Chapter 8 - The Price of Pride
Brooke locked her eyes onto Nora’s. In that terrifying, suffocating pocket beneath thirty tons of unstable rubble, all the money, the family prestige, the limestone buildings, and the viral social media videos vanished into absolute insignificance. There was only the girl who had mocked, and the girl who possessed the power to save her.
"Miller!" Nora called into her lapel mic. "I need an inflatable lifting wedge and a high-pressure pneumatic bladder through access hole three. Now!"
"Wedge coming through, Commander! You have three minutes before the upper deck shifts!"
Nora unzipped the red bag. Her movements were a masterclass in economy. Out came sterile trauma shears. She sliced Brooke’s ruined emerald gown away from the wound in two clean strokes. She pulled out two vacuum-sealed packages of combat hemostatic gauze—the highest grade blood-clotting agents available, packed with mineral zeolite.
A sudden, terrifying groan shook the void. A shower of concrete gravel rained down onto Nora’s back. Chloe screamed and buried her face in the dirt. Brooke let out a whimpering sob, her hands gripping Nora’s forearm so hard her knuckles turned white.
"The roof is slipping!" Miller screamed over the radio. "Nora, get out of there! It’s coming down!"
"Hold your position, Miller!" Nora roared back. "I am not leaving a critical patient!"
She shoved the pneumatic bladder under the truss, connected the small hand pump, and began pumping. The heavy aluminum framework groaned, lifting millimeter by agonizing millimeter off Brooke’s crushed hips.
"Now!" Nora told herself.
With her left hand, she wrenched the jagged aluminum shard out of the wound. A fountain of bright arterial blood erupted, painting Nora’s face and chest in hot crimson. Brooke screamed—a piercing, bone-chilling shriek of agony that echoed off the collapsed concrete.
Without flinching, Nora drove her entire right hand directly into the wound, burying her fingers against the pelvic bone to achieve internal digital compression on the severed femoral artery. Brooke’s body convulsed.
"Hold her down!" Nora barked at Chloe. "Chloe, hold her shoulders down or she dies right now! Do it!"
Chloe, shaking like a leaf, lunged forward and pinned Brooke’s shoulders to the dirt.
With her free hand, Nora reached into Doc Halloran’s red bag. She didn't have to look. Her fingers knew every seam, every pocket, every tool. She pulled out the military-grade mechanical junctional tourniquet—a device specifically designed for groin bleeds where standard tourniquets cannot wrap. She slid the strap beneath Brooke’s lower back, locked the heavy buckle over her pelvis, and turned the mechanical screw until the pneumatic target compressor drove down with immense force directly over the bleeding vessel.
The fountain of blood ceased.
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Nora packed ten feet of hemostatic gauze directly into the cavity, pressing down with both palms with all her body weight. Brooke’s head lolled back, her eyes rolling into her head as unconsciousness claimed her.
"Pulse check," Nora muttered aloud, pressing two fingers to Brooke’s neck. "Faint. But present. She’s alive."
