Who: Bailey and Kane When: evening, Tuesday, 1/23 Where: Seaview, Mercy Hospital Status: complete
Modern technology was wonderful, and Kane would be so relieved later that he’d taken the time to pair his car’s bluetooth to his phone. Blood made things slippery, and he couldn’t imagine trying to handle a touch screen while he was also trying to keep from bleeding out on the pavement. He’d dragged himself close enough to the driver’s side door of the still-running SUV to reach into it, only dimly relieved when he saw the monster running away from him. He could’ve finished the job with that knife, but Kane couldn’t think too much about that. He had more pressing matters. Kane groped around on the steering wheel until he hit the button that turned the car’s speaker on. It was so hard to focus on anything at all, like there was a wild animal in his brain, but Kane had shifted into survival mode when that knife had plunged into his thigh, and now his survival depended on getting in touch with someone before he bled out.
He could’ve had the car dial 911, but what came out of his mouth at the bluetooth’s questioning beep was “Call Bailey!” The car beeped its understanding and dialed. While it rang, Kane undid his belt and started to struggle with pulling it off. He needed a tourniquet, and it was the best he had.
The town was a shitshow. All of it. Bailey had never seen anything like it before. The hospital was getting crowded, their holding cells were full. She couldn't explain it, especially since she was dealing with some kind of illness herself. She wasn't as bad as some others and she could still do her job, but goddamn if it wasn't difficult. A part of her knew this was Point Pleasant being Point Pleasant but Bailey had no idea what they were going to do if the deputies kept dropping like flies.
She was coming off of a long shift when her phone began to ring on the passenger seat beside her. Having just lit up a cigarette, she nearly ignored it. Fuck everyone. She wanted to go home, drink some Jack and go to bed. Bailey had no doubt Barrett would be calling her to come in early tomorrow. But her eyes drifted to the phone's screen and it took her a moment to recognize that her brother was calling. Kane didn't call unless he had a good reason to. With her mom at the forefront of her mind, Bailey grabbed the phone, trying to ignore the tightening in her chest as she brought it to her ear.
"What's wrong?" she asked, hoping she sounded calm even as she braced for bad news.
If Kane had had any presence of mind to think anything was funny, he might have laughed. Of course she knew something was wrong -- he almost never called her, and especially wouldn’t now that they were living in the same town. There was something very wrong though, and he needed her as soon as she could physically get to him. “I need your help,” he answered, sounding breathless and raw. Kane’s hands were starting to shake and he was feeling weak, which made it hard to get his belt off. Fuck, why did he have so many things attached to it? “Got stabbed, bleeding a lot ... I’m outside Seaview, I need you here ASAP.” He knew it was possible Bailey might tell him not to be an idiot and to call 911, but he didn’t trust anybody else in town. He wanted his sister, his blood.
Admittedly, Bailey felt an undeniable surge of relief that it wasn't news about their mother. But that relief was quickly overtaken by confusion and concern when Kane told her he had been stabbed. Fuck. Yes, she considered asking why the hell he wasn't calling 911 but she also knew what her brother did in the night. She had seen it with her own two eyes. Maybe something fought back. Her jaw clenched and for a split second Bailey considered telling him to figure it out on his own, but... she couldn't. Kane was her brother. He was family. Blood. And no matter what they meant, or didn't mean, to each other, she wasn't going to be the reason why he died.
"I'm on my way," Bailey said, quickly taking a right at the next light and slipping her cigarette back between her lips. "Is there anyone else around? Has anyone seen you?"
Kane glanced around himself, but there wasn’t much to see. He could hear people shouting somewhere, but it was muddy through the blood rushing in his ears, so he couldn't tell how close they were. “No ... ‘sides the motherfucker that stabbed me,” he told Bailey, grunting as he finally tugged his belt free. Kane quickly slipped the end of the belt under his thigh and then fumbled with getting it threaded back through the buckle. He took a sharp breath, then took his compression hand -- which had gone numb -- off of the wound so he could grab the belt and pull with both hands. “Just get here,” he growled as fresh hot pain shot up his leg. Kane’s arms were already shaking and it felt hard to hold the belt tight enough to staunch the bleeding, but he had to do it, he had to hold out for a little while longer.
Huffing, Bailey hung up and tossed her phone back to the passenger side seat. "Fuck!" She yelled it long and loud, forgetting for a moment that she had a cigarette between her lips. It fell to her lap, causing her to curse again until she managed to pick it back up safely, though not without leaving plenty of ash on her jeans. Bailey took another drag off of it, ignoring the way her hand trembled. Where had he been stabbed? Was he bleeding out? Was he going to die? She was already preparing to bury her mother in a few months' time. She didn't need to be planning another family funeral. It was always so much easier to be angry than to allow herself to feel any other kind of emotion towards Kane, so Bailey stuck with what she knew.
As she came upon Seaview Bailey slowed, searching the area until she spotted his SUV. And then she spotted him on the ground. Exhaling, Bailey parked behind the SUV and got out of the car quickly, flicking her cigarette away before getting into her trunk to grab the first aid bag she always carried with her. Cop's habit, she supposed, and she'd never had to use it until now. With the bag in hand, Bailey hurried over to Kane and dropped the bag beside him as she knelt down. There was so much blood. "Jesus Christ, Kane."
Kane’s head jerked around to look as headlights approached and then parked behind his vehicle, his hand moving to the butt of the gun he’d completely forgotten about earlier on his belt. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, he could’ve killed the motherfucker again and again until he stayed dead, but everything just felt so ... scattered in his mind. Unfocused but intense. He was in a lot of pain which would make anyone grumpy, but this was a completely different animal. There was some relief that Bailey was there, but it was hard to separate it from all the other noise in his brain. He was in bad shape and he knew it, his skin pale and clammy under the splashes of blood, his knuckles white as he kept the belt tight around his upper thigh. There was still his broken nose and the slash on his side, amongst other welts and scrapes from the struggle, but he was most worried about his leg. “I dunno if it hit the artery, but it’s bleeding like a motherfucker,” he told Bailey in a rush. She could yell at him for being reckless later, if he lived. Right now he needed a hospital.
Bailey should have known when he said stabbed he meant stabbed. Crouching down beside him, she noted the belt and how tightly he was holding it. She had two tourniquets in her bag but Bailey was nervous about taking the belt off. But... she had no idea how long the belt would last, especially if he started to pass out, then his hands would loosen, and thus, the belt. She took in the rest of his injuries with a swift glance. Nothing life threatening but for the leg. The slash in his side looked bad, but stitches would probably fix that up fine. His nose was a goddamn mess. Bailey knew she could bitch about this later. All she wanted to do right now was get him to a doctor so he would live long enough for her to bitch at him. "I'm taking you to Mercy," she told him. "And we're taking your car because you're not going to bleed all over mine. Do you think you can stay conscious until we get there? Otherwise I need to replace that belt with a proper tourniquet before we go." And she would have to do it fast because if he was bleeding out, every second counted.
He was nodding, but when she got to the question about staying conscious, Kane switched to shaking his head. He couldn’t promise that. The world was getting kind of wobbly, and his arms felt weaker and weaker by the moment. “Do another one,” he told her, his eyes ticking to her bag. Kane didn’t know if it was necessary, but better safe than sorry. He needed to conserve some of his strength to even get up off the goddamn pavement. “I fucking killed it, I know I did.” The words burst out of him through gritted teeth, completely irrelevant but he was compelled nonetheless. Rage flared up in him again for a moment, making his wounds hurt even worse. Kane couldn’t seem to help it. “I’m going to fucking skin it alive when I find it again, see it come back from that.” Since he couldn’t punch something, he pulled on the belt harder and let out a strained sound of angry frustration.
Bailey didn't question it. She just pulled her bag toward her and unzipped it quickly to find one of the tourniquets. Her hands were brisk as she pulled it from her bag and batted Kane's hands away from the belt after he had pulled on it in anger. "Shut up," she demanded, aware that he was probably in a lot of pain, but she didn't want to hear anything about what or who he might have killed. Or thought he killed. Not yet. Not now. Bailey was holding her breath as she pulled the belt apart with brisk fingers. She thought about warning him that this was going to be painful, but she had no doubt he already knew that. Something inside of her had calmed, ignoring the fact that this was her brother. In her mind, he was just another trauma victim, needing her help. It was so much easier to deal with blood when Bailey was able to shut her brain off. Slipping the tourniquet around his thigh above the wound, Bailey tightened it with a grunt of her own and began to twist the tourniquet's handle, her eyes watching the blood until the flow began to slow and then stop. They didn't have much time so Bailey lifted her gaze to Kane's face. "Just try to stay awake until you're in the car, okay? We have to go now or you're going to bleed out."
When Kane let go of the belt, he brought his fist to his mouth and bit down on his forefinger. It hurt the shit out of his nose, but the pain in his leg suddenly outshined that as Bailey tightened the tourniquet. He gave a deep animal cry, his other hand fisting in the side of his pants that wasn’t soaked in blood. Stars danced behind his eyelids, and it was hard to draw the next breath, but he did. He forced his jaw to unclench and looked at Bailey with watery eyes. “Yeah,” he more moaned than said, and reached out for her help in getting up. He was damn glad the fight had stayed close to his vehicle, because he wouldn’t have been able to get very far without a damn gurney. Kane leaned heavily on Bailey once he was upright as his head swam dangerously. Yeah, the fresh tourniquet had been a good idea. It took some maneuvering to get him into the back seat, but once he was there, Kane slouched against the far door, pulling his knee up to try and keep his wound as elevated as possible. All the moving around had made his vision more gray and everything felt farther away. “Don’ let me die, Bailey,” he mumbled, his eyes rolling shut briefly. “They’ll come for me.”
Bailey was a small woman, but she had muscle and she managed to stay upright when she got Kane to his feet. If he hadn't been able to move then she would have had to call 911 and who the hell knew when they would be able to get here with everything else going on. Bailey was panting, sweating as she helped get his leg up. It wasn't ideal transportation, but it would have to do. She heard his words, but didn't respond as she tossed her first aid bag onto the floor behind the driver's seat. Slamming the door, Bailey quickly locked her own car doors and then climbed into the driver's seat of the SUV. Only when she was hitting the accelerator to get moving did she glance back at Kane and speak again. "I won't let you die," she said, even though she knew she didn't have a say in the matter at this point. That didn't mean she wouldn't do her best to get him to someone who could save his life. "Try to stay awake. Just talk to me, okay?" Bailey needed to make sure he wasn't going into shock.
Kane knew he couldn’t fall asleep, even if that was exactly what his body wanted to do. Pass out, whatever. Same difference. Struggling to focus on his sister and her words, Kane flopped one hand down on his stomach and pressed against the cut wound in his side. The pain woke him up a little, a grunt coming out of him and his eyes snapping open again. “Fuck,” he whispered. He couldn’t feel his leg anymore, and he wondered for the first time if he might survive but lose that leg. No. Kane couldn’t live that way, he wouldn’t. But awake, he had to stay awake, and Bailey wanted him to talk to her. His thoughts seemed to sway from side to side, his brain unable to focus completely on the here and now. It occurred to him that if he had anything to say to his sister, now would probably be the time. “I was gonna ... make it nice,” he murmured. “For mom. Dying. So she wouldn’ be scared. Tell her I love her, ‘kay? In case ...” She knew what he meant. Kane’s head rolled back against the door and he tried to snap it back up but everything was so hard.
Bailey knew she told him to talk to her, but she didn't want to talk about their mom, or death. Certainly not about their mom's death. Inhaling sharply through her nose, Bailey ran a red light without thinking, accelerating and hoping no dumbass pedestrians decided to jaywalk this late at night. "I'm not telling her shit," Bailey said matter of factly. "You can tell her yourself when you get out of the hospital. I need you to stick around because if you die then that's two of you I'll have to bury and that shit is expensive, Kane. Plus, do you really want to be buried in the Point Pleasant cemetery, because that's where you'll go. I'll put you right next to dad." It was a threat, of course. Anything to keep him awake. Bailey glanced back at him. "I don't want to be orphaned alone. So maybe stop being a dick and hang on for a bit longer, got it?"
He let out a rusty bark of a laugh that turned into a cough as some blood from his sinuses got into his throat. “Cursed fucking ground,” Kane mumbled. “You’ll never get rid’a me then.” He aggravated his side wound again and grunted a bit as he sat up a little. Fuck, how far away was Mercy again? Kane couldn’t remember at the moment. “I’m hangin,’ I’m hangin,’” he added, so she would know he was listening at least. He shifted his position, trying to convince his body to stay awake. The heater in the car was still running, and not being freezing anymore was starting to make it more difficult to stay awake. He stared at the back of Bailey’s car seat and tried to focus on counting his breaths. “I don’ feel good, Bay.”
"I know." Bailey's palms were sweaty around the steering wheel and her heart was tripping in her chest but she sounded calm and that's what he needed to hear. "You're going to be fine, though. Just breathe." After running another stop light and a stop sign, Mercy finally came into view. Bailey had to force herself not to push the accelerator to the floor with her foot. A hospital was bound to have people in the parking lot, walking in and out... Bailey didn't need to add to the bloody evening by hitting someone with Kane's SUV. "We're here," she told him, though the hospital entrance was still a block away. Seconds away, really. "Do you have any weapons on you that I need to get rid of? I'm pulling up to the ER so we won't have time to get rid of them once they see us."
Weapons, did he have any weapons. That was usually a laughable question, because of course he did, but ... did he? Kane’s face scrunched up as he tried to remember what had happened. It was all so fast, it was getting jumbled now, and his poor brain was ready to just shut off. “Uh ...” he groaned as he patted around on his hips. He usually had at least one gun and blade on his belt, but his belt was completely gone. Which meant his gun was left on the pavement in front of Seaview. And his knife had been kicked out of his hand by the dead man. He hadn’t been dead yet, but oh, he sure as fuck would be if Kane ever got to walk out of this hospital. That thought gave him a little surge of energy and focus and he shook his head. “No, no uh -- all gone.”
Just as Kane was realizing he left his gun behind, Bailey was realizing her own was still in the glove compartment in her car. But she had locked her doors so hopefully her car would remain untouched until she was able to retrieve it. Bailey had just pulled up to the front of the ER when he answered her. "Good." Hopefully he hadn't missed a knife or something somewhere. Bailey shoved the SUV into park and threw open the driver's side door. "I don't want you to walk, so stay here. I'm going to run inside and grab some help. Just try to stay awake for a few more minutes." Without waiting for an answer, Bailey got out of the SUV and ran for the opening to the ER. She knew how busy the hospital had been this week but her brother was running the risk of bleeding to death so she was going to make damn sure they prioritized.
Stay awake for a few more minutes. Gods, that sounded so long and so hard, but Kane knew he had to try. He wasn’t going to let some punk-ass monster take him down like this, was he? A knife to the thigh, it was a shitty way to die, and that wasn’t for him. Kane forced himself to sit up and took a few short, deep breaths, trying to let his anger fuel him. He could be a vindictive bastard when he wanted to be, and if he had to survive solely out of spite, he would do his damndest. He couldn’t see where Bailey had gone, and some delirious voice in the back of his head told him she wouldn’t be back, that she’d abandoned him just like he’d abandoned her, but he knew that wasn’t true. She was blood and sometimes you could only count on blood. Ages later -- but was probably under a minute -- there were people rushing out to the SUV with a stretcher, and suddenly a lot of hands on him and questions he could barely answer as they pulled him out of the vehicle. Kane’s eyes rolled as he looked around a bit wildly, hunting for his sister.
Bailey had had no trouble getting the right attention and help. She had pulled out the badge from her coat pocket as soon as she entered the ER and if that wasn't going to do it, well... she also had drying blood all over her hands, something she hadn't realized until the nurse originally thought Bailey was the one needing assistance. But within seconds there were people rushing out to the SUV and Bailey followed, watching as they moved Kane onto the stretcher. She was careful to stay out of their way until she noticed Kane was looking for her. "I'm right here," Bailey told him, quickly moving into his line of vision. "I'm not going anywhere." Once he was inside safely she would have to move the SUV but Bailey already knew she wasn't going to leave the ER until she knew Kane had survived this. "You'll be okay," Bailey told him, walking briskly beside the stretcher when they began to push him toward the ER entrance. "Don't forget that if you die I'm going to be so pissed off at you."
Kane didn’t like hospitals, but it wasn’t the first time he’d been rushed into one, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. This wasn’t the type of wound you just dealt with in a dirty motel room. He’d need a transfusion, maybe a little surgery to make sure everything was okay in there. Seeing Bailey was a bit of a relief, and he tried to reach for her hand, but one of the nurses pushed his arm back into place. “Same here,” Kane muttered and let out a rusty little laugh. He hadn’t really been scared in the car, but being manhandled by nurses and rushed through the sliding hospital doors into all those garish fluorescent lights was amping up his anxiety. As much as it could be amped when he felt so fucking weak, at least. All the movement was making him dizzy, so Kane closed his eyes. He didn’t want to die. He told his body to hold on, because there was more work to do, and he wasn’t ready to see what was waiting for him on the other side.
Bailey's fingers twitched when Kane reached out but there was no time to take his hand, and she would only be getting in the way. She stayed with him as long as she could, until they were going through the doors that read Authorized Personnel Only. Bailey knew she could probably scream and force herself in by flashing her badge again, but she didn't want to risk being a problem and delaying care for her brother. So instead she stopped and watched the doors swing shut as Kane was whisked away. Hands on her waist, Bailey panted softly, staring at the doors for another minute before turning away. Reaching up to rub her forehead, and ignoring the coppery smell of blood, Bailey started for the exit to move Kane's SUV. She would have to return to her car and make sure there was nothing left behind to clean up, but Bailey wasn't going to do a damn thing until someone told her Kane was at least alive. Until then... it looked like she would be spending the next several hours in the ER waiting room.