Chapter 3

Matteo gave up his seat for the nurse and went over to his brother's side to examine him. The younger man's face was no longer concerted in pains and seemed more relaxed. He turned back to the nurse and murmured a thank you to the woman who managed to smile at him. He could see that she was tired from running around because of them and he was grateful to her for being such a kind soul. Since his brother was out of danger, for now, he had to go and ditch the car. If he left it outside the hospital until morning, one of their rivals could see it, put two and two together and attack the hospital because of him and his brother. Not that he cares about anyone in the hospital. He was only thinking about the safety of his brother.

"I'll just run a quick trip to the mall and be right back," Matteo told the nurse. "Do you need me to get you anything?" He asked as a courtesy.

Not that he planned on going to any mall in the first place. He prayed silently in his heart that the woman wouldn't say yes and was relieved when she shook her head negatively. As he walked out of the hospital, he looked around as conspicuously as he could for any strange moves or looks but he didn't get any. He pretended that he was thanking the security men for their help and used the opportunity to scan the perimeter for any suspicious car lurking in the shadow of the night. When he was sure that the coast was cleared, he got into the car and sped off. Matteo drove around the area for a while just to be doubly sure he wasn't being flagged by anyone. When he felt better, he turned to the highway. When he got to the point of intersection, he went the opposite way and drove the lane for a while. When he saw an opening road, he turned into the road, drove a distance then stopped the car. He got out of the car and ditched it by the road.

Matteo turned his chest inside out, wore it back, then walked back to the highway on his foot. He hitched a ride back to the intersection point, then hitched another ride back to the hospital area. He walked back into the hospital casually like he hadn't left the place with a car about thirty minutes ago. He ignored the weird stares the security men threw at him as he went past them. Once in the hospital, he surveyed around again to make sure his brother was still safe to be there. When he was sure that everything was still fine, he returned to the emergency ward his brother was.

Dahlia stood up after five minutes of being alone with the unconscious man and checked on him. She placed the back of her hand on his forehead, then she placed the hand on his neck, and was relieved to note that the fever was at bay. She left him in the room and checked on the other patients in the hospital, turning off lights where necessary. She checked on the temperature and vitals of the people in the ICU through the monitor, then walked away from the room, closing the door as gently as she could to avoid waking any of them off. She visited the children's ward next and met one of them wide awake.

"Peter, why are you still awake?" She asked the young five years old boy.

"Because I couldn't sleep. Do you think you could tell me a story?" The boy asked.

"Sure," Dahlia told him.

She carried the young boy on her lap and began to tell his favorite story of the young knight who saved a princess from a monster without realizing that she was a princess. Before she got to half of the storyline, Peter was fast asleep in her arms. She laid him down on the bed and covered him with the body cover. She sighed as she went out of the children's ward and went back to check on the patient in the emergency ward. Dahlia was as tired as she felt that she was. Still, she checked the unconscious man's vital first. Knowing that she couldn't leave the man alone without anyone monitoring him she moved her chair closer to the patient, rested her head on the little space left beside the bed, and slept off.

Matteo entered the ward his brother was in and saw the nurse fast asleep, with her head resting carefully on the bed. She must have been very tired, he thought as he walked into the room. He took his time and stared at her sleeping figure despite warning himself not to. She was a brunette and was quite attractive to look at. Heck, she was still looking attractive despite all the stress she went through because of his brother. If he was to guess her age, he would say that she couldn't be more than 25, which makes her a lady and not a woman.

He picked up a feeble cloth hanging on the iron in the room and covered her with it. Not that the clothing would do much to help her, but he felt thankful to her for helping his brother survive. Knowing that he would not be able to get any rest even if he wanted to, he went to the door and stood there like a security guard. His mind would only be at peace when he was sure that his brother would make it. Until then, he wasn't giving anybody the access to get to his brother when the young man couldn't protect himself.

Dahlia woke up from her sleep feeling like all the bones in her body were frozen to a spot. She got up from the chair she sat in and stretched her muscles and body. She was in the middle of the stretch when she saw that the eyes of the patient on the bed were wild open, and he was looking at the ceiling. She threw the hands she had up in the air down, kicked the chair away, and moved closer to the man.

"You're awake?" She asked him but didn't get any response from the man.

Matteo heard the nurse asking Elio if she was awake and rushed inside. He saw that his brother was wide awake and smiled at the younger man. But he noticed that Elio didn't return his smile or his enthusiasm. He almost began to worry himself again, but then, he remembered that his brother had only just woken up. So, he might need a while to adjust himself. Plus, there was a stranger with them, and Elio might be thinking that it wasn't safe to talk around her. Matteo switched the language from English to Chinese and assured his brother that it was okay to talk. When Elio refused to give him an answer, he looked at the nurse and saw the worried expression on her face. Dread washed over him.

"What's wrong with my brother?" Matteo asked the nurse.

"I think he's in a coma," Dahlia asked.

"What?" Matteo asked, not believing his ears. The Spanish accent is even more visible in his word, but he didn't care.

"There are two main mechanisms to explain coma. The first is a diffuse insult to both hemispheres, and the second is a disruption of…" Dahlia tried to explain, thinking the man didn't know what a coma was.

"Just tell me what the hell is wrong with my brother," Matteo shouted at her, cutting her off mid sentence. He wasn't interested in listening to her gibberish, he just wanted to be sure Elio would be okay.

Dahlia jumped back at the hard tone the man had employed to talk to her. She tried to look at him, and his hefty body suddenly made her want to disappear underground. How was she going to explain the situation on ground to such a scary man?

Dr. Monroe walked into SilverCrest hospital with a tired look. He was supposed to have arrived yesterday, but his flight got delayed. He frowned at the empty nurse desk, wondering why there was no nurse on deck for communication. A loud noise from the inner corner of the room drew his attention and he rushed over. He met a tough-looking hefty man staring at a young lady in nurse clothing with a malicious look. The lady looked so uncomfortable like she would rather be anywhere else but where she found herself. A patient lay on a bed between the two of them. Dr. Monroe walked into the room and cleared his throat.

"What's going on?" He asked no one in particular.

"And who the hell are you?" Matteo asked in a yell.

"I'm Dr. Monroe. The head doctor of this hospital." The doctor said in way of introduction and explanation.

"Dr. Monroe, thank goodness you are here," Dahlia said to the doctor. She explained the situation on ground, the steps she had taken to save the man, the d***** she had administered, and her observations this morning.

"Do you have the police report and other necessary details in place?" Dr. Monroe asked the young lady.

"There is no report available, sir," Dahlia informed him.

Dr. Monroe shook his head at her. There was no report? And she had treated the man?

"I can't touch him then." He told his two companions and saw disappointment reflected from both their eyes. He was moved to compassion by it, especially since he hated seeing people die too. "Okay, fine. I'll do it. But, I do need that police report on my desk before the day ends." He told the hefty man who nodded in agreement.

Dr. Monroe moved closer to the comatose man and assessed his airway, breathing, and circulation to identify the most immediate threat to the man's life. After that, he tilted the patient's head back to keep his airway open. Next, he performed a GCS on the patient by carrying out a verbal stimulus, a tactile stimulus, and an eye opening test on him. The only test the man passed was the eye opening test where his eyes movement followed the directions of the tiny torch he shone around the eye. He felt the man's temperature and sighed when he saw that he was running a fever.

"We need to carry out some tests on him. The coma could be due to a central nervous system infection, or anoxic brain injury." Dr. Monroe explained to the patient's brother, then turned to Dahlia. "Get someone from the lab to get samples of his blood for blood count test, clotting screening, and blood cultures." He instructed her.

"Yes, doctor," Dahlia said and rushed out to get the order done.

Matteo watched as the next five hours became a jumble of activities he couldn't understand a single bit. People wearing different clothes came into the room at different intervals to perform different tasks. At a time, he became afraid because of the number of injections that were being pumped into his brother. Some people even came in and began to massage Elio's hands and feet. The nurse that had treated his brother the previous night kept running helter-skelter without resting for even a moment. At a point, Matteo was afraid she was going to faint because of the way she reacted. Then, miraculously, his brother moved his fingers. It was only a slight movement but he and the nurse had caught it in time. As soon as they informed Dr. Monroe, he came and examined Elio, then declared that he should be moved into the ICU ward.

As Matteo followed the ground staff taking Elio to the ICU, he examined the hospital. It wasn't by far a very big hospital and there was only minimum availability of rooms from what he could see. As they passed by a ward with wordings that indicated it was the children's ward, Matteo peeped inside and saw some kids lying on the bed. Some of them had their parents with them. Some had only their mothers, while some had just their fathers. Some were alone on their beds with no one to call their own. Matteo remembered his father and became sad. He shrugged off the feeling and focused on the present.

When they got to the ICU unit, Matteo watched silently as the warders transferred his brother to an empty bed in the room. He looked around the room and saw that there were no more than ten beds in the room. On a bed at the far corner of the room was an old woman who had some sort of oxygen machine that covered her nose which made Matteo guess that the woman had some sort of respiratory problem. A young man was covered in bandages from his head to his toes, the only visible area of his body was his two eyes and nostrils. There was another woman who kept jerking at intervals on another bed, and Matteo watched as a nurse went over to inject the woman. He didn't know what was wrong with her but she relaxed immediately after the nurse had injected her. The worse of it was a little boy of no more than ten years who Matteo found out from a nurse that he has an autoimmune disease. This means that his body systems fought against him instead of the harmful bacteria it was designed to fight against. The little boy always had a bad relapse which brought him back to the intensive care unit every three weeks or a month of being out.

Matteo got tired of watching the sick people in the room and focused his gaze on the walls. What he saw made him think that maybe he had a mistake in bringing his brother over. The walls had lost their original colors and some parts of the wall were peeling away. The iron bed was a bit old, judging by the rustic form. Even though the bedspreads were a little old but they were neat. If he counted the nurses that he had seen around since he came, they couldn't be more than fifteen which Matteo thinks was a bit too bad for a hospital. But all in all, he was grateful to them for doing their best to make sure his brother ended up being okay.

Matteo walked out when his brother had been settled. The young man had even closed his eyes and slept off after another round of injections had been given to him. Matteo sat down in a chair, feeling too tired to even move from the spot. His phone rang and he picked it up when he saw it was from his second brother. He explained that explained the situation at hand, promised to update the other man on how everything works out, hung up and closed his eyes.