𝗜𝗧𝗖𝗛 ✔

𝟕𝟏. 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃

"Please. Mintel Evans. She's my aunt, she's like a mom to me, I need to see her," Taelyn's broken voice pleaded to the desk clerk, who was becoming more weary by the second.

"It's...whatever. Fine, you guys can go. It's one person at a time, she's in intensive care under the paramedical department....Ward 222."

"Got it. Thank you so much!"

"I'll be in a big muddle if the boss sees I did this..." the clerk was still muttering as Cara, Aiden, and Taelyn dashed off to the elevator.

"Tae, you should go first," Cara suggested once they got to the paramedical department.

Taelyn nodded before taking a deep breath. "Ward 222. This is it." She looked around anxiously before opening the door and swiftly disappearing.

"Do you think she'll be alright?" Cara whispered, gulping.

"I'm..I'm sure she is," Aiden replied, although the lump in his throat said otherwise.

_*_

Taelyn was not alright. Her heart dropped as she saw the sight of her aunt.

Mint was laying on the hospital bed inside the ward. She looked sleeping, peaceful, but Taelyn knew that she wasn't okay at all. Her face was pale, drained of any color. Her body was plugged into countless machines, machines that were whirring and stopping and whirring and stopping. Wires and tubes were everywhere.

A nurse was standing in the corner, reading a clipboard. His brow was furrowed and he gave off an anxious edge. He looked up at Taelyn's arrival.

"Are you family of Mintel Evans, ma'am?" the nurse asked, putting down the clipboard to greet her.

"I'm her niece, sir," Taelyn responded, her voice meek. "Is my aunt...is she going to be okay?"

"We don't know," he sighed. "She was shot by a .50MB gun, long distance. We believe it was a sniper. After she was shot, the rest of the attackers came in through the window. They also raided another's hotel room, but the other person wasn't injured quite as severely as Ms. Evans."

"But there must be something you can do, right? That's your job!" she begged.

"We cauterized the wound, but she's lost so much blood by now....By the intensity of the penetration, we have no idea if she can survive or not." The nurse looked over to the machine on the left. "Her heartrate has been slowing down for an hour now."

"That's impossible," Taelyn whispered, running over to the screen that portrayed her aunt's heartbeat. "You're giving her more blood, right?"

"Yes, she is getting a supply of blood now," he looked at one of the many tubes that were inserted in Mint's arms. "But it took them awhile to get blood to transfuse. Your aunt here is O negative, putting her in a bad situation when it comes to blood transfusions. She could only take O negative blood."

She was getting more paranoid by the second as her heartbeat quickened. "It's just a gunshot, she has to survive!"

The nurse sighed. "I'm as despaired as you are, ma'am. But like I said before...it was a .50MB gun, and hit at her heart. The only reason she's still breathing right now is because the shot missed her heart by three centimeters."

Taelyn watched the heart rate monitor as she felt tears sparking her eyes. She tried her best to stop them, but it was a grim fate for her as the hot, salty liquid streamed down her cheeks.

"She'll be okay. My aunt, she's strong." She went over to where Mint lay and put a hand on hers, wrapping their fingers together. "Auntie, please stay strong for us. You can do this. You can fight. Please...please fight."

"Nurse!"

Suddenly, someone rushed in the ward, carrying several papers that fell to the floor. He wore a pair of glasses that were now lopsided, and his scrubs were wrinkled and dirty.

"Gabriel! What is it?" the nurse turned around, confused.

"There's been a problem with Mintel Evans' blood transfusion."

"What?" both the nurse and Taelyn gasped.

"It seems that the blood wasn't transferring properly to her body. We don't know what the problems, but they are working on it now. She had been laying there untended to for an hour!" the man named Gabriel explained, fixing his glasses.

Taelyn grew pale. She rushed over to Mint's bed and looked at the monitor again. The neon, beady lines that had previously been so slowly moving were now almost nonexistent.

"That's why her heartrate has been so low," she whispered. "There was no blood for her heart to pump."

Her eyes widened as she turned to Gabriel. "Why aren't your people doing anything? She needs help!"

"We're working on it, ma'am, but you understand this has never happened before and we're confused as well-"

"Please." her voice broke down into sobs as she begged. "Please, do something. Work quickly. My aunt, she can't hold on any longer..."

Taelyn looked at the heart rate monitor, praying for the best.

"No. NO!"

And so she realized, at this moment, in this room, that when you pray for the best, only the worst comes to offer.