Nightshine: A Novel of the Kyndred Read Online Free Page B

neck, and her focus abruptly shifted back to her job.
    “Were you shot?” she asked him as she tore open the chauffeur’s jacket and used her stethoscope to check his heart and lung sounds.
    “I’m fine,” he said. “What’s wrong with James?”
    “His lung has collapsed.” She reached into her case and pulled out her pneumothorax pack. “I have to bleed out the air trapped in his chest or his heart will fail. What’s your name?”
    “I’m Samuel, and you are Charlotte.” He said her name precisely, and with a certain amount of satisfaction.
    “Actually, I go by Charlie.” She smiled to remove the sting. “Now, let’s put James here down on his back.”
    Once they had carefully lowered the driver onto the ground, Charlie pulled his clothing out of the way and took out the scalpel from the pack.
    Samuel frowned. “You’re not thinking of operating on him. Not here.”
    “No, I’m simply going to make a small incision so I can put in a tube to remove the air.” As she lined up what she needed on the driver’s chest, she saw Samuel’s expression. “I know this sounds scary, but I’ve done it a hundred times and I haven’t lost anyone yet. So don’t freak out on me, okay?”
    He nodded.
    “Here we go.” She made the incision, cutting through the skin and the underlying tissue, and then fed the decompression catheter into his body just above the ceph-alad border of the rib to avoid the intercostal vessels. Within a few seconds the driver’s breathing became less labored, and his lips began to turn pink.
    “That’s more like it.” She taped the catheter in place and checked his breathing sounds again before she turned her attention to the blood-soaked scarf. “Sam, I need you to move your hand now. When James was shot, did you see any blood spurting from his gunshot wound? Like a little geyser or fountain?”
    “It was more of a small stream. A pulsing stream.” As she reached for the edge of the scarf, he reluctantly took his hand away. “Is it his heart?”
    She carefully lifted the side of the makeshift bandage and inspected the wound, noting the position of the small, neat hole and the seepage from it. “Doesn’t look that way. I think the bullet might have just nicked the lung. We’ll know better when we get him to the hospital.” She began dressing the chest wound. “Where exactly are the phones in the car?”
    “One is in the front console by the driver’s seat,” he said, nodding in that direction, “and the other is on the right side of the rear-facing seats in the back.”
    Neither would be easy to reach unless she opened the limo’s doors and crawled inside. “Dispatch doesn’t know about the sniper. I have to call this in before backup arrives.” She cringed as a shot pinged off the roof of the limo. “Son of a bitch. How much ammo has he got?”
    “The backseats are in his direct line of fire,” Samuel told her as he moved to the other side of James’s still form. “I’ll retrieve the phone from the front.”
    He was already moving toward the driver’s door before she could argue with him. “Keep your head down,” she called after him.
    The sniper fired three more times before Samuel returned with the cordless receiver. As glass shattered over their heads, he ducked, lost his balance, and nearly fell over.
    “Whoa.” Charlie grabbed his sleeve and righted him. “I thought you said you weren’t hurt.”
    “I’m only a bit awkward.” He leaned on his left side and rubbed his hand over his thigh. “Normally I use a cane to walk.”
    She saw the cane in question several feet away by the deck railing. The gold handle had been cast in the shape of a lion’s head. “You’ll have to do without it for now.” She put the receiver on speaker and dialed the emergency number for dispatch, which the shift supervisor answered immediately. “This is Echo one-M-seven, EMP Marena. We have five GSW casualties on the bridge with an active sniper at the base of the