Forever Deep: A Station Seventeen novella
Page 8
Slater gave up a half-smile that did nothing to un-sexy the whole turnout gear fantasy in her head. “I’m going to hold you to that, just so you know. But in the meantime, what should I be doing here?” He gestured to the dashboard unit, which was currently giving them an ETA of seven minutes.
“Just keep your eye on any updates from dispatch. They’ll come through on the screen. Anything urgent will come in over the radio, just like on engine. But other than that, just be ready to grab your first-in bag when we get there.”
“Copy that.”
Quinn navigated their route according to the GPS, her brain adjusting to the new punch list of being the lead paramedic even though the rest of her wanted to give the idea the finger. Guiding the ambulance down a long stretch of road lined with boarded-up warehouses and storefronts that looked like they’d been long-abandoned, she finally pulled to a stop in front of a plain, two-story building flanked by an alley on one side and a pair of industrial garage bays on the other. A weather-faded sign marked the place as HENDERSON SHIPPING AND SUPPLIES, a much newer-looking one warning that trespassers would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Quinn scanned the scene, her pulse doing its usual get-up-and-go despite the deep breath she took to set her focus.
“Okay. Looks like this is it. Eleven-forty Beaumont,” she said, triple-checking the crooked black numbers nailed beside the front door, then grabbing up the radio to call in their arrival. “Ambulance Twenty-Two to dispatch. We are on-scene at eleven-forty Beaumont Place. Over.”
“Dispatch to Ambulance Twenty-Two, copy your location. Over.”
Slater sent a wary look through the windshield. “Are you sure? This place looks totally abandoned,” he said, and funny, Quinn couldn’t disagree.
Still. “Could be kids who were messing around in one of these old buildings and got hurt. Or a squatter who OD’d, maybe. But someone called for help. We just need to figure out who, and why.”
She got out of the ambo, heading to the side storage compartment for the first-in bag she’d thankfully stocked just before they’d hauled out of the fire house. Slater was on the ball enough to have mimicked her movements on his side of the ambulance—nice—and they met up behind the vehicle.
“You want to take the gurney in?” Slater asked, but Quinn eyeballed their surroundings in a brisk assessment and shook her head.
“Getting it over this gravel will slow us down too much. Let’s see what we’re dealing with first.”
He swiveled a stare over the building, his blue eyes narrowing in the over-bright sunlight beating down from overhead. “Copy that.”
They fell into step together, their boots crunching and popping over the rough gravel path serving as a walkway through the weed-choked grass. A sheen of sweat formed on Quinn’s brow before they’d even reached the battered steel door to the building, and she pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from the stash in her pocket before pushing her way inside.
“Hello?” Her eyes struggled to adjust to the shadows of the space. “Did someone call for an ambulance?”
Annnnd nothing. The building, which appeared to be some sort of warehouse, opened to a large front room littered with old wooden shipping crates and enough trash and empty beer cans to make Quinn’s radar ping.
“Keep your eyes open for squatters,” she murmured, and Slater nodded from beside her.
“Paramedics” he tried, his deeper voice echoing eerily off the walls and the dust-encrusted windows set high above ground level. “We’re here to help. Call out.”
“Stop right there and let me see those hands. Right fucking now.”
The words were so incongruous with anything Quinn had ever heard that for a second, her brain straight-up refused to process them. Then she turned and saw the snub-nosed gun in the man’s hand, the blood covering his once-white shirt, the wild flash of menace in his pitch-black eyes, and fear turned her blood to pure ice.
“I…I…”
The man took a swift step toward her from his spot behind a shipping crate, reducing her stammer to a strangled cry. “I didn’t say you could talk, bitch. Now shut up and let me see your fucking hands!”
Quinn’s arms complied, raising out of sheer survival instinct. Oh God. Oh God, oh God.
“Radios,” the man bit out, the thick black ink of the snake tattoo on his forearm flexing over his dark brown skin as he jerked the gun between her and Slater. “Both of you. Nice and easy, or I’ll blow your goddamn heads off.”
She chanced a fast, shaky glance at Slater, who had angled himself slightly in front of her on the dirty concrete floor.
“Quinn.”
His voice was quiet, barely a breath in the tight space between them. Yet somehow it managed to penetrate the fear keeping her rooted into place. With trembling fingers, she lifted the radio strapped to her shoulder, ducking out of the thing and tossing it to the ground.
Think, think. She had to stop panicking and think. “Are…are you hurt?”
A muscle in the man’s jaw ticked, and he thrust the gun toward her with enough intention to make her pulse go ballistic in her veins. “What did I tell you about not talking?”
“She’s just trying to help you,” Slater said softly. “If you’re bleeding, we can take care of that. No questions asked.”
The man dropped his chin, the mention of the blood making him even more agitated even though Quinn couldn’t detect any visible injury to attribute it to.
“You’re gonna take care of it, alright. See, this blood ain’t mine. It’s my brother’s. He got shot, and you’re gonna fix him up.”
“Okay.” Slater’s voice was low and steady, right there next to her, and the sound of it allowed Quinn to exhale, just the tiniest bit. “We can do that. You don’t need the gun.”
The snake tattoo jerked again, harder this time. So much for being able to breathe.
“Yeah, I do. Because my brother is at a safe house, and this here is a kidnapping. You’re both comin’ with me, and you’re either gonna save his life, or I’m gonna end yours.”
Fear climbed the back of Quinn’s throat, hot, involuntary tears burning behind her eyelids. But Tattoo Guy either didn’t notice, or—more likely, since he was, you know, pointing a freaking gun at her—didn’t care.
“Listen real careful, ’cause I’m only saying this once. The three of us are gonna get in that ambulance of yours and put it in the alley beside this building, all nice and out of sight. Then we’re gonna take a ride in my car, and you’re gonna patch Jayden up real good. You even think of bein’ a hero”—he paused to nail Slater with a glare that made Quinn’s hair stand on end—“and I will shoot her in the face so many times, her dental records won’t even have a prayer of holding up. And if you run”—she felt Tattoo Guy’s stare on her like a living, slithering thing—“I’ll do the same thing to him. You hear me?”
Quinn nodded. Slater must have, too, because the next thing she knew, Tattoo Guy was ordering them to turn around. Stepping up behind them, he pushed the gun between Quinn’s shoulder blades. The cold, unforgiving press of steel made her flinch as her heart slammed even faster, but she forced the thought of the gun and the images that went with it all the way out of her brain.
Okay. Okay. This is still a call, with a patient who needs help. You know how to do this. You can do this. You’re going to be fine.
She repeated the words in her head with every step toward the ambo even though she knew deep down they were a lie. She’d been around patients who were combative. People who had tried to hit her, bite her, and threatened to kill her if she so much as laid a pinky finger on their pulse point. But this was different. This man had a gun jammed directly over her spine, just behind her heart.
Quinn knew the sort of damage the weapon would inflict. She knew it would rip through flesh. Bones. Organs. She knew it could take long, terrifying minutes to bleed out from even the deadliest of wounds. She knew, because she’d seen it happen.
And now it was going to happen to her.
Also by Kimberly Kincaid
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The Station Seventeen series:
Deep Trouble (prequel)
Skin Deep
Deep Check
Deep Burn
In Too Deep
The Cross Creek series:
Crossing Hearts
Crossing the Line
The Line series:
Love On the Line
Drawing the Line
Outside the Lines
Pushing the Line
The Pine Mountain Series:
The Sugar Cookie Sweetheart Swap, with Donna Kauffman and Kate Angell
Turn Up the Heat
Gimme Some Sugar
Stirring Up Trouble
Fire Me Up
Just One Taste
All Wrapped Up
The Rescue Squad series:
Reckless
Fearless
Stand-alones:
Something Borrowed
Play Me
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Kimberly Kincaid writes contemporary romance that splits the difference between sexy and sweet and hot and edgy romantic suspense. When she's not sitting cross-legged in an ancient desk chair known as "The Pleather Bomber", she can be found practicing obscene amounts of yoga, whipping up anything from enchiladas to éclairs in her kitchen, or curled up with her nose in a book. Kimberly is a USA Today best-selling author and a 2016 and 2015 RWA RITA® finalist and 2014 Bookseller’s Best nominee who lives (and writes!) by the mantra that food is love. Kimberly resides in Virginia with her wildly patient husband and their three daughters. Visit her any time at www.kimberlykincaid.com