by Jamie Davis
“Ashley’s right,” Brynne said. “Our ambulance call volume is off by about twenty-five percent and headquarters thinks it’s due to the attacks on people associated with us at Station U.” She thought for a moment more and then nodded. “I’ll tell the Chief that I recommend you meet with Mike, but I’ll go with you. I haven’t talked with my old partner in a while. Maybe I can talk some reason into him. I should have suspected he would be part of this, but I honestly never thought he’d take his personal issues and go this far.”
“I thought he was sent to the academy because he was such a good paramedic and instructor,” Dean said.
“He is a good paramedic, Dean,” Brynne said. “Or he was. Mike was chosen for the original Station U crews because he was so good at his job. The problem started when he became way too overprotective of me after I started dating a vampire. He couldn’t get past my choice to date James. I think he had always seen me as a daughter figure. He didn’t approve of my choice in boyfriends.”
“He’s not necessarily alone in that thought, Brynne,” Dean reminded her.
“That’s not the point,” she said. “You’ve gotten over it, mostly. Maybe he still has those parental feelings for me. It may make him more open to telling us something during the meeting at the diner. That’s why I’m coming along. Well that, and to keep you from doing or saying anything stupid.”
“Okay,” Dean said turning back to his screen. “I’m going to email him back and let him know that I’m coming to meet him today after our shift. I won’t tell him about you coming. Maybe the surprise will help.”
There wasn’t time for the conversation to continue because right after he sent the email reply to Mike, the first call of the day alerted on the overhead speakers starting with the musical tones that alerted their station’s radio system. The dispatcher’s voice followed the tones.
“Medical Box U-821, chest pain, 1235 Telegraph Road.” The male dispatcher’s voice said.
Dean and Brynne grabbed their jackets and headed out to the ambulance bay to respond to the chest pain patient. There’d be time to formulate a plan for the upcoming conversation with Mike later in the shift, Dean thought, as they drove out of the station and onto the streets of Elk City.
———
Their chest pain call turned out to be an elderly Rakshasi - a Hindu spirit in human form, who looked like she had a heart attack. Although known as man-eater demons in the lore, she seemed nice enough from what he could see. The heart monitor showed an abnormal waveform called ST-Elevation, and the woman’s symptoms of chest pain, shortness of breath, and profuse sweating all pointed to a heart attack even if the heart monitor hadn’t showed it. Dean knew that only about half of all heart attacks showed up right away on the heart monitor.
He started the blood work in the portable iStat device in the back of the ambulance while Brynne started them on the way to the hospital. He suspected that her labs were going to show high enzyme levels that signified heart damage based on what he was seeing. He continued treating her with oxygen and additional nitroglycerin to ease the chest pain. He was watching her cardiac activity on the heart monitor and ran another diagnostic strip to see if the ST-elevation had progressed and gotten worse. He was looking at it when an alert sounded, and his eyes darted to the monitor. The uneven rhythm of ventricular fibrillation showed on the screen, and that meant she had slipped into cardiac arrest. He briefly checked her for responsiveness then immediately attached the defibrillator pads to his patient’s chest, then charged the heart monitor to deliver a shock.
“Brynne,” he called up to the front of the ambulance. “I’ve got a cardiac arrest. Initiating code procedures.”
The monitor finished charging up, and he made sure he wasn’t touching the patient, then pressed the shock button to deliver the stored charge to the Rakshasi’s heart. Her chest heaved with the sudden contraction of the chest muscles fueled by the electric charge. Dean waited a few seconds for Brynne to finish pulling over the ambulance before he could safely stand up and start CPR. He began with compressions and opted to do a full two hundred compressions over two minutes since she had just been breathing, and her lungs were still full of oxygenated air. Brynne climbed in the back with him as he continued the compressions.
“One shock delivered,” Dean said, already out of breath from the exertion. “I’m on the first set of compressions following the shock.”
He watched as Brynne grabbed the drug bag from its shelf and started gathering the meds for a cardiac arrest. He was nearly finished his first two hundred compressions when the woman’s hand moved, and her eyes fluttered open. He stopped and looked to see that she was breathing. As he stopped compressions, the heart monitor showed that the heart rhythm had returned to sinus tachycardia, a rapid heart rate but not one that was lethal and needed a shock. The initial shock of her lethal heart rhythm had worked and reset her heart’s organized contractions.
“I thought I’d lost you there for a minute,” he said to the patient as he pressed the button to check her blood pressure and run another diagnostic strip. Brynne drew up some meds to be given and hopefully stop her from going into the fibrillation rhythm again.
“Ow, my chest,” the woman said, putting her hand to her breast bone. “It hurts. What happened?”
“Your heart stopped, and I had to start CPR and shock you,” he watched as Brynne pushed the anti-arrhythmia drug into the IV tubing that lead to the patient’s arm. Then his partner clapped him on the back in support of his good work and left the back of the ambulance to head back up front and continue the drive to the hospital.
“Did we stop?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Dean said. “There’s no way for me to do effective CPR bouncing around in the back of a moving ambulance. It’s not all that safe either. Our protocol has the driver stop and come back to help with CPR. Now that you’re back awake and talking again, we can finish our drive.”
“Well, I guess I should thank you,” the Rakshasi said. “I wasn’t going to call you. I was afraid it would identify me to those awful humans who are hurting us. But the pain was so bad, I couldn’t wait any longer for it to get better.”
“You did the right thing,” Dean said. “Chest pain and trouble breathing are two things you don’t want to fool around with. They aren’t likely to get better on their own and often are signs of serious trouble. You rest right now. I’ve got you, and we’re almost to the hospital.” Dean continued monitoring her closely, but the lethal arrhythmia did not return. He was glad. It could just as easily gone the other way and she would have died.
He was still thinking about how close a thing it was, even after they had dropped her off with the critical cardiac care team in the emergency room. He and Brynne were wiping down the cot as they always did between patients when Brynne looked up at something behind him and said, “Jeeze, Ashley, you look like hell.”
Dean turned around and saw Ashley coming towards them. She still looked pale and her eyes had a sunken appearance. She had clearly not taken his advice to stay home and take another day off.
“Ash,” Dean said. “I thought you were going to stay home and take it easy.”
“You thought that, Dean. I never said it,” Ashley replied. “I always planned on coming in. The rest of the nurses are short-staffed most of the time as it is. They don’t need me calling out. It’s not like I’m infectious.”
Brynne snorted, “I’m not disagreeing with you, Ashley, but you look awful. You should have taken lover boy’s advice. What’s wrong with you if you’re not sick?”
Ashley briefly explained what had happened on their trip to the lake two days ago. Brynne’s eyes grew wide at the description of the girl’s injuries and even wider when Dean chimed in and described what Ashley had done to halt the spreading infection.
“Damn, Ashley,” Brynne said. “I knew you Eldara were powerful, but that must’ve been pretty impressive.”
“It’s not without a price, as you can see,” Ashley said w
ith a wan smile.
“We had to carry her back to the cabin, and she stayed in bed for the whole first day afterward,” Dean told his partner. “I was really worried about her. She says she’ll eventually regain her strength, but I don’t want her to go around doing things like that regularly.”
“He doesn’t need to worry about me, Brynne,” Ashley said. “I can take care of myself. I just can’t draw on my power without paying a price, albeit a temporary one. All Unusual powers comes with a price. I’ll be fine.”
“If you say so, Ashley,” Brynne said. “Still, maybe you should take it easy a little longer.”
“I’ve taken to doing routine tasks like drawing blood and doing triage for the day. That will keep me from the most strenuous work,” Ashley said. “Another two or three days and I’ll be as good as new.”
Dean pulled her to him in a brief hug and gave her a peck on the cheek. “We’ve got to get back in service, but I’m glad you came out to see us. I’ll come by later after work and check on you. We have a meeting after work, but I’ll only be an hour or so late.”
“A meeting?” Ashley asked.
Brynne spoke up. “Just a work thing. It’s going to be boring but hopefully not too long.”
Dean shot her a glance about the lie but said nothing. He gave Ashley another hug and then the two paramedics rolled their stretcher back out to the ambulance. When they got outside, Brynne spoke up.
“She didn’t need to be worrying about the meeting with Mike,” she said. “She wasn’t going to talk us out of it anyway. You can tell her about it later if we learn anything interesting. Otherwise, she never needs to know.”
“Look at you being all top secret and stuff,” Dean said as he loaded the cot into the back of the ambulance and slid it into place.
“It’s all about the ‘need to know’ my friend,” Brynne said. “Come on, let’s grab a snack on the way back to the station, my treat.”
Chapter 47
The rest of the shift was uneventful with only a few other routine ambulance calls. The two paramedics were able to spend some time talking about their plan to confront the former Station U paramedic, Mike Farver. They knew, based on Dean’s earlier conversations with Mike, that he was somehow involved with The Cause and the attacks on Unusuals in the Elk City area. They didn’t have any proof other than their suspicions. But based on those suspicions, he might even know where Zach was, which would help the police put a stop to the attacks.
When Bill and Lynne returned to take over that evening, Brynne followed Dean over to Hank’s Diner, near the station, to confront Mike. Dean saw Mike’s marked fire department SUV parked in the parking lot when he pulled in, and he got a tight feeling in his gut at the upcoming conversation with his former mentor. Mike had embodied everything that a paramedic was supposed to be as Dean’s one-time instructor, and Dean had strived to meet his approval when in the academy and afterward at Station U. The discovery that he was somehow connected with The Cause had been a huge letdown to the new paramedic, and he was still struggling with that realization.
Dean parked in a slot that had an open parking space next to it, and Brynne pulled her Nissan sedan in next to his pickup. Dean got out and waited for her to emerge from her car, then walked up to the diner entrance next to her. As he did, he realized she was his new mentor. That sudden realization helped him reconcile some of his feelings about confronting Mike there.
The two of them entered the diner, and Dean saw Mike seated at a booth at the rear. He also saw the surprise register in Mike’s eyes when he saw Brynne was with Dean. The two paramedics walked back to the booth and sat down across from Mike, Dean sliding into the booth first.
“Hello, Brynne,” Mike said. “It’s been a while.” He glanced at Dean but didn’t say anything, turning his gaze back to his former protege and partner.
“Yes, it has,” Brynne responded. “You know, Mike, I thought that you were through all of this drama about our patients at Station U when you moved to the Academy.”
“You thought I’d forget they existed simply because the Chief moved me to the Academy?” Mike asked. “If anything, it made me more aware of the danger we faced. The danger that you faced.”
“So you’re still mad about me choosing James against your wishes, is that it?” Brynne asked. “You have to let this father-figure, over-protective streak go, Mike. It’s time.”
“How could I, when you were in danger every time I let you go home to that blood-sucker,” Mike hissed. “Then, after I got moved to the Academy, I started getting pictures sent to me of the two of you together on dates. They came from an anonymous contact who also feared for your safety. I knew I had to act. Luckily my new friend had other contacts and plans to help me out. He just needed my help to get the ball rolling.”
“So you’re not involved with this alone?” Dean asked. “You have somebody you’re working with, doing these horrible things?”
Mike looked at Dean, and Dean felt very small, like a child who had spoken up during a grown-up conversation. The elder paramedic said nothing to him and turned his attention back to Brynne.
“I’m not alone in my concerns about these creatures living among us, Brynne. I was fine in the beginning when they were just seeking medical treatment, but when I realized the true dangers, the dangers they posed to you and impressionable people like you, I could sit by no longer.”
“I’m not a child, Mike,” Brynne snapped. “I can make my own choices and decisions, and live my own life. I don’t need or want your help.”
“Like I said,” Mike replied. “I’m past that now. You’re beyond saving. You’re gonna end up one of them, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I have to worry about the safety of the rest of us.” He turned and looked at Dean. “This is your last chance, kid. You can get out of this and save yourself. I know you’ve gotten mixed up with one of them, too, but it’s not too late. Has that Eldara nurse got you so far under her spell that you can’t leave?”
“I’m not under a spell,” Dean responded defiantly. “I’m just not okay with hurting people to prove a point.”
“First, they’re not people, Dean. They are monsters and nightmares come to life.” Mike corrected him, his voice taking on an edge. “Second, sometimes you have to cause some temporary pain to treat a problem. You use a needle to give medicine. You have to cut to remove a tumor to treat the cancer. That’s what I’m trying to do.” Dean just stared at him in disbelief. The former mentor continued. “But, it’s clear from your defiance you’ve made up your mind, or it’s been made up for you.” He moved from the booth’s bench seat across from them and stood up. “Either way, I think it’s too late. I have tried to warn you both, and you both have decided not to take my advice. A change is coming. It’s coming one way or the other. You can get on board, get out of the way, or get run over by it. It’s your choice. I’ll no longer be held responsible for the consequences.”
Brynne and Dean watched in silence as Mike turned and strode away. Brynne shifted to the now unoccupied seat across from Dean and looked at him.
“He’s even worse now than when he got transferred,” Brynne said. “He hates all of the Unusuals now, not just James, just because they’re different.”
“And because he doesn’t like your boyfriend,” Dean added.
“Yeah, but you didn’t particularly like James either,” Brynne said. “It doesn’t make you want to go out and kill people just because they are linked to him.”
They paused their conversation as the waitress, Daisy, came over to take their order.
“I saw your friend leave, is he coming back, do you want me to wait to take your order?” Daisy asked.
“No,” Brynne said. “He won’t be back. We’ll order now. I’ll have the chicken tender dinner and a diet soda.”
Daisy looked at Dean. He was not sure he felt like eating, but he ordered anyway. “A grilled chicken barbecue sandwich with fries and cole slaw. I’ll have a Sprite to drink.”
&nbs
p; “Great, I’ll get that started and be right back with your drinks,” Daisy said as she flipped her order book closed and walked away.
Dean watched her go and then looked at Brynne. “I can’t say I like James a lot. Maybe that has to do with his personality. Maybe it has to do with his - his feeding habits.” Brynne pulled at her characteristic turtleneck’s collar absently when he said it. Damn, that burned at him. Obviously James was biting her, but she seemed none the worse for the wear. Brynne started to say something, but Dean held up his hand to stop her.
“I’m not arguing the right or wrong of it, Brynne,” Dean continued. “It’s your life, and it’s none of my business. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to fight you about your personal choices.” He watched as her tension relaxed. “Ashley says he and I need to get along to stop all of this. Somehow, James and I are linked to this. She just has a feeling. I mean, jeez, what good is being a messenger of the Gods if you can’t be more specific with your messages?”
Brynne laughed aloud. “What does Ashley say when you ask her that question?”
“She says it’s part of human free will,” Dean replied. “She says that the higher planes all agree to keep hands off humans and let them make their own choices for major decisions. While they sometimes take sides, they have to act on the periphery. That way they offer humans the options to make decisions they hope their worshipers will make. In the end, though, she says it has to be up to us.”
“So what have you decided?” Brynne asked. “Are you going to put aside your feelings and work with James?”