I come to when we move again. Two people pushing me. One at my head. One at my feet. There’s rattling underneath me, the squeal of metal wheels. My heart races too fast with memories. Rubble. Rescue. Big hands. Calm voice. My vision blurs but I don’t miss the shiny building. The big hospital sign. No! I hate hospitals. Hospitals are where people go to die.
I wiggle. Try to move. To break free. But a hand on my shoulder steadies me. Then I’m through the doors. Across the floors.
Pushed. Pushed. Pushed.
Shouts.
Turn. Turn. My body sways from one side to the other, the straps holding me in, keeping me from falling as we turn again. Through hallways. Around corners.
Until we jerk to a sudden stop.
“Here?” someone says.
“Five flights,” the other answers.
I try to focus on which voice is which.
Then my stretcher is compact. The wheels fold underneath me and I’m carried instead of rolled. We’re going up. Stairs. A turn. More stairs. My head is heavy with exhaustion and fuzz. But still I see the horror. There are bodies. Bodies. Covered in sheets on the landings. Piled up. One and then another on top of that. Just like I thought. Just like I knew hospitals would be.
And then the rotting-meat smell of decay. Creeping. Crawling up my nostrils. Making me choke.
I squirm, the straps digging into my shoulders and thighs, my heart stuttering with the fear they’ll leave me here. But then the one at my feet heaves the stairwell door open. We all snap back when the heavy door stops short against something on the inside. I grip the sides of my stretcher, fearing I’ll fall off. Get lost in the pile of bodies. Dead and forgotten.
Bang, bang. A fist against the wall by the door.
“Here!” the man at my feet shouts.
Footsteps shuffle. The door creaks open more. They’re forcing me in. The one at my head stays. The one at my feet goes.
“I’ve got her.” A woman now. All-white coat with a clipboard and a pencil. Tracking arrivals.
A snapping sound, and I’m transferred from one cot to another. The wheels on the new cot slip out from underneath me and the woman in the white coat kicks something, a brake, that makes it stop. Frozen. The straps fall loose. I can move again, but I’m too tired to do it. I feel sweaty and sick.
“Name?” she says.
“Ruby.” The syllables scratch against my throat.
“What’s that?” the woman says.
“Ruby.” One of the guys from the ambulance. “She’s in and out. Puncture wound to her left arm. Possible sepsis.”
I open my eyes to him, wanting to see this person who knows so much about me when I know nothing about him. I catch the scruff on his face. The dark circles under his eyes. The tired slope of his shoulders. The stains on his coat. Dirt. Blood.
He’s been doing this for days.
“Last name? Age?” The woman again. Straight, shiny hair. A mole under the corner of her eye. Tiny gold hoops in her ears.
He shakes his head. “Wish I knew.”
I try to say Seventeen, but I slur. Unclear. Only the S sound comes out. A long hiss. I try again because I want to give them something. Answer the questions he can’t. But my whole age stays stuck on my tongue.
I lie there hissing, “Sssssss.”
“We’ve got it from here,” the woman says. Is she talking to me or the man who brought me here? The one with the face scruff and the tired shoulders.
He nods. Turns to go. I tug at the edge of his jacket to stop him. I want to know his name. To thank him.
“Thhhhh—” I manage.
He looks at my face. I focus my eyes on his. Hoping that’s enough for him to understand how grateful I am.
He smiles. Gentle. “I know.”
“Good luck out there,” the woman says to his back as he leaves.
She moves my leg, bending it at the knee. She moves my left arm to rest it across my stomach. I’m clay and she’s molding me. I let her. I don’t resist because I can’t. I can only squint at the lights above me. They aren’t bright and fluorescent. They’re soft. Flickering. Barely there. Like me. Running on fumes.
Someone else bangs through the stairwell door, calling for help. The woman stops moving me to take off with her clipboard and her pencil.
Around me, the hallway echoes with the sounds of labored breathing. Grunts. Groans. Like Charlie.
I want to be somewhere else.
I struggle to lift my head. To see. To know. Where else can I go?
But there’s only an endless sea of people. They surround me. On cots in front of me. And next to me. If there’s space, there’s a person. Every hallway. Every door. Every room. Every square inch has people in it. I reach out. I want to be able to touch them the same way I wanted to touch Charlie. To know we’re all in this together. I couldn’t reach Charlie, but maybe I can reach them. I stretch my fingers to connect. I catch the soft edge of the shirt of someone next to me.
We’re all here. Crammed in side by side. Cot-to-cot.
Hope-to-hope.