout the process, Callie kept her eyes on the monitor, observing the patient’s vital stats.

They had stabilised somewhat, but his systolic blood pressure and oxygen saturation level were still dangerously low.

‘Draw another 500cc,’ she said to Wendy, who did as told.

‘Another 300cc,’ Callie said after the second transfusion was done. ‘His oxygen saturation level is still below ninety per cent.’

The nurse sighed when she noted Callie’s increasingly pallid face, but she carried out the order without protest.

It wasn’t until the patient’s oxygen saturation level was brought back up to a healthy 98% that Callie finally stopped.

She rose to her feet, swayed and saw black dots swimming in front of her eyes.