Panic Button
Kani wiped the blood from her nose, spread it on her shirt. Her head was spinning, vision filled with spots, and the blood was flowing faster. She opened the door to the car and got out, stumbling into the gravel.
“Kani!” Simon shouted, running after her. “What’s going on?”
“D-d-don’t know,” she said, trying to stand, but the world shifted and she fell back. Simon caught her, pulled her to the car, lowered her into the back seat. He checked her eyes, felt her forehead.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know at all. We need to get you to a hospital.”
She grabbed his arm urgently, kept her sleeve against her nose.
“No!” she gasped. “No, I can’t!”
“Kani, you’re white as a sheet. I don’t want you dying in my car. We have to get you professional help.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Please, just give me a minute…”
She tried to sit up, but the world blacked out on her, and she fell back into the seat. When she opened her eyes next, they were racing down the road. She put her hand on the back of Simon’s seat and tried to sit up, but he’d strapped her down somehow.
“Simon…” she said. “Simon, please…”
Things blurred again, and the next thing she knew, she was being carried out of the car, her arm over Simon’s shoulder. The words were hard to hold on to, but she heard him arguing with someone, and then she was sitting in a waiting room, struggling to keep her head up.
“Are you hurt?” asked voice from beside her. She turned her head and saw a small boy with a nail stuck through his hand. He stared up at her with wide eyes, oblivious to his own ordeal.
“I’m good,” she said, clearing her throat. “How are you?”
“I fell in the garden.”
“Looks painful.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he shrugged. “How about you?”
“It’s a girl thing,” she said, and tried to smile.
He did not look amused.
“You’ve got blood on your shirt. And your face. What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” she said, and looked around. Things weren’t so swirly anymore, and she could see across the room. Simon was at the nurses’ station, making broad motions in her direction, but she still couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.
Just then, behind Simon, she saw a security guard stride into the room, talking on his radio. He was sweeping the room, watching the patients carefully. Kani turned around to talk to the boy.
“Are you scared?” she asked him.
“What? No.”
“I’d be scared. How are they going to get that nail out of your hand?”
“They’re going to pull it out… aren’t they?”
“Hold that thought,” she said, and patted him on the head. She got up and started walking for the door, her hand in front of her face.
“Wait!” shouted Simon just before she made it, and she started to run, but her vision got spotty again. She tried to keep things together, but it was too late. She fell sideways, landing on her shoulder.
She woke up in a gurney, wheeling backwards, Simon at her side. She squeezed her hand.
“… only family,” said a nurse, and she squeezed his hand. He nodded.
“She’s my sister,” he said.
The nurse looked at Kani’s dark hand interlocked with Simon’s white one, and raised an eyebrow.
“Half-sister, obviously,” he said, and she rolled her eyes.
She was set up in a curtained partition, IV in her arm, heart monitor chirping away. The doctor came in, checking her chart and watching the machines.
“I’m Doctor Stanwick. You’re miss… Davenport, is it?”
“Yes,” she said with Simon, then looked away.
“Do you know what might have caused this?” Stanwick asked. “Anything at all. Help us focus our testing.”
Kani looked at her feet, squinted.
“I was diving earlier. Came up too fast.”
“Diving?”
“Lake Ontario. Looking for sunken treasure.”
Stanwick stared at her for a moment, tapped some buttons on the chart, and took out his pen light.
“Bends have very specific symptoms,” he said. “They’re similar to other conditions, but there are some important differences.”
“Like what?” Kani asked.
“Bleeding isn’t very common from the bends. Not to this extent, anyway.”
“I went really deep.”
“You’d have to go to the bottom of the ocean floor.”
She let him check her pupils. Simon gripped her hand. She felt a tightness in her arm, and her lungs felt smaller somehow, harder to use.
“I… I don’t feel so good,” she said, and then a searing pain shot through her chest. Stanwick dropped the bed back and hit the panic button.
“Cardiac arrest!” he shouted. “I need some help over here!”