by Freya Barker
You hear stories like this from time to time: people showing unimaginable courage and strength to save another. More often than not, it’s when parents blindly risk their own lives to save their child.
The little girl had been stable before we took off. Badly burned and covered in soot, but she had a strong pulse and I managed to thread the five millimeter endotracheal tube through her rapidly narrowing airway.
Still she is crashing under my hands.
“Ryan! Step on it!” I call out over the din of the sirens, as I’m desperately trying to get the little girl’s heart to restart.
I’ve lost patients in my care before. Sometimes their death is an inevitability even the most experienced hands or advanced equipment can’t stave off. Sometimes you fight hard to keep them here, but they don’t respond to anything you do. Those are hard. Those leave you with the nagging question if you did enough.
But I’ve never lost a child before, and this little girl will not be my first. It’s not even a fucking option. Not after her mother went through a wall of fire to pull her out alive. Not on my watch.
I force my focus on counting compressions: ...twenty-seven...twenty-eight...twenty-nine...thirty. Two quick breaths. One...two...
“Two minutes out!” Ryan yells over his shoulder. “Hang in there.”
JUST TWO HOURS INTO my shift and I’m ready to call it done.
With the smell of smoke clinging to my uniform, I want to go down to the locker room for a quick rinse and change. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it through my day with that scent up my nose.
“I need a change,” I tell Ryan. “I reek.”
“Go, I’ll finish up the paperwork,” he offers. When I turn to walk away, he claps his hand on my shoulder and whispers in my ear, “You did everything you could, Bella.”
I nod once, without turning around, and the moment he lifts his hand, I hurry down the hall. I manage to keep the tears at bay until I’m under the hot stream of water scouring the smell off my skin.
The girl’s heart never started again. They worked on her for another thirty minutes before making the call. It was the sight of her father, who’d come rushing into the hospital straight from work just minutes after, which hit me hard. The burly man, still wearing tool belt and plaster dust that tagged him as construction worker, had crumbled to the floor upon hearing his daughter had died.
A STEADY STREAM OF relatively minor calls helped get me through my shift, but as I close my locker after handing off our last patient of the day, the full weight of this morning’s events settles back heavily on my shoulders.
“Let’s go grab a drink,” Ryan suggests. He’s leaning against the wall outside the women’s locker room, waiting for me.
It’s on my lips to turn him down. For the past couple of years, I’ve avoided hanging out with people from work, and the last six months I was still living in Farmington I’d even started shying away from the few friends I’d maintained since high school. Any socializing these days is with my family; mainly Damian and Kerry. I wouldn’t turn to my brother with this, it would only fuel his displeasure with my chosen profession. Kerry is the one I’d seek out, but they’re traipsing around Europe for another two and a half weeks.
For a brief moment, I entertain the thought of calling Jasper, but quickly dismiss it. I haven’t heard a damn thing from him since he stuck his head through my window and ambushed me with a kiss. I will not be that girl again, the one who runs after a man she knows better than to involve herself with.
“Sure,” I therefore agree. God forbid I’m tempted to make stupid decisions when I’m this vulnerable. Going for a drink with Ryan is the safe choice.
I follow him to The Irish Embassy Pub on Main and West 9th, and luck out when a car pulls away from the curb, halfway down the block. I’ve been here only once before with my brother, which is how I know it’s a favorite hangout for first responders. I probably would’ve preferred a quiet table in the corner of any other establishment, but Ryan insisted.
About halfway through my second—and final—glass of wine, I’m starting to see why.
I spent the past hour and a half talking about this morning’s call, mostly with people who were there on the scene. Sharing experiences turns out to be therapeutic, especially when you discover you’re not the only person who feels unwarranted responsibility for the outcome.
I’m actually chuckling at a joke from Bert, one of the older police officers I’m sitting next to at the bar, when someone comes barging in the door.
“Officer down!” the man calls out, and instantly you can hear a pin drop. “The parking lot of Whitewater Park.”
Suddenly there’s a cacophony of scraping chairs and a rush for the door by about a third of the crowd. After the door falls shut for the last time, the hum of conversation builds again as snippets of information starts filtering in. Even Bert, my neighbor, has his phone out and relays bits and pieces he picks up in a monotone voice.
Apparently a young couple pulling in at the park—for some private time at the river’s edge, I’m sure—found an officer bleeding beside the open driver’s side door of his cruiser and called 911. No one else was in the parking lot.
“Do they know who got shot?” I ask, knowing a few of the officers myself.
“Young kid, pretty new on the force. I barely know him,” Bert, who didn’t follow the stampede out the door, answers as he takes a long deep drink of his beer. “Name of Belker?”
Jesus. The same cop I almost tore a strip off for being rude the night I got knifed. Kind of a jittery guy, from what I remember.
“Dead?” I ask, not sure I even want to know the answer. I’ve already had my fill of death today.
“Still breathing when your guys got to him.”
“Do you know what unit?”
“Dunno.”
It doesn’t really matter anyway, I’m pretty confident whoever showed up at the scene would be busting their asses to keep him alive.
“Are you heading to Mercy?” I ask, eyeing Bert who has aged at least fifteen years since ten minutes ago.
“I will in a bit.”
Suddenly bone-tired, I abandon my half glass of wine and head over to where Ryan is talking on his cell.
“I’m off,” I whisper.
“Hang on,” he tells whomever is on the line. My guess is his wife, like most families of first responders probably would’ve by now, she likely heard of the shooting through the grapevine. He presses the phone against his chest and turns to me. “If you give me a minute, I’ll walk you outside.”
“Nah—no need. I’m parked right outside,” I brush him off. “See you tomorrow? Say hi to Beth.”
With a half-hearted wave to a defeated-looking Bert at the bar, I head home, where I have a good book and half a bottle of wine waiting to keep me distracted.
I hope.
Jasper
For once I’m out of the office at a decent hour. If you can call eight thirty decent.
Early enough to cook a proper meal in any event.
Stopped at the traffic light to turn left, I hear sirens. A few seconds later, four or five police cars tear through the intersection, heading south. Curiosity almost has me switch to the right-hand lane to have a look, but a rumbling stomach has me stick to the left side. I’ll check the scanner when I get home.
I turn it on first thing when I get in the door and try to get a handle on all the crackled chatter flooding my apartment. Pulling open the fridge, I’m hit with the distinct smell of something rotting in there. A steak I thought I’d pulled from the freezer just a couple of days ago has a slightly green sheen, and whatever vegetables I had in the crisper are now wrinkled and floating in a dark oozing soup. I’m in worse shape than I thought, I’m going to have to hit up the City Market before I can eat.
Just as I finish tying up the garbage bag that now holds two-thirds of my fridge contents, my phone rings.
“Are you listening to your scanner?” Dylan jumps in when I answer.
“Yes, but other than the ABP on an armed suspect in a black, older model Honda Civic missing a rear license plate, I can’t make heads or tails of it. I saw a bunch of units go by, south on Highway 160.”
“Cop got shot in Whitewater Park. First call came through maybe thirty minutes ago. It’s been nonstop since then.”
“You’re shitting me. Bad?”
“Doesn’t look great from the sounds of it. I’m thinking half the force will be in the waiting room at Mercy. Want me to call Blackfoot?”
I’m tempted to say yes, since Durango PD Operations Commander Keith Blackfoot and I do not exactly see eye to eye. I’m not a huge fan of his particular brand of humor, usually at someone else’s expense, and nothing I’ve learned over the past few years of working in close proximity with the police department has been cause to sway my opinion. Still, since I’m in charge of the office with Damian on his honeymoon, I don’t think I can pass this off.
“I’ll take care of it. Could you give Luna a heads-up?”
“Okay. I’m gonna check in at Mercy. I have a few friends on the force.”
“Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
The moment Dylan hangs up, I try Blackfoot’s number. I almost expected it to be busy, so quickly shoot off a text without guilt. The tone politely concerned, at least I hope it is, and an offer for any assistance the police department may need. That should do the trick.
I barely have a chance to stuff my phone back in my pocket when a return text comes through.
Thx, be in touch.
No longer in the mood to pretend I’m in any way, shape, or form domestic, I grab my keys and the garbage bag I’ll toss in the dumpster, and head out the door to grab some Chinese food from May Palace down the block instead.
I’m just walking out of the restaurant with a quantity of food to tide over an average family, and a stomach growling with hunger, when I spot a familiar mane of shiny brown hair bouncing against a well-rounded ass across the street.
“Bella!”
She’s just about to step off the curb behind her little red car, when she turns her head and spots me. Her car door is already open by the time I jog up to her.
“What are you doing here?” she asks tentatively.
I hold up my bag to show her. “Grabbing a bite. I live a block over. What about you?”
“I was just having an after-work drink with my partner on my way home. I should get going. Did you hear—”
“Look, there is—” We both start talking at the same time. “You first,” I offer.
“Oh, I was just going to ask if you’d heard about the shooting.”
“That’s what I came over here for. I heard, and the shooter is still out there. Toting a gun and probably pumped up on adrenaline—I don’t want you out on your own.” I can tell from the eye roll, Bella is less than impressed.
“I’m going straight home. Wasn’t exactly planning to wander around town.” There’s the attitude that works like a red flag on my otherwise laid-back demeanor.
“Need I remind you, your place is halfway up a mountain and fairly secluded?” And there I go, destroying what little goodwill I may have had left after kissing her and bailing.
“I’m perfectly well aware, since I’ve lived there for almost a year—as you seem to have forgotten.”
“But we haven’t had armed and dangerous suspects on the run from an entire police department on the hunt. My guess is the guy is in a hurry to get off the road, trying to find a place to lie low. Where better than in an empty house, halfway up a mountain road, mostly hidden from the road?”
“I’m not an idiot. I have a gun in my bedside table.”
“That won’t do you much good if the guy is already hiding out in your house. Or forcing you off the road before you get there, because he needs another vehicle.”
“I’m not an idiot,” she hisses, folding her arms under her ample chest, and I’m momentarily distracted. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and now she’s not only annoyed, she’s pissed.
Yup, I most definitely annihilated any remaining cordiality. Taking a deep breath, I try again, this time without the sarcasm. “Let me follow you home. I’ll do a quick check of your place, make sure your windows are secure, your gun is still where it’s supposed to be and properly loaded. It takes five minutes and then I’m outta your hair, and you can lock your doors behind me.” She tilts her head, clearly considering my words, so I give it an extra push. “You already got me into your brother’s bad book by keeping information from him, how do you think he’ll react if he finds out I didn’t make sure you got home okay?”
She looks a bit guilty as she shrugs her shoulders, and I know we’ve turned a corner.
“Fine,” is the reluctant response.
“Give me a ride to my truck, I’m parked behind the Jarvis.”
I don’t give her a chance to respond, and scoot around the car, where I open her passenger door and fold myself into the seat. From the corner of my eye, I see her slide behind the wheel, her lips pressed together. The moment I turn my head, just about the only part I can move, she bursts out laughing.
“Comfy?”
Smartass.
“Other than my knees bumping my chin and Dandan noodles leaking into my belly button? Just ducky, thanks.”
Bella
Okay, so I may have put up a fight, but I’m secretly relieved Jasper pushed hard to see me home.
The truth is, I was already doubting the wisdom of heading out alone, when I realized how deserted Main Street was as I walked out of The Irish. Normally, the old downtown area is bustling. Day and night. Especially now that we’ve hit more pleasant temperatures and the tourists have started flooding in. It even was busy earlier when we got there.
The eerie quiet was ominous, and I was hustling to get to my car, when I heard my name called. My initial response had been relief at seeing him, if I hadn’t had a minute to steel myself as he ran over, I might actually have hugged him. I am that emotionally strung out. Luckily attitude comes natural to me, and I freely fling it around to hide my vulnerability.
But with Jasper twisted like a pretzel in my cute little ride, his Chinese food crushed somewhere between the tangle of his legs and his folded torso, I can’t hold on to my bratty facade and burst out laughing.
I’m still laughing, tears running down my face, when I drop him by his more appropriately sized Dodge Ram. By the time I turn out of town onto the 160, his big gray truck right on my tail, I’m crying. From one minute to the next, I’m a sobbing mess. I have to wipe my eyes constantly to be able to see, because now that I’ve let loose, it looks like I can’t stop.
I’m grateful I didn’t drive myself into a ditch when I pull up in front of my little house, but I’ve barely had a chance to turn off the engine when my door is yanked open, and Jasper is in my face.
“What the hell is wrong with you? You’re swaying all over the road, almost getting—” His mouth snaps shut when he notices my sorry state. “You’re crying?”
I have it on my lips to give him a catty retort, but when I open my mouth all that comes out is another sob.
Apparently that’s enough for Jasper, who pulls me out of the car and wraps me in a bear hug.
“I fucking hate crying,” he mumbles in my hair.
“Sorry.” My voice is muffled against his chest.
“Don’t apologize,” he whispers.
“Okay.”
At some point, my arms may have slipped around his middle, because I’m reluctant to release my hold when he tries to disengage.
“Gonna have to let me go if I’m going to check out your place, Squirt.”
CHAPTER 5
BELLA
Squirt?
Last person to call me that was my brother, about twenty years ago, and he earned a karate kick to the gonads then. Never mind it was intended for his gut, which I didn’t quite manage to reach. I’m short, I’ve known that my whole life, I was teased enough. I didn�
�t need Damian to remind me of it in front of my then boyfriend, whose name I’ve long since forgotten. It was one of those things, like being tagged as the baby of the family, which grates on you when it’s used dismissively.
It didn’t sound that way coming from Jasper, and I’m not about to bruise his precious jewels; I’m too busy staring at his tight back end as he walks up to my door, dangling my keys in his hand.
I was told to wait in the car, which I didn’t argue. I just lived through my first winter here, and let me tell you, it is quiet here when there’s a pack of snow sucking up any sounds. Yet the silence and solitude never felt as oppressive as it does tonight.
He slips in the front door, and I suddenly remember the disaster I left in my kitchen this morning, when I had to rush out of the house because I was late. I’d woken up with a craving for my mother’s stuffed waffles and thought I’d have time. Given I’m a rather enthusiastic cook, I’m sure the waffle iron I left out on the counter is not the only thing wearing drips of congealed batter.
As I watch lights come on inside, I mentally go through every room, trying to remember if I left any other disasters. Not that there’s anything I can do about it now. It’s just a few minutes before Jasper steps onto my small porch and waves me over.
“All clear,” he calls, and I grab my purse, get out of the car, and walk up to him. “Except maybe your kitchen. You might want to call a hazmat unit out for that.”
“Whatever.” I bite down a grin as I squeeze by him to get inside. I hear him following behind me, closing the door.
“You may want to clear your unmentionables from the kitchen before you invite them in, though.”
My eyes shoot up and immediately find the pile of lacy underwear on the counter, beside the door to the small laundry room. I’d planned to hand-wash those this morning, when I got distracted by my mother’s waffles, and forgot all about them when I rushed out. I move fast, snatching the pile off the counter and tossing it into the laundry room. Jasper’s chuckle sounds behind me as I pull the door firmly shut.