Day Zero / Season 1, Episode 4
Blood on Her Hands
Nina Reyes’s hands are slick with blood, the copper tang sharp in her nose as she presses down harder on the teenage boy’s chest. The gurney rattles under her, wheels squeaking against the linoleum of Houston Methodist’s ER, now a cavern of flickering flashlight beams and shouting. The boy’s skin is clammy, his breaths shallow gurgles, and she can feel the knife wound’s jagged edge through the gauze she’s layered over it. “Stay with me, kid,” she mutters, her voice a tight wire, not sure if she’s talking to him or herself. The hallway stinks of antiseptic and something sour—vomit, maybe, or fear. Her scrubs stick to her back, sweat pooling despite the chill creeping into the unheated hospital. “Reyes! We got maybe five minutes before this whole wing’s underwater!” Jamal’s voice cuts through the din, his flashlight bobbing as he jogs toward her, his sneakers slapping against the floor. His face is a mask of strain, eyes bloodshot from the last six hours of hell. “Flood’s up to the loading dock. They’re saying the generators won’t hold.” “Five minutes?” Her stomach twists, but her hands don’t falter, still compressing, still counting the rhythm in her head. One-two-three. “I can’t move him yet. Patel’s gotta get him to surgery or he’s done.” Jamal stops short, his light sweeping over the...