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can.”
    She was almost sure he couldn’t hear her. His chest continued to shudder as he fought for air just as violently as before. His blood felt thick and slimy beneath her palm. From the way it was spurting and the location of the wound, Charlie guessed that the aorta had beennicked. Attempting CPR or chest compressions with such an injury would only make the patient worse, as it would force more blood from his body, which was the last thing he needed. Without any kind of medical equipment, she was doing all she could. But she felt woefully inadequate. Helpless in the face of what she recognized, even as she hated to admit it, was encroaching death.
    “He needs to be inside an operating room stat ,” she looked up from her patient to tell Pugh urgently, although she already knew Garland’s chances of survival were almost nil. His only hope—and that it would work was a million-to-one long shot, in any case—was a top-notch surgeon and an immediate operation to open the chest and suture the aorta, which just wasn’t going to happen at Wallens Ridge. While the prison’s medical facilities included a rudimentary operating room for emergencies, it wasn’t equipped or staffed for something like this. And as for getting Garland to an outside hospital, there simply wouldn’t be enough time.
    Pugh stood up abruptly, saying something to one of the guards, who started yelling into his radio again. Charlie wasn’t listening anymore. Every ounce of her concentration was focused on doing what she could to save Garland’s life. He was a convicted serial killer with a death sentence hanging over his head, yes, which should have made the loss of his life by brutal murder more a case of justice being served early than a tragedy, but he was also a human being. To have him die like this, under her hands, when just moments before he had been alive and well and full of insolence as he passed her office, was horrifying.
    His legs moved, and a fresh fountain of blood coated her hands.
    “Keep still,” she told him, although she doubted that her words were getting through. Swiftly stripping off her coat, she wadded it up and pressed it down on top of the wound, holding it in place with all of her strength, only to watch the white cotton soak up the blood with terrifying speed. As she worked, she could tell from the way the blood was gushing that nothing was going to help. It was already too late. He was bleeding out even as she tried her best to hold off the inevitable. A scarlet pool of blood spread out around them, creeping across the floor, soaking through her pants from the knees down. She knelt in the warm, wet puddle of it, and the knowledge of what shewas kneeling in made her ill. The raw meat smell of fresh blood hung in the air. Garland’s wheezing breaths were becoming more widely spaced, more erratic, and with a sinking heart she realized he was going.
    “Where the hell is that oxygen?” she bit out, glaring at Pugh, at the guards, even at the two FBI agents who hovered uselessly with the rest, galvanized with the need to try something else, anything.
    “Mmm,” Garland groaned, coughed up a bright red dribble of blood, and opened his eyes.
    Charlie found herself looking into them. Their normal sky blue had turned almost colorless. The pupils were dilating even as she met his gaze. Death, she knew from experience, was just a few heartbeats away. The baddest of bad men, black heart, merciless and evil: all those descriptions of him and more were written down in his file, and she had no doubt that they were true. Still, she worked feverishly to keep the life-giving blood in his veins.
    “Stay with me. Do you hear?” Her voice was fierce, her pressure on the wound relentless.
    “Doc,” he said. Or at least his lips moved to form the word: her pulse was beating so hard against her eardrums by then that she couldn’t be sure she actually heard it.
    “I’m here,” she said. “Don’t try to talk.”
    Reaching up,