The Hand Of Providence

CHAPTER 1 — “The Wrong Way to Save a Life”

“Clamp. Now.”

Jason’s voice cracked through the chaos. Monitors shrieked, interns stumbled over one another, and the patient’s chest kept rising too shallow, too fast. “Doctor Rodriguez, we can’t”

“Clamp,” he barked again. His gloved hand was already elbow-deep, blood creeping up his wrist like ink spreading through water.

Dr. Pierce stormed in. “What the hell are you doing? That artery’s too close to the aorta”

“Then move,” Jason snapped. “He’s drowning in his own blood, Leonard.”

Pierce froze. No one called him by his first name here. The nurse, Anna, pale and wide-eyed, hesitated with the metal tool hovering midair.

Jason grabbed it himself, his motions too sharp, too sure. “Rodriguez, protocol”

“Protocol doesn’t save people. Hands do.”

He clamped. A hiss of air, the monitor flatlined. The silence lasted less than a heartbeat. “Code blue,” someone whispered.

Jason’s jaw locked. He pressed both palms on the patient’s chest, started compressions. One, two, three, hard, precise. “Come on,” he muttered. “Come on.”

Pierce stepped closer. “Jason, stop.”

“No.” Sweat ran down Jason’s temple under the mask. “He’s still warm.”

“Stop.”

Jason slammed another compression, then another, rhythm breaking. “You’re not dead yet, you hear me?”

Pierce reached for his arm. Jason twisted free, grabbed the defibrillator paddles. “Clear.”

The nurse backed off. The shock arced through the body on the table. Once. Twice. Flatline. Jason stared at the monitor. His hands trembled but he couldn’t let them rest. “Again.”

“Jason”

“Clear!”

The third shock filled the room with ozone and silence. Then, faintly, a blip. The line stuttered. A weak pulse. “See?” Jason breathed. “He’s back.”

But the pulse faded within seconds. The monitor screamed. Pierce ripped off his gloves, voice cold. “Time of death, 9:47.”

Jason didn’t move. His palms were still pressed on the cooling chest. Pierce spoke again, louder. “That’s an order.”

Jason’s eyes were distant. “He was there. I felt it.”

“Out,” Pierce said. “Now.”

Jason turned, blood-slicked, the OR lights bleaching his face pale. Every eye followed him as he stripped off his gloves and dropped them in the bin. They hit with a wet slap.

He left through the scrub room, ripped off his mask, and leaned over the sink. His reflection was a stranger, tired, hollow-eyed, angry. Behind him, voices bled through the swinging doors. “Crazy.”

“Can’t believe he argued with Pierce.”

“Did you see what he did with that clamp?”

He splashed cold water on his face. The drain swirled pink. Anna slipped in, hesitant. “Jason.”

He didn’t look up. “If you’re here to lecture me”

“I’m not.” She stepped closer. “You tried. Nobody else would’ve even”

He laughed once, bitter. “Yeah. Nobody else would’ve disobeyed an order.”

A heavy silence sat between them. “You saved that boy last month,” she said softly.

“And killed this one today.”

She reached for his shoulder, stopped short. “Pierce is calling a review meeting.”

“Of course he is.”

“Jason”

“I know how this ends, Anna. I’ve seen it before. They’ll say I’m reckless, unstable. They’ll call it negligence because it’s easier than calling it fear.”

“Fear of what?”

“Change.” He grabbed his coat, already walking toward the door. “Fear that medicine could be more than rules written by old men.”

She followed him into the corridor. The white walls were blinding. “At least stay for the meeting.”

“I’d rather face a firing squad.”

“Jason!”

But he was gone, the doors slamming behind him. By noon the story had already leaked through the hospital.

The janitor whispered it to the security guard; by lunch, the cafeteria buzzed. Rodriguez lost another one. He fought Pierce in surgery. He went rogue.

Jason sat on the hospital steps, coat folded beside him, hair damp from rain that hadn’t quite started yet. Cars hissed by on wet asphalt. His phone buzzed nonstop, messages from coworkers, none friendly.

He opened one. Martha. We need to talk. He stared at it, thumb hovering, then locked the screen.

Inside the building, through glass, he could see Pierce with the board members. Their faces tight, cautious. Judging.

He’d been here before, the outsider who made everyone nervous. He didn’t know when “unusual” had become “dangerous.”

Anna slipped out through the side door. She had his stethoscope in hand. “You forgot this.”

“Keep it,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“Home. Maybe the unemployment line.”

She winced. “It’s not final yet.”

“Pierce will make it final.”

“Jason, you did what you thought was right.”

He gave a dry smile. “That’s usually what gets me in trouble.”

She hesitated. “He was a gang kid, right? The one who came in stabbed?”

Jason nodded. “Fifteen. Barely old enough to drive. If I’d waited another ten seconds, he might’ve made it.”

“You mean if you’d stopped.”

“Same thing.”

She didn’t know what to say. He stood, pulled his coat on. The first drops of rain began to fall. “Jason, where will you go?”

He looked down the long hospital drive, the sky bruised gray. “Anywhere people still want to live.”

Half an hour later, as the storm hit, Pierce faced the board. “He disregarded direct orders,” one member said.

“Used unapproved techniques,” another added.

Pierce rubbed his temple. “You want me to fire him, I know.”

“Dr. Pierce, the patient died. The family’s threatening legal action.”

“I understand.”

Pierce looked through the rain-streaked window. Jason’s figure was gone from the steps. “Do it by the book,” the chairman said. “We can’t afford scandal.”

Pierce hesitated. “He’s brilliant,” he murmured.

“So was Frankenstein,” someone muttered.

By evening, Jason’s name was already trending on local feeds: “Rogue Doctor Defies Orders, Patient Dies in ER Chaos.”

His picture, half blurred, eyes wild, spread like fire. He sat in his dark apartment, the glow of the TV washing his face pale. Reporters talked. Strangers judged.

He muted the sound and stared at his hands. Steady. Still stained faintly red. The hands that should’ve saved someone. The hands everyone would soon call cursed.

And yet, under that shame, something else flickered. a pulse of defiance. If they thought he was finished, they didn’t know Jason Rodriguez. He’d just begun.