Free The Devil's Elixir by Raymond Khoury

next to me and crunched the pedal. As we blew past some slower vehicles, I adjusted the mirror and locked it onto Michelle’s face.
    “Almost there, Meesh, you hear me?” I urged her, “We’re almost there.”
    Her eyes were struggling to stay open.
    Fear swamped my heart as I guided the Ford past a blur of cars before veering off the six-lane road and throwing the car onto the winding ramp that led to the terminal. Less than a minute later, we were pulling up to the curb by a startled traffic cop.
    I leapt out of the car and threw a quick glance up and down the ramp, looking for the EMS van. There was no sign of it.
    “There’s an ambulance on its way,” I shouted to the cop as I flung open the rear door to get to Michelle. “See if you can find out where it is. We’ve got an emergency here.”
    I leaned in, and the sight that greeted me froze me stiff. Michelle wasn’t moving. Her breathing was shallow and when it did come, it wasn’t much more than a feeble wheeze. There was a messy streak of blood and saliva running down from the side of her mouth, and the car seat was drenched.
    Softly, I reached out and pulled up her shirt, looking for the wound. There was a dark crevasse just under her left breast, and thick blood was seeping out of it. I put my hand on it and applied some pressure, trying to stem the bleeding, anticipating the pain I’d be causing Michelle, and sure enough, she flinched hard as my hand pressed harder. I moved my other hand up to her face, giving her pale, clammy cheek a caress, unsure about whether or not she could even feel it. As I did, my eyes drifted off her face and down to find Alex, who was tucked in under her arm, his face down, his eyes shut tight. He was shivering wildly.
    “Hey,” I said, softly. I reached over, then hesitated and pulled my hand back before it settled on the boy’s head. “It’s gonna be okay,” I told him in that annoying, desperate way that we sprout out these platitudes. “She’s gonna be fine.”
    Alex didn’t look up. Instead, he remained still for a moment, still coiled up tight and trembling, then he gave me a minuscule nod before going back to his shell-like seclusion.
    I felt my heart stall as Michelle’s warm blood kept seeping through my fingers—then I heard a faint siren growing in the distance.
    “They’re here, Meesh, you hear that? The ambulance is here.”
    Her eyelids flickered half open, allowing her eyes to connect with mine momentarily. Her face scrunched up as she tried to say something, but she couldn’t manage it and just coughed up some more blood.
    I leaned in closer. “Don’t talk, sweetie. Just hang in there, we’ll have you in the ambulance in no time.”
    She seemed insistent and tried again, but the words shriveled up in her throat.
    “What is it, baby?” I asked as I heard the siren’s shriek grow louder, almost with us now.
    Her eyes widened briefly, like it was the result of some superhuman effort, and she met my gaze again, even though it seemed to be taking a huge toll on her. “Alex,” she wheezed. “Keep . . . keep him . . . safe.”
    “Of course. Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” I said, managing some feeble attempt at a reassuring smile, stroking her cheek while keeping my other hand pressed down on the entry wound. “We’re both right here with you,” I told her as I glimpsed the ambulance pulling up behind us.
    Within seconds, the paramedics were in the car, checking her out. My gut twisted as I read the look on their faces when they first saw how pale and weak she was and when they saw the amount of blood that she’d lost. With more and more curious onlookers congregating around the car, I helped them lift her out of it and onto a stretcher, keeping Alex close and hanging onto his hand before doing my best to shield Michelle from his view as the paramedics tended to her on the curb.
    The sound bites coming from them weren’t reassuring.
    “She’s got massive internal bleeding,” one of