Church snapped his feet together, bowed, then saluted her with a tip of his bow to his head. “Until we meet on the battlefield.” Then he strode away, his minions in tow.
Olivia watched his retreat, shaking her head. “I hate that guy.”
“I think he likes you,” Marlena said.
“What are we, in kindergarten? If he liked me, he wouldn’t be rubbing it in my face how efficient his bow-and-arrow egg delivery system is. If he liked me, he’d be impressed by how I made a Gondorian-style trebuchet, for Pete’s sake. That’s got to count for something.”
“I think you should ask him out,” Harper said. “Then you could be Jesse’s girl.”
“I’ve always wanted to live inside an eighties pop song,” Allison added.
Olivia rolled her tribute thingy past them. “The only eighties pop song I’m living in is Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure.’ I’ve got to figure out if Church is right about the trebuchet’s durability. What if he is? What if it collapses during the competition?”
Marlena immediately had an idea that might be Olivia’s best chance at besting Church. “I have an idea. I’ll talk to Liam.”
Olivia made a sound of disgust and hastened her step.
Harper took hold of Marlena’s arm as they hustled to keep up with Olivia’s brisk pace. “That’s right. He’s a carpenter. Olivia, that’s perfect.”
Olivia ground to a halt and whirled on them. “He’s not going to help me, okay? He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me, and he’s never supported my science competitions, or anything that’s important to me, for that matter. So let’s not pretend he’s the perfect solution to my problem.”
He wasn’t the perfect solution, but very little in life was perfect. In the last two months, Liam had changed a lot. Mostly in little ways, but in some big ways, too. “Don’t write him off yet. Please. Let me see what I can do.”
***
At the Bomb Squad vs. Puckheads game on Thursday, Marlena joined her friends in the stands as the two-minutes-until-game-time buzzer sounded.
“I have a feeling about this game,” she said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. “The guys have been thinking like a team. They’re relaxed, they’re confident, and they’re going to break that losing streak tonight.”
“I’m with you on that,” Harper said. “They were in Locks earlier this week after practice. Everyone was joking and happy. I haven’t seen them like that in a long time. Even after the pressure of the exhibition game had passed, they were stressed.”
Olivia rubbed Marlena’s back. “It must be the yoga and massage.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Allison said. “Theo’s been in a much better mood. I hope they keep coming to you for classes even if they break the streak tonight.”
She and Duke hadn’t discussed what would happen once the team started winning again. She’d only been hired to break them out of their slump, but she’d miss these guys if she didn’t get to see them as much. She hoped they’d want to keep their Friday night team class going.
“How’s your man?” Presley asked Marlena.
“He’s doing great.” He still hadn’t told his parents or sister about his P.E.T., so Marlena stopped herself from explaining how proud she was that he was nearly done with his most recent cycle, with only one week left. He wasn’t cured, because as Liam had pointed out to her, there was no cure for what ailed him, but he was a lot better, his spirit lighter.
“Have you asked him about helping me with the trebuchet, yet?”
Marlena bit her bottom lip, feeling sheepish. Every night that week, she’d been waiting for the right opportunity to broach the subject about helping Olivia, but he’d had two evening Bomb Squad practices, and every time she thought about asking him, he’d just finished a P.E.T. listen. One night during hockey practice, she’d concocted a plan for him to return to his apartment to find her waiting in his bed for him, but the guys had all gone out to Locks for drinks and he hadn’t discovered her there, asleep, until close to midnight.
“You still have two weeks left to perfect it or build something new, right?”
Olivia threw her hands up with a frustrated groan. “You’re killing me. Do you have any idea the kind of trash talking Jesse Church is doing at school? He recut a scene from a Star Trek episode and dubbed over the voices to dramatize how he’s going to kick my ass.”
Harper and Presley chuckled. Marlena pressed her lips together, fighting the urge.
“It’s not funny. He turned me into the Borg!”
Marlena didn’t know what a Borg was, but she thought better than to ask for clarification. “I’ll talk to Liam. I told you I would, but there’s no point in me asking him at the wrong time, right? Because then he’ll say no. Let me wait until he’s in a good mood, okay?”
“Liam doesn’t have good moods,” Olivia muttered as the ref blew his whistle to start the game.
He does when he’s with me. But there was no sense in rubbing it in to Olivia that he showed a side of himself to Marlena that he kept hidden from her.
It didn’t take long for the team to prove Marlena’s hunch right. By the end of the first period, they were up three to one against the Puckheads, with Theo earning all three goals. Brandon got two assists, and Liam one.
The crowd was louder than usual. Everyone knew this might be the game that reversed the team’s terrible luck. With a minute to go in the second period, with the score now four to one, the crowd was on its feet cheering. Marlena clapped and cheered herself hoarse as the Puckheads’ plays grew desperate as the period wound down. When the Puckheads got the puck with only thirty seconds left on the clock for the period, they crowded into the crease in front of Gabe, eager for their player at the blue line to slap it to them so they could poke it past Gabe’s pads. Liam got right in the crease, too, shoving Puckhead players out of the way.
“Come on, defense!” Olivia screamed. “Don’t let ’em into Gabe’s house like that!”
Before the Puckhead at the blue line could shoot, one of his team members elbowed Gabe in the face, knocking his mask ajar. A trickle of blood appeared on Gabe’s chin, as though the elbow had split his lip or given him a bloody nose. The ref blew the whistle for a penalty just as the player at the blue line took his shot.
Gabe must not have seen the play because he whipped his mask the rest of the way off, shouting and shoving at the player who’d elbowed him. The puck hit him in the throat.
The whole arena collectively gasped. Gabe crumpled to the ground, knocking the back of his head on the goal net’s crossbar as he fell.
Liam’s stick hit the ground with a clamor as he dropped to his knees next to Gabe. The rest of the players backed up, in shock.
One of Marlena’s friends said, “Oh my God,” but she didn’t see who because she was too shocked and horrified at seeing her friend lying on the ice, hurt.
Gabe’s arm and legs were flailing, and his eyes were wide and panicked. Marlena pushed through the spectators until she was as close as she could get to Gabe and Liam on the other side of the glass.
A random thought burst through Marlena’s shock—Liam was right, there was a lot of shouting. She’d always read that background noise hushed when your adrenaline spiked, but the place was noisy with phone calls, the whispers of the crowd, and kids crying as their parents hustled them away.
“Call 9-1-1,” Liam barked in an even, yet commanding voice. “Get me a trauma kit, and then step back. I need room.”
At his booming shouts, a grim silence settled over the arena. The players slid away on their skates, giving Liam the space he’d demanded.
Gabe’s mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. Liam smoothed his hands over Gabe’s neck, then stuck his fingers in Gabe’s armpit, presumably to check his pulse, all the while talking to Gabe. “I’ve got you, Gabe. This is not going to kill you. I’m not going to let it, so relax.”
The athletic trainer in attendance sprinted their way, a plastic box in his hands. By the time he re
ached Gabe and Liam, Gabe’s limbs weren’t flailing anymore. His eyes fluttered closed.
The trainer flipped the lid off the kit, but when Liam reached for something inside, the trainer stopped him. “Who are you?”
Liam extended his hand. “Intubation kit, hurry.”
“Do you have medical training?”
Liam didn’t take his eyes off Gabe as he answered. “I’m Staff Sergeant Liam McAllister, US army. I was a whiskey for ten years.”
“A what?”
“A 68 W Combat Medical Specialist. Give me that intubation kit right now or get the fuck out of my way.”
The trainer tore open a hermetically sealed pouch, then handed it to Liam. Liam withdrew a long, inch-thick tube, tipped Gabe’s head slightly back, and threaded the tube through his open mouth.
“Get the cricothyrotomy kit ready. We’re doing that when this doesn’t work.”
“What? You mean an emergency tracheotomy? Here?” The trainer looked appalled, but despite that, he rummaged through the kit.
Liam’s head cocked to the side in concentration as he adjusted the tube in Gabe’s mouth. Shaking his head, he withdrew the tube and dropped it to the ice. “Airway’s blocked. You got that crit kit open yet?”
“You ever do an emergency crit before?” the trainer asked as he ripped open another sealed pouch.
Liam’s smile was hard as he swabbed the bluish-tinted skin of Gabe’s neck with something that looked like iodine. “Sometimes, I still do them in my sleep.” He held his hand out. “Scalpel.”
Marlena’s heart dropped to her knees. Scalpel? But Liam was a picture of calm concentration. What had he told her once? That he had a natural aptitude for staying mentally sound while being shot at. This had to be the civilian equivalent of that scenario because his friend lay before him unbreathing and an arena’s worth of people stood by with bated breath.
She pressed her hands to the glass, her attention riveted, willing Gabe to wake up, to breathe again.
The trainer handed Liam a scalpel. Gabe’s lips had turned an unearthly shade of blue. Liam felt around Gabe’s neck again as though searching for the perfect place to make the cut. “Get the hook ready next. Better yet, dump the kit on his chest. I’ll get it myself.”
At the touch of the scalpel to Gabe’s neck, blood sprayed up, catching Liam in the chest and face. A woman next to Marlena gasped and covered her eyes. Liam was unfazed. He stuck his finger into the slice in Gabe’s neck, then set the scalpel aside and took up another small surgical tool that replaced his finger. Another small instrument spread the hole in Gabe’s neck wider.
“Unwrap that trach tube, then find the bag. It’s not in this kit, but I have a feeling we’re going to need it,” Liam commanded.
The trainer’s hands were shaking, illustrating the stark difference between Liam’s cool-as-a-cucumber stress response and a normal person’s. Liam, looking mildly annoyed, shook his head. “Faster.”
The trainer handed him the tube and, with a few deft moves, Liam had secured the tube in Gabe’s neck.
“Bag valve.”
The trainer emptied the rest of the medical kit. “There is no bag valve in here.”
Liam shook his head again. “Of course there’s not.”
He blew into the tube, waited for a measure, then blew again, as though performing CPR. “Come on, Gabe. Start breathing.” He blew into the tube again. “Check his blood pressure.”
The trainer got a finger cuff blood pressure instrument out, but quickly realized Gabe had no finger to slip it on.
“Never mind,” Liam said, sticking his finger in Gabe’s armpit again. “Where are the EMTs? Tell me they’re on their way,” he called to no one in particular.
“Duke went to check,” Brandon said.
Without breaking the rhythm of his CPR, Liam said, “Unroll that black carpet on the ice, the one they use for the national anthem singer. Let’s give the EMTs’ shoes some traction.”
Brandon nodded, then he and Theo skated into action.
Duke jogged out from the locker room. “An ambulance just pulled up.”
“About time,” Liam muttered. “Come on, Gabe. Start breathing again. Stay with me.”
Blood streamed from Gabe’s neck and head wound over the ice, thick and congealed, like mercury, but Liam was a machine, his expression intense and focused. Even as her insides clenched with fear for Gabe, she saw the soldier in Liam, how commanding he must have been in uniform, how much his fellow soldiers must have relied on him to keep them all safe and alive.
Gabe had to survive. He just had to. Not only because he’d survived a war and getting his arms blown off by a bomb, but because if Gabe died, Liam might never recover from that. Then the world would have lost two of its heroes.
By the time a pair of EMTs raced over the black carpeting with a stretcher in tow, Gabe had started breathing again, Marlena deduced, because Liam had stopped CPR and Gabe’s lips were less blue. A pink tinge had returned to his skin.
Someone clutched Marlena’s arm. Olivia. A hand covered her mouth. Her eyes were riveted to her brother and Gabe.
When the EMTs reached Gabe and Liam, Liam started a debriefing. “Patient was hit in the throat by a hockey puck. He stopped breathing and went unconscious after approximately two minutes. My intubation attempt failed due to the blockage or possible jaw damage, so I got a crit tube in him. It still took him another minute or so to start breathing again on his own.”
“And the head wound?” one of the EMTs asked.
“He got that when he collapsed after the initial trauma. Most likely superficial in nature.”
Marlena and Olivia watched arm in arm as the EMTs and Liam worked together to stabilize Gabe for transport on the stretcher.
With Liam skating alongside the stretcher, the EMTs rushed Gabe off the ice and disappeared into the corridor that led to the exit through the locker room. The spectators in the Iceplex stood in stunned silence for a moment, then burst into sound and movement.
That’s when another memory came to Marlena from her conversation with Liam about his years as a medic. He’d said he only ever lost his cool after his work was done and his patient was either stabilized, dead, or carted off in a medical helicopter or transport. That meant, as soon as the ambulance pulled away, he was in danger of breaking down. She had no idea what his mental state was at the moment or if that was even a possibility. All she knew was that she had to get to him as soon as humanly possible.
She tugged Olivia’s arm to get her attention. “Let’s go. Liam needs me.”
Together, they ran through the arena toward the exit, darting and shoving their way through the meandering crowd that seemed to be content to saunter, as they compared notes on what they’d seen, and speculated on whether Gabe would live.
The parking lot was as crowded as the arena, with people jockeying for a glimpse of the ambulance as it pulled out of the parking lot, its sirens wailing. The crowd pressed closer as it left as though, as a collective, people were leaning in, straining for a view through the rear windows.
Marlena and Olivia continued bullying through the crowd, pushing when necessary, toward a circle of space near where the ambulance had been parked.
She heard Liam bellowing before she could see him. “Get the fuck off me! Where’s Marlena? Where is she? Marlena!”
“Oh, God,” Olivia whispered, then added more loudly, “Out of our way,” shoving past a milling couple.
Liam’s bellowing cries grew louder. Marlena was frantic, too. She had to reach him.
“I’m coming,” she shouted, not sure if he could hear her over his own cries for her.
He stormed around the circle formed by his teammates, a crazed man, his face red with veins popping like he was in the throes of a steroid-induced rage. Drying blood spatter coated his arms and jersey and face. He shoved at any team members who stepped forward to try to calm him down. “Get the fuck off me. Where’s Marlena?”
“Liam, I’m here,” Marlena called
. She and Olivia burst through the line of players separating Liam from the spectators.
Theo grabbed her sleeve. “Don’t. He’s not in his right mind.”
When Liam saw Marlena, he made a strangling sound in his throat, then stormed her way. Olivia rushed to him ahead of Marlena, but he pushed past her as though she was a stranger—an obstacle in his path.
Marlena tore her sleeve from Theo’s hold and ran toward Liam.
“What the fuck took you so long?” he shouted at her, getting right in her face, fury dripping from every word. “Did you have any fucking idea what I . . .”
Scared of his rage and what that might mean for her safety, but knowing she needed to snap him out of whatever dark place he’d gone to, she threw her arms around him and held on tight. “I’m here. I’m here.”
“I needed you,” he spat, the volume of his voice deflating, though the edge of anger remained sharp and unyielding. “Where were you?”
She stroked his hair. “I was trying to get to you. I swear.”
He sucked air in through his teeth, then crumpled into her with a growl of a cry. His forehead landed against hers. “I can’t do this,” he whispered between breaths.
She wrapped her arms so tightly around him that no one would be able to tear her away from him if they tried. “You already did it. You’re all done now.”
“Gabe. The kid. It’s too much.”
With a hand to the back of his neck, she kissed the side of his face and ear. “It’s over. It’s over, baby. Now it’s just you and me and figuring out how to breathe again.”
His arms closed around her head and her back. He turned his face into her cheek. “You, me, and breathing.”
“That’s it. It’s you and me, and all you have to do is breathe. I’m going to take care of everything else.”
Another strangled growl erupted from him on an exhale. “When I was trying to stop the kid from bleeding out of the bullet wound to his stomach, we were attacked again. The clinic was rushed by insurgents.”
She couldn’t decide whether he was retelling the story—or if he was reliving it. Either way, she continued to stroke the hair near the nape of his neck. “I know. It was horrible.”
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