It wasn't until I tried to escape through a window and my mother caught me, slamming me down so hard my arm snapped, ensuring I would never hold a scalpel again.
Only then did she get the phone call. The boy hanging between life and death, the one waiting to be saved, was her son.
——
"Mom, what are you TALKING about?"
I was frantic, prying at her fingers with both hands.
"I'm a doctor! There's a patient in the ER right now, and they will die without me!"
She didn't let go. Her grip only tightened.
She turned toward a security guard patrolling nearby and raised her voice for maximum carry:
"Sir, I am NOT making this up!"
"My daughter has been acting suspicious since the moment we walked in. She kept glancing toward the jewelry store..."
She clapped a hand over her mouth and sucked in a sharp breath, as though she'd just cracked some grand conspiracy.
"Oh my God. You don't think she actually..."
Before she even finished, mall security swarmed in.
The security captain was a heavyset man in his forties with a hard face and a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. His eyes had already changed.
"Ma'am, you need to cooperate with an inspection."
Blood roared in my ears.