He aimed his fist at Allen's sternum and administered a precordial thump. The heart responded—slightly. He tilted Allen's head back, pinched the nostrils, and blew twice into his mouth, filling Allen's lungs. He found the base of the sternum and moved up two fingers. His hands nearly covered Allen's chest. He leaned over and pushed down . . . came up . . . pushed down . . . came up—pumping the heart for him. After thirty compressions, again he filled Allen's lungs.
The cardiac monitor fell silent, then beeped. Allen hitched up, gasping for breath, righting against Stephen's hands.
"Yes!" Stephen said and threw his arms around his brother.
Allen went limp. His head flopped back, and once again, the EKG machine took over the job of screaming for help in a sporadic, weak rhythm.
Stephen gave him another precordial thump and restarted CPR . . . two breaths . . . thirty compressions . . . breathing . . . pushing . . . He had to restrain himself from frantically pumping on Allen's chest without rhythm or meter. He wanted to force life back into him. Tears flew from his cheeks, splattering against Allen's bloody face. He pulled in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and pushed.
Allen heaved up, gasping. Stephen reached behind his head.
"Allen! Stay with me."
The cardiac monitor beeped . . . beeped . . .
Allen seized Stephen's shoulders and hitched in two sharp, raspy breaths . . . then nothing . . . He fell limp again.
This time, there was no response to the precordial thump. Stephen scanned the room. No defibrillator. His eyes roamed the clutter scattered on the floor: X-ray film, surgical instruments, rolls of cloth tape . . . ampoules of medicine and syringes.
He swung off Allen's cot and dropped to his hands and knees on the floor. He snatched up an ampoule and read its label. Magnesium sulphate 8 mmol. Sometimes used during resuscitation, but under what conditions? He tried to remember. Administering CPR was one thing—kids learned that. Injecting drugs to restart a heart was something else completely—despite being seven credit hours away from earning an MD. Potassium chloride was a good example. Depending on the cause of the heart failure, potassium could either restart it or frustrate efforts that would otherwise work.
He kept scooping up and examining ampoules, hoping a solution would spring out at him.
Epinephrine. Adrenaline!
He found a syringe, loaded it up with the epinephrine, and gently injected the drug under Allen's tongue, which would cause it to work as quickly as an intravenous line. He breathed into him, then rose, his straight arms coming together over Allen's sternum. This time, as he pumped, he did not count. He prayed.
Acutely aware of the heart under his palms, he thought of the life that was slipping away. He remembered Allen the toddler who'd scribbled with Crayons on the walls . . . the eight-year-old who had crashed his bike, knocking out a tooth, and who had run to his brother for comfort instead of to Mom . . . the new teenager who'd shyly asked Stephen what it was like to kiss a girl. . . the young man who'd performed a near-perfect backflip on the living room floor when he received his acceptance to med school—only "near perfect" because after landing he had crashed down on an antique coffee table, obliterating it. He recalled his brother's face when—
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Allen pulled in heavy gulps of air. His eyes were open, but they were focused on something distant. Tears buckled on his lids, spilled over. He reached out blindly, felt Stephen's face and shoulder, and slid his arms around his brother's body, pushing his face into his chest.
Stephen hugged him in return and watched the EKG monitor. The rate was slow but steady. His vision blurred. He blinked away his own tears; they seeped into his beard and tickled his face.
"What happened?" Allen asked, the words scraping over his vocal cords like pebbles. "Where was I?"
Stephen squeezed him tighter. His hands and arms felt too much of Allen's skeleton. He said, "Maybe heaven, little brother. But heaven can wait for you. I got you now."
Allen pushed back to look into Stephen's eyes. He touched Stephen's face, as though ensuring himself it was real.
Stephen was stunned by the way Allen's cheeks and eyes sank into his skull, accentuating his cheekbones and jaw. A large rip at the waist of his clothing showed pale skin and a shrunken stomach. He must have lost twenty pounds in the three days since his capture. Finally Stephen's eyes broke away and settled on a bowl of water and a cloth beside the cot. He dipped the cloth into the water and dabbed at Allen's face. The blood washed away, but the tears—constantly replenished— seemed more permanent.
Allen returned to the comfort of his brother's chest. Stephen's arms cocooned him, warming, comforting, protecting. Allen slumped as tension waned and fatigue took hold.
"I thought we'd lost you," Stephen whispered.
An explosion rocked the room. The wire mesh over the light came loose on one side and swung down. Somewhere down the corridor, glass shattered.
Carefully he lowered Allen back onto the bed. His eyes were wide and darting. Stephen had heard that a side effect of adrenaline was short-term hyper-alertness, followed by a crash that comatosed some patients. The alertness could help get Allen out of the compound; they would worry about his crashing later.
He pulled another ampoule out of his shirt pocket, one he'd found earlier: atropine, which would keep Allen's heart rate up and work with the adrenaline to energize him.
He scooped up another syringe, loaded it, and plunged the needle into Allen's arm.
"This'll help," he said soothingly.
Walls shattered in another part of the complex. The sound reverberated through the corridors, which were becoming thick with smoke and dust. He realized that the explosions were infrequent now and sporadically placed—if his own judgment in such matters could be trusted—as if they were probing for something.
"You're doing fine," Stephen said, tossing aside the syringe. He hoisted Allen up, slung him over his shoulder, and stood.
He made only one wrong turn getting back to the exit. The door was locked. Beside it, a black pane was set in the wall. The man who had led him to Allen had put his face up to one like it. He held his own face in front of it, moved it around, tried the door again. Still locked.
This far . . . for nothing.
He had not seen anyone else on this level. The chances of people hiding out here—or of his finding them if they were—were about the same as surviving the bombs pounding overhead.
Then a memory struck him—so full of potential, he held his breath while his mind gnawed on it.
It could work.
He eased Allen down next to a wall. "I'll be right back. I gave you a heavy dose of adrenaline. You all right?"
"Hmmm." Allen raised his eyebrows to show he was. "Feeling . . . a little better."
Stephen took off along the corridor, into air that had taken on the murkiness of pond water. When he returned, Allen rolled an eye at him and grimaced. Behind Stephen, dragged by one foot, came the corpse from Allen's cell. It left an intermittent swath of crimson. Stephen scooped up the body and maneuvered its face into position in front of the glass panel. He turned the head this way and that, backed it away and drew it near. The noise of the explosions escalated. The tremors became quakes. The smoke thickened and stung their eyes.
He laid the body down in frustration, not sure what else to do.
Allen spoke. "Thermal."
"What?"
He said it again.
Stephen looked down at the corpse, wondering where mere disrespect became sacrilege. He straddled the body and began rubbing the face. His hands engulfed it. He was able to stroke all of it simultaneously, from forehead to chin, ear to ear. His thumbs stayed on the bridge of the nose, moving from between the eyes to the tip. He rubbed as vigorously as he dared and tried not to think of the flesh beneath his hands: the chin scratchy with light beard stubble; the lips catching on his palms, the bottom pulling down, the top snarling up, each flipping back on the opposing stroke; the forehead sliding sickeningly over the skull.