then, out of the corner of her eye, a figure flew toward them, smashing into Kyle’s chest and sending everyone collapsing back to the floor. With Hannah now on top of him and Jessie underneath, Kyle was pinned.
Jessie took a huge gulp of air and redoubled her efforts, pulling down with a reservoir of determination she didn’t know she was capable of. The chain of the cuffs cut into the soft skin of her fingers, making them raw with pain. Something she couldn’t identify was dripping off Kyle’s body onto her face. It was salty but she didn’t know if it was blood or sweat.
Despite her best efforts, she could sense that her strength was fading. Kyle’s neck muscles strained against the chain like the Incredible Hulk tearing through his own clothes. Still, she refused to let go. Jessie ignored the protests of her body as she clutched the chain tight and pulled, imagining his muscles were ropes that would eventually snap.
He paused for a half-second, before unexpectedly flinging himself upward.
She heard something crack but kept tugging, always tugging, now feeling herself get stronger with each passing second. She visualized herself actually decapitating him and closed her eyes tight as she tried to make it a reality.
At some point—she wasn’t sure when—she sensed that Kyle was no longer struggling against her. She opened her eyes to find her sister staring remorselessly at his face. Hannah sensed Jessie’s eyes on her and glanced down.
“You can stop pulling,” she said with remarkable calm. “He’s dead.”
*
Jessie was having trouble breathing.
It wasn’t her injuries or the state of shock she could sense was lurking in the nearby shadows of her mind. Rather it was her constant efforts at CPR on Ryan.
At her instruction, Hannah had already called down to Officer Nettles to alert him. She said it was quicker than trying to reach 911. While she was calling, Jessie had evaluated the spot where Ryan had been stabbed, on the right mid torso just above the diaphragm, and made the command decision to remove the knife.
Based on her admittedly rudimentary medical knowledge, she was reasonably certain that it hadn’t entered near any major arteries. But it had likely punctured the lung and every time he inhaled and exhaled, even softly, he risked further damage to it. So once Hannah hung up and said EMTs were on their way, Jessie had methodically explained what would happen next.
“I have an extra key to these handcuffs in my bedside drawer,” she’d told her. “You get them while I keep pressure on this wound.”
After Hannah returned with the key and uncuffed her, she walked her sister through the next steps.
“Get several towels from the linen closet. I’m going to remove the knife.”
“Why?” Hannah demanded. “Won’t he lose more blood that way?”
“Yes,” Jessie told her more calmly than she thought possible. “But the knife is damaging his lungs and his breathing has become shallow and irregular and I’m worried he won’t survive until help arrives. I’m going to have to start CPR. I’ll need you to use the towels to keep pressure on his wound. There will probably be lots of blood. Don’t stop pressing. Got it?”
Hannah nodded.
“But before we do any of that, I need a favor.”
“Okay.”
“I dislocated my shoulder earlier,” she said. “There’s no way I can do chest compressions with it like this. I need you to yank it back into the socket.”
“Oh god. I think I’m going to pass out.”
“You’re not going to pass out. You just saw a man die, not for the first time, and you got through that. This is nothing. Besides, I can’t do this alone so you’re not allowed to pass out.”
That was almost five minutes ago. Jessie wouldn’t find out until later that Kyle had remotely disabled the elevators before beginning his attack. That meant that Nettles and Beatty had to run up thirteen flights of stairs to get to them. By the time they arrived, Jessie was gasping for air and her arms, already pumped out, felt like strands of spaghetti. Hannah had offered to take over chest compressions but Jessie told her to keep pressure on the wound. She didn’t want to tell her that she didn’t trust anyone else to do this.
When Nettles and Beatty burst into the room, they didn’t ask if they could take over, they just did it. Beatty attached Ryan to an Ambu resuscitation bag while Nettles attended to the knife wound. Jessie slumped down beside them, too exhausted to physically drag