by Sophia Gray
The old man just stared at him, his jaw set. He looked resigned, as if he had accepted his fate. Jagger didn’t waste any more time, but launched himself forward through the flames, reaching the other side virtually untouched. From the window next to the old man, he heard the boys hurrying on the outside, trying to get the hoses set up and put out the fire. By the time that happened, the old man might’ve spent too much time exposed to the smoke.
Jagger pulled the man from his chair and swooped him up into his arms, encouraging him to put his arms around his neck. He quickly leapt back over the flames and rushing back down the stairs. “You’re going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. I promise,” Jagger said, like he always did when he rescued people from fires.
He rushed out of the house, still running fast in case it collapsed on top of them until he reached the ambulance on the front of the lawn. It must have arrived sometime in the last few seconds, and not a moment too soon. Jagger gently placed Robert on a stretcher in the back of the ambulance, putting his hand on the man’s chest to make sure he was still breathing. A moment later, he took off his mask and threw it to the ground to get a better look at the old man. That’s when it hit him. Bobby. Bobby, from years ago.
“Bobby, Bobby, do you remember me? It’s Jagger,” he said, staring into the old man’s deep blue eyes. He looked terrible, but back in the day, this guy was a legend in Satan’s Blazes. He never got to know him though, as the old man retired from the motorcycle club just when Jagger was coming up as a teenager. But he still remembered him. He used to look so tough, but now even the tattoos that still lined his arms and legs looked worn, wrinkled and ugly.
“Jagger…” The old man squinted his eyes as he stared at him, but not an ounce of recognition crossed his face. Jagger didn’t have time to feel offended or hurt by the lack of acknowledgment, as the next second he was pushed out of the way, swaying into the bumper of the ambulance as the woman from before leaned over the old man.
“Robert? Robert, can you hear me? It’s me; it’s Abby.” Jagger saw the woman reach down and wrap her hand around Robert’s. “I’m with you. I’m not leaving you. It’s going to be okay.”
“You his family?” Jagger asked as he pulled off his gloves and zipped his suit down to let the fresh cool air from outside hit his chest.
The woman shook her head as she pulled her hair back into a tight bun. Jagger finally noticed that she was wearing dark blue scrubs. He should’ve put two and two together before now. “You’re his doctor,” he said.
She smirked and shook her head again. “Nurse. I don’t have the ego to be a doctor,” she said, but a second later her smile faded as she leaned over her patient, taking his other hand and rubbing her thumbs over his palms.
“What’s wrong with him?” Jagger asked, stepping fully inside the ambulance before the driver could shut the door. He was a part-time paramedic, too, so he could help the old man remain stable until they reached the hospital.
“Lung cancer,” the nurse murmured, leaning over to listen to Robert’s breathing.
“Shit,” Jagger said, immediately turning to the other paramedic in the back of the ambulance and spouting off directions to hook the man up to a temporary ventilator. “He needs oxygen.”
“Yeah, no duh,” the woman sarcastically said as she helped the other paramedic apply the oxygen mask to the old man’s nose and mouth. Jagger tried not to take it personally. People often got snippy and rude with him after they went through traumatic events, or they would hug him desperately and thank him repeatedly for saving their lives. The latter was more rewarding than the former, but after a decade on the job, he’d grown accustomed to both reactions.
“Did you hear anything?” Jagger asked, watching as the woman smiled down at Robert and whispered something into his ear.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” the nurse asked, turning to look at him directly for the first time since she ran out of the burning building. She was gorgeous, even with ash and soot smeared all over her face and hands. Jagger inwardly berated himself for thinking about that. The woman has been through enough without your horny ass wanting to hit on her, he thought. Sometimes Jagger was divided in two: the ethical, honorable firefighter and the rough, rude biker that came out at night. The biker inside of him wanted to get her number, take her back to the clubhouse, make her let her guard down. But the firefighter was still in control of his brain, for now, so he held back, watching her take care of the old man as the sirens screamed and the ambulance wailed its way toward the nearest hospital.
Jagger turned away from her, staring out of the back window at the burning house that receded into the distance as the ambulance drove further and further away. One thing was sure: This wasn’t an accident.
Someone was out there was targeting members of Satan’s Blazes. And Jagger was going to find out who.
# # #
Abby
The firefighter was fucking hot. Abby knew it was stupid to be thinking about smoking hot firefighters when Robert was so sick, but she couldn’t help noticing how defined his arms had been, and how his pecs stood out firmly from his chest.
A few minutes into the ambulance ride, Robert had fallen unconscious, but he was breathing steadily, if raggedly. Abby relaxed a little, as much as possible under the circumstances.
“Did you hear anything, or see anything before the fire started?” the firefighter asked again.
Abby shook her head, unsure of what to say. “No, I mean— I was just giving him his medicine, you know, doing the usual routine. I didn’t hear anything.” She didn’t know why he was asking her all these questions. It wasn’t like she knew how the fire started. Anyway, she was sleep-deprived. She was just coming off a twelve-hour shift at the hospital the night before and had three other patients to visit at their homes earlier today. She was wiped out. Her brain hadn’t been working right, even before the fire.
The ambulance was silent for a long while, except for the sirens, the wailing sound filling her ears. It resembled a baby crying, loud and whining and insistent. Abby tried to tune it out, staring down at Robert’s sleeping face. “He’s… Not okay,” she murmured, more to herself than to anybody else. She bit down on her lip, pressing down so hard she could taste the coppery flavor of her own blood.
“You saved his life, you know,” the firefighter said.
It took a long second for the words to sink in, but when they did, Abby just scoffed and shook her head. “It’s not saved yet. No matter what, he’ll suffer consequences for this. He’s going to be sick for a long time, and there’s nobody—there’s nobody to look after him but me.”
“He’s got no family?” the firefighter asked.
Abby nodded. “No, none.”
There was silence again, but this time it was tense, full of something that Abby couldn’t quite understand.
“I used to know him, a little bit,” the guy said, his voice small and quiet like he was afraid the driver of the ambulance would hear him.
“Yeah?” Abby asked, more out of habit than curiosity.
“Yeah, um, we were a part of the same motorcycle club. He was a legend, this guy, once upon a time,” the firefighter replied.
“Well, he’s just an old man now,” Abby said. “Sick, with nobody to care about him.” Her stomach broiled with something, some mixture of anger and sadness and discomfort. In all honesty, she wasn’t breathing very well herself, but she had learned to ignore the pain in her own body after years on the job. It didn’t matter if her feet hurt, her legs ached, or if her back was about to break in half. People needed help. That was all that mattered. Well, that and the amount of credit card debt she still had to deal with after her last boyfriend left her in the lurch.
“You care about him,” the firefighter said softly, barely audible.
Abby shrugged a little, but she felt her shoulders and back go stiff, hard as iron. “I guess,” she said, trying to ignore her heart as it started pounding in her chest.
“Are
you like this with all your patients?” the firefighter asked, staring at her intensely, his deep dark eyes burning with something that Abby couldn’t quite name.
Abby felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, a symptom of her anxiety. “I don’t—I don’t know.” But that was a lie. She did know. She cared about all her patients, to a degree that was probably unhealthy. She was obsessed with their wellbeing, spending extra time with each one of them to make sure they were as healthy as possible. Most of the time it didn’t make much difference. People lived, people died, and no matter how much energy Abby invested, they would pass away from her like sand falling through her fingers. “He’s special, though,” she finally said after a long pause. “He’s… um, he’s very animated most days. He likes to flirt with me.”
“That makes sense,” the firefighter said, a smile slowly stretching over his face, his eyes glittering with humor. “He used to flirt with the girls at the club, you know, teasing them. He always liked pretty girls.”
Abby heard the unspoken compliment. So, this guy thinks I’m pretty, huh, she thought to herself. She took his body in with her eyes as subtly as she could. He was fit, that much was evident, probably because of his job. She could see the thick muscles undulating beneath his skin, the veins corded with strength. Abby wouldn’t mind rolling around in bed with him, as long as things stayed simple. Ever since Mark… She cut herself off, not allowing her mind to go to the dark places where the memories of her ex lay dormant. She had trust issues. So what? It didn’t mean she was wrong to protect herself.
Maybe she could fuck him, as long as there were no strings attached. Abby tore her eyes away from him, trying not to get distracted from the sick man before her. Robert’s hand had gone limp inside of hers. “He’s sweet, you know,” she said softly. “I always like to look at his tattoos. I’d always assumed they were gang signs or something.”
The firefighter was silent for a long time, sitting in the other corner of the ambulance, letting her take care of the old man. “It’s not a gang. It’s more of a support group.”
Abby smiled at that, but her heart sunk in her chest. “He could’ve used that,” she said in a small voice. Robert used to tell her about his past, about the crimes he used to commit, the guilt he felt, the pain he still carried around. He didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it. Most of Abby’s patients were that way. She only signed up for the home visit job because of her debt, but it was still rewarding. She loved feeling trusted, taking the secrets of these old, experienced people into her heart.
“Is he going to be all right?” the firefighter asked out of nowhere.
Abby was a little taken aback by the question. “I—I don’t know. I need… He needs to see a doctor. You’ve taken a lot of people out of burning buildings? You’d think you would be able to tell these things.”
The firefighter was silent a moment, chewing on his bottom lip. “Yeah. Yeah, I have. It’s hard, though. Sometimes they come through. Other times…”
Abby nodded slowly. “That’s the way it goes, huh?”
“My name’s Jagger,” he said out of nowhere, offering his hand to Abby. She just stared down at it for a second before she recognized what he wanted, slowly reaching forward to take his hand and shake it.
“I’m Abby,” she said. Tearing her eyes away from him again, she stared down at Robert, watching his chest rise and fall slowly. Please keep breathing. Please don’t die on me, she silently prayed.
A moment later they rolled to a stop in front of the hospital, and the paramedics and Jagger jumped into action, pushing the stretcher out of the car into the nearest entrance. Abby followed him into the hospital, staying as close to Robert as possible before the paramedics could take him away. “Hey, hey, where is he going? Where are you taking him?” she shouted after them. But nobody answered her.
She wished they’d taken him to her hospital, but it was farther away. She didn’t know any of the nurses or doctors here. Abby groaned and leaned back against the nearest wall in the waiting room. Closing her eyes, she stared at the backs of her eyelids, trying to focus on anything other than the pounding in her chest. Goddammit, it was happening again. The panic. It was climbing her body, like a fire monkey scaling a tree, pulling at the leaves. That was what it felt like. Her fear was yanking at her, pulling her apart, tearing away at her internal organs. She felt like she was crumbling. This was beginning to happen more and more often, the sudden anxiety attacks hitting her straight in the chest. Fuck, calm down, she tried to tell herself. Just breathe. Just fucking breathe.
“Are you okay?” Jagger asked her, slowly approaching her but stopping short when she held her hand up in the air, wordlessly telling him to freeze.
“I’m all right,” she said, but the sound of her voice came out strained and weak.
“You probably need to see a doctor, too,” Jagger said, concern lacing his voice. “You were in there a long time, huh?”
“No, no, I’m fine, I ran out in time, I’m okay,” Abby rushed to say.
“I think you should…” he started to reply, but Abby shook her head furiously and peeled herself off the wall, walking away from him in response. She knew she was being stupid and stubborn, refusing to see any other medical professional. But it just wasn’t going to fucking happen. Not today, she swore to herself, even though her lungs ached and burned. Not fucking today.
She plopped her body down in the nearest chair in the waiting room, burying her head in her hands. A second later she felt movement next to her. Jagger had sat down beside her. Abby rolled her eyes and bit down on her lip to suppress a groan. “Don’t you have work to do?” she asked him, her voice coming out snide and sharp. In all honesty, she didn’t know why she was being such a bitch to him. He’d saved Robert’s life, after all. He probably deserved a little respect at the very least, for putting his life on the line. She was annoyed with him nonetheless. Maybe she would have been annoyed with anybody that tried to talk to her right then.
“This is my work,” Jagger said, his tone casual and unbothered by her mood.
“You get paid to babysit people?” Abby asked sarcastically, finally lifting her head from her hands and turning to glare at him.
“Not about getting paid,” he replied, staring back at her, his dark eyes clear and focused as they bore into hers. His eyes were wide and full, Abby noticed, like a child’s, like he was soaking up all the details of her face and committing them to memory. Abby tore her eyes away from him and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, feeling exposed.
Who cares? Abby asked herself. Who cares if he stares at you with those big puppy dog eyes? You shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. Don’t let him control you like that. She silently berated herself for feeling at all affected by this random man that she’d never even met before. She told herself that she should have been stronger, impervious to all mental and emotional attacks from men. They don’t have power over me anymore, she reminded herself, but inside she knew it wasn’t true.
“You need to go home, just relax,” Jagger suggested a moment later, tearing her from her internal lecture. “There won’t be any news for a while.”
“I want to make sure he gets a room of his own,” Abby said without thinking. She didn’t want to get dragged into a conversation with this guy, but it was happening anyway. “He… He has nightmares sometimes. Doesn’t do well if there’s somebody else in the room. The rest of the nurses don’t know stuff like that. This isn’t his regular hospital.”
Jagger was momentarily silent, and for a second Abby thought that she’d “won” whatever game they were playing, trying to push the other one away from the hospital waiting room. Maybe he’d get up a second later and leave her the fuck alone, abandoning her to her thoughts. But instead, he cleared his throat and spoke again. “He…. He’s, uh, in the hospital a lot, would you say?” His voice was lower, softer than before like he was choosing his words carefully, holding them in his mouth like sharp little pieces of glass that could cut his tongue
if he moved them around too much.
Abby gave a little half-shrug, but a second later she felt the burn of guilt hit her as she caught Jagger’s expression out of the corner of her eye. He looked pained, almost crestfallen. “I don’t— I don’t know,” Abby said hastily, trying to sound less bitchy even though she still felt on-edge. “Old people are always in and out of the hospital, you know? But he was doing all right.”
Jagger nodded slightly and stared down at his knees, clasping his hands together in his lap so tight that Abby could see the bones of his knuckles shine through his skin. “He, uh, he was a role model, you know? Everybody wanted to be like him when I was coming up in the club.”
“Satan’s Blazes?” Abby asked, and Jagger turned to her and nodded slowly again. “He used to tell me stories about you guys sometimes.”
Jagger smiled a little, his eyes lighting up. “What’d he say?”
“Oh, just how back in the day the ladies used to love him. That sort of thing,” Abby said with a laugh, leaning back in her chair as her body relaxed a little. “He’s quite the charmer, you know.”