“Bro, come on.” He reached over Michelle and patted the man’s cheek, trying to rouse him. “Come on, bro. Wake up.”
Dash’s lips moved. He started to mumble. Sara adjusted the mirror again. She could see his eyes tracking back and forth under his eyelids.
She scanned ahead again, but not for potholes. There were more cars on the streets the farther away they got from Emory. Could she flash the headlights? Should she swerve erratically? Would either of those things endanger anyone who tried to help?
“Why isn’t he waking up?” Carter was turning Dash’s head side to side. “Vale, get that medical kit out of the glove box.”
Vale didn’t move, but Sara saw the key was still in the lock.
The gun.
“Dash!” Carter yelled, slapping at his face. “God dammit.”
“He needs a hospital.” Sara pried her eyes away from the key. “All I have in my bag is Band-Aids and disinfectant.”
“Fuck!” Carter punched his fist into the back of her seat. “Dash, come on, bro.”
Sara cleared her throat again. She pressed her palm to her chest. Her heartbeats clicked as fast as a stopwatch.
Think-think-think-think.
She told Carter, “He’s been out almost fifteen minutes. He’s probably in a coma.” Another lie. His brain was clearly trying to reboot itself. “We should leave him near a fire station so they can help him.”
“Shit. This is Dash we’re talking about. We ain’t leaving him nowhere.” Carter reached over Michelle again.
“No!” the woman screamed. She scrambled out of his way, pushing herself over the seat and into the cargo area. Her shoulders were pressed to the glass. Arms spread. She looked at Sara with a wild panic in her eyes.
Sara stared back at her in the mirror. She let her eyes dart to Michelle’s right.
Her medical bag was in the storage bin.
Scalpels. Needles. Sedatives.
Michelle broke contact. She crumpled in on herself. Legs drawn up to her chest. Head on her knees.
“What’s wrong with him?” Carter snapped his fingers in front of Dash’s face.
The man’s eyelids had slit open, but he wasn’t responding.
“Dash? Come on, bro. Wake up.”
Sara looked at the clock.
2:08 p.m.
Cathy would take care of Will. Make sure that he was taken to the hospital. Question the doctors. Be there when he woke up from surgery. She would advocate for him the same way she had for Jeffrey.
Wouldn’t she?
“Doctor?”
Sara looked into the mirror. Michelle was talking to her.
“Help him,” Michelle said. “Dash isn’t—he’s bad, but not like—”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Carter warned. The only thing keeping him from jumping over the seat was the knife in his leg.
Look on your right, Sara silently begged the woman. Open the black bag.
Michelle stared at Sara’s reflection. She shook her head once. She knew about the bag. She wasn’t going to do anything.
Sara’s heart sank. She was completely alone.
“Hey.” Carter slapped Dash again, hard enough for the smack to fill the car. “Bitch, tell me what to do.”
Sara had to swallow past her grief. “He needs a stimulus.”
Carter slapped him again. “I’m fucking stimulating him.”
“Stick your finger in the bullet hole in his shoulder.”
“Yeah, that’s working out great for him.”
Sara studied Vale with a cold eye. His wheezing had turned sporadic. His lips were tinged blue. His nostrils collapsed and expanded as he desperately tried to bring air into his deflating lungs.
“Hey,” Carter said. “I think he’s waking up.”
Dash’s eyelids began to flutter. A rumble came from deep inside his throat. He raised his hands, the right higher than the left, fingers spread, like a marionette doll.
“What’s he doing?” Carter was alarmed.
Sara kept her silence. She tried to find Michelle again, but the woman had returned to her cowered position.
Carter demanded, “What’s wrong with him?”
Dash’s eyes had opened. The rumble in his throat turned into a murmur. He blinked once. Twice. Slowly, he took in the passengers around him. Michelle. Carter. Vale. He looked at Sara, confused.
“Who fhee?” His words slurred. “She. Who if—”
“We p-picked up a doctor,” Carter stammered. He was clearly scared, which meant that Dash was important. “We lost Hurley and Morgan.”
“What—” Dash tried. “Wha—”
“We took a doctor.” Carter didn’t answer the implied question. “I got a fucking knife in my crotch. Vale’s not sounding so good.”
Dash blinked again. He was still disoriented, but coming around.
Sara lied, “His pupils are fixed. He’s probably bleeding into his skull. An aneurysm or—”
“Fuck.” Carter wiped sweat off his face. He scanned the side of the road.
Dash cleared his throat. “What happened?” He looked at Sara. “Who is she?”
“I told you—” Carter gave up. He asked Sara, “What’s wrong with him?”
“Post-traumatic amnesia.” She tried to think of a way to scare him into dropping Dash by the side of the road. “It’s a sign of a deep brain injury. We need to leave him at a hospital.”
“Fuck-fuck-fuck.”
Dash’s hand went up to his face. He touched his cheek with his fingers. He squeezed his eyes shut. He would be feeling nauseous, disoriented. But he was coming back into himself. She could tell by the controlled movements. The way his eyes were focusing on fixed points.
“Dammit.” Carter was looking out the front windshield. “Don’t even think about waving this guy down.”
There was a lone squad car coming from
