"Could you just like...leave the X-ray machine on? I won't tell. I promise," the little boy with the flaming red Mohawk pled beneath Doctor Will Halstead's skilled hands. His bright green eyes were fixated on the machine that had just been used.
Had the child not been so articulate, Will may have been worried about a traumatic brain injury.
Although he had not ruled out a concussion.
The emergency department was full.
A school bus had gone off the road after being hit by a SUV on its way back from a schooltrip. The bus driver was up in surgery, having sustained wildly serious injuries when the bus crashed into a corner market. It'd destroyed the building and trapped the children for the better part of an hour. The jaws had been required to get the children and driver out.
Will could hear a few kids around the ED talking about it, as well as the firemen.
"Are you seeing double? Do you have a headache?"
The boy, Mark according to the paramedic who'd brought him in with pieces of metal in his leg and side, made a face of pure disbelief. "I didn't hit my head. The building hit me and if this accident didn't release my hidden superpowers, radiation is my only remaining option."
Will began to reevaluate the boy being in shock. He was incredibly coherent. He was bewilderingly focused and calm. As he removed a sizable piece of debris from the young patients leg the boy just barely grimaced, his attention elsewhere.
It struck Will as incredibly odd.
Mark, last name unknown, hadn't cried or expressed any feelings of fear or pain compared to the other more vocal patients.
"Are you experiencing any pain," he asked, not for the first time.
The boy's head whipped to the other side as a stretcher went by with a shouting little girl. "Can you find out if my brother's are here too? They were on the bus with me."
Glancing over at the empty nurses station, he found that he was on his own in the downright chaotic department. A nurse from another department helped him close up the wound from a large piece of building as he asked, "How many brothers do you have?"
"Three," Mark told him, eyes peeled for familiar faces. "Hector, Jun and Snoopy."
Blood continued to gush from two other places on his leg. Maybe he was expierencing effects of blood loss? "Snoopy? Are you sure?" He then focused his attention to the next gaping wound, having closed the most severe and heavily bleeding.
Mark rolled his head so he could glare at Will, "Yes! I'm sure. They're adopted not made up. We're all adopted. Our parents are dead so we live with Endora. Her husband is dead too."
For just a moment his heart sped up.
Endora was not a common name. Will knew a Endora from the neighborhood where he grew up, but she'd moved away for college.
"Oh? Does Endora have a last name so we can call her to let her know what happened?"
More blood came from Marks leg making Will look for a severed vein or piece of debris.
"Of course she has a last name...Hector! Hector!"
Before Will could even react, a boy without a shirt with a large laceration to his scalp came running his way. A butterfly needle was taped to his arm with iv tubing loosely trailing behind, clearly having been ripped out. A neck brace made his already limping gait awkward. But the child was on a mission with a resident not far behind.
It took all his strength to hold Mark on the stretcher when Hector threw his arms up around the boy, clinging to him for dear life. Blood smeared all over Mark's dirty white school uniform shirt.
"They want to give me a CatScan!"
Unlike Mark, Will could make out fear in Hectors dark eyes. The boy was terrified. Not that his adoptive brother missed it. In fact, Will was a little alarmed at how calm Mark was when the boy answered his brother, arms wrapped as equally tightly around Hector. "A CatScan is fine dude. It'll just look inside your head. Let them do it so when Endora gets here they can tell her you're fine and we can all go home. We don't want her to worry. Remember? We all have to be strong. We're not children anymore. We're all that's left."
Those words didn't sit well with Will. They were heavy and uncomfortable.
When he helped the new resident peel the two boys apart and positioned Mark back to continue sewing him up, he asked again, "What family can the hospital contact for you and your brothers?"
While he was pretty sure the school was already on top of that, a part of him needed to know for sure.
Mark stared up at the ceiling while reaching into his white school uniform shirt, "Endora. She's our legal guardian. Endora O'Grady." When Mark gave Will his address he was positive it was the same Endora from his childhood. Red frizzy hair, lots of freckles, braces, glasses, a bit on the boney side and stuck in Catechism class with him every Saturday morning. And apparently she was back and living on the same street as his parents.
He could vaguely remember his mother talking about Endora's husband being a firefighter. If he thought about it extra hard he thought he remembered hearing about her husband dying in a big forest fire. Every member of the team died if he recalled. But he wasn't positive. His mother would know, she'd know all the details being the neighborhood snoop.
When he pulled a sizable piece of glass out of Marks leg, the boy cried out sharply.
Will found himself eternally relieved with that reaction. A real reaction.
Absentmindedly the boy began to grip a medallion on a chain around his neck. A grimace of discomfort crossed his face as he fought hard to temper it down.
A moment later the boy rolled his head to the side where he coughed up a incredible amount of blood.