Hawaii Five-0
Stuck
Chapter 4
After leaving the bathroom, Catherine, Mary and April slowly made their way down the hallway back to the main area of the shopping centre. Once there, April stayed back with Mary while Catherine checked again to make sure the coast was still clear.
"All clear?" April asked as she and Mary watched Catherine check for the shooters.
"Yeah, all clear" Catherine replied as she nodded.
"Well let's go then" said Mary.
With that being said, Catherine returned to Mary and April to get ready to move again. As all three of them emerged from the hallway, still being highly vigilant, they laid eyes on the woman who had been shot and killed by one of the gunmen; the same woman Catherine had discovered beforehand when she previously checked the area.
Making their way through the shopping centre at a slow, but steady pace, they all kept an eye out for a place that would be safer than ladies' bathroom. During their desperate search for a safe spot to hide out, Catherine gasped as she felt another sudden pain in her stomach, but this time she was unable to grasp her stomach because she was holding her share of Mary's means for survival in her free hand. The expression on Catherine's face grabbed the concern of both April and Mary.
"Are you okay?" Mary asked as they came to stop.
"Yeah, I'm fine" Catherine replied as the pain began to subside.
"Are you sure?" April asked.
"Because I've seen that look on pregnant woman's face before; is this the first time today you've had that kind of pain?" she asked, as she was concerned Catherine could be going into labour and was met with Catherine being hesitant to answer her question.
"Catherine?" April asked.
"No" Catherine replied. "This isn't the first time"
"How long ago was the last time?" April asked.
"When I came out by myself to check for any of the shooters" Catherine replied.
"Alright, so that was about fifteen minutes ago" April stated as she gave Catherine a look of concern.
"April, am I going into labour?" Catherine asked as she saw the look on the nurse's face.
"It's a very real possibility Cath, okay" April replied.
"But don't worry, if you are having contractions, they're fifteen minutes apart, which means we've probably got a good amount of time before Junior decides to make an appearance"
"Okay" said Catherine.
"But if am going to have my baby in here, I would prefer not to have it where I can get shot; so I think we should get a move on"
"I second that motion" said Mary. "Besides, I really want to sit down"
"Alright" said April.
"Hang tight; it shouldn't be too long before we find somewhere we can all sit down" she added as they began to move again.
After walking for another minute, the girls were yet to find somewhere to hide out and walking this long was starting to take its toll on Mary. Very quickly, Mary had become quite pale and April knew it was a sign that she was going into shock; more than likely hypovolemic shock. Just as they were about to give up, they finally saw a set of elevator doors and immediately thought that this was there ticket out of there. As they continued their slow and steady pace towards the elevator, gunshots began to ring out again, and they sounded close; and they weren't wrong. All three of them turned their heads just briefly, but it was just enough to see how close the gunmen were. There were two men, all dressed in black and heading straight for them; and as they walked towards them, they began firing at them again.
Catherine, Mary and April then moved as fast as they could towards the elevator. Once there, Catherine slammed her hand on the elevator button on the wall, praying that it would open quickly. Thankfully, her prayers were answered as the doors opened after just three seconds of waiting anxiously. As soon as they doors made a gap big enough for all three of them to fit through, the quickly moved inside the elevator. Once inside, Catherine and April placed Mary down and April pressed the button that would make the doors close faster. Luck must have been on their side, elevator wise anyway, because the elevator doors almost immediately responded to April persistent pressing on the button and closed, just as the two shooters started to close in on them. Once the doors were closed, April, Mary and Catherine all let out a sigh of relief, almost simultaneously. But their brief lucky streak with the elevator was about to come to an end. After April had pressed the ground floor button and elevator began to move downwards, it came to an abrupt stop and the elevator lights went out. Though it only was a fairly smooth abrupt stop, April had still managed to hit her head on the elevator wall. Just before the lights came back on, April felt something trickle down the right side of her face; and was confirmed as blood when the emergency lights came on.
"Ow" April exclaimed.
"Are you alright?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah, I think so" April replied. "Looks like I gave my head a hard knock"
"How about you Mary?" Catherine asked.
"I'm okay" Mary replied.
"You look pale and breaking into a sweat" April stated. "You're far from okay, you're probably starting to go into hypovolemic shock" she added.
"What's hypovolemic shock?" Mary asked as April knelt down to assess her leg wound.
"Hypovolemic shock is the type of shock you get when you're losing too much blood" April replied as she unwrapped the blood soaked sheets they had used for bandages from Mary's leg.
"And it looks like you may be right" Catherine stated as she pointed it out
"That looks like way too much blood for a gunshot wound that didn't hit an artery"
"That's because it is" April agreed and looked up to see the scared expression on Mary's face.
"Am I going to be okay?" Mary asked as she began to sob.
"Mary, listen to me" April replied.
"If the bullet has hit the artery, it's probably only nicked it otherwise I'm pretty sure you would've bled out by now; you're just going to have to keep your leg as still as possible okay"
Mary nodded in reply to April's advice.
"Don't worry okay" April continued. "I've treated a lot of gunshot wounds before"
"You have?" Mary asked.
"Yeah" April replied.
"In Newark?" Mary asked.
"Not just in Newark, Iraq too" April replied.
"You served in Iraq?" Mary asked.
"Yeah" April replied. "Two tours"
"What was it like?" Mary asked as April began to redress Mary's leg wound with makeshift bandages made from sheets for a baby's cot.
"Scary, bloody, adrenaline pumping, tiring and in a way, quite rewarding" April replied, turning her head to see how Catherine was doing.
"I'm fine" Catherine stated as she sat down on the elevator floor.
"Just taking the weight off my feet; being nearly nine months pregnant will make you want to do that; you'll understand in a few months April" she added as she kicked her sandals off her sore swollen feet.
"Anyway, looks like someone's switched the power off" April stated.
"Do you think the shooters turned it off?" Mary asked.
"Well it's possible" Catherine replied.
"But I think in this case, I think the cops may have done it to help immobilise the shooters"
"Great, that's just dandy" April stated as she began to stand up after patching up Mary's leg again. "Woe!" she said as she finally reached her feet, feeling the effects of her concussion.
"Dizzy?" Catherine asked.
"Yeah and you can add nausea to that too" April replied, leaning up against the elevator wall and closing her eyes to try and make the room stop spinning.
"What do we do now?" asked Mary.
"We wait" Catherine replied.
"Wait? Wait for what, the shooters to find us?" Mary asked.
"I was thinking more along the lines of help" said April as she sat down against the elevator wall.
"Well, we don't have a choice" said Catherine as she stood up to stretch her legs
"Let's just hope that help finds us first"
"Yeah, well we should call Danny and Steve back, to them we're okay" April suggested as she reached for her handbag to get her phone.
Meanwhile, Five-0 had arrived no more than five minutes ago. Steve and Chin went to find out from HPD what the latest developments of the shooting were, while Danny stood close by with Kono, waiting for a phone call from April, Catherine or even Mary to tell them that they were okay. It had been nearly twenty minutes since Danny and Steve had spoken to any of the girls and was beginning to get worried that something may have gone terribly wrong. While he and Kono continued to wait for the phone call, Steve and Chin returned with the latest information about the shooting.
"Anything yet?" Steve asked as he and Chin approached.
"No, nothing yet" Danny replied.
"So what did HPD give you?" Kono asked.
"Well, they think we have five, maybe six potential shooters" Chin replied.
"They've also shut off the power" Steve added, sounding frustrated; though he knew it was probably the right thing to do, seeing it would make catching these gunmen a lot easier.
"They're trying to slow the shooters down" Kono stated.
"Yeah" said Danny.
"But it also means that people who were travelling in the elevators at the time are stranded until the power comes back on"
Just as Danny finished speaking, his phone began to ring, and much to his relief, it was his sister calling.
"Who is it?" Steve asked.
"It's April" Danny replied as he answered the call and put it on loudspeaker.
"April? You all okay?" he asked.
"Yeah we're all okay" April replied.
"Okay good" said Steve. "Where are you now?" he asked.
"Ah, we're in an elevator" April replied. "The power went out and now we're stuck"
"They did that to slow the shooters down" Chin replied.
"Yeah and unfortunately sometimes this happens" Kono added.
"Yeah well, it's kind of made us sitting ducks" Catherine informed them.
"What the hell is going out there?" Mary asked.
"HPD think there may be up to six shooters in there right now and we're still working on what to do to take them down and get you out" Danny replied.
While Danny explained what was going on, Catherine felt something running down her legs while April watched water begin to puddle between her feet; April was hoping that Catherine's labour would be strung out a little longer so she wouldn't have to give birth in an elevator.
"Well Danny you might want to work on getting us out a bit faster" said April.
"Why? What's going on?" Danny asked.
"Ah, Cath started having contractions about half an hour ago and…" April explained.
"And what?" Steve asked, anxiously.
"And my water just broke Steve" Cath replied.
