Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1

by Unknown

  “Falvey—”

  “I’m fine!” Taryn barks, which of course makes them think she isn’t. She’s got vomit literally up to her elbows. She’d keep fighting—she can do this, Jesus Christ, she’s been doing shit just like this for as long as she can remember—but at the same moment it occurs to her she hasn’t seen Mikey since she got here, and that’s what convinces her to stop. “Okay,” she says abruptly, rocking back on her heels and standing up without making eye contact. “Okay, fine, go ahead.” She looks at Doc, who’s making to follow her down the staircase. “Don’t,” she orders, and Doc doesn’t.

  The kids are right where she told Caitlin to put them, sitting all in a row on the couch like they’re posing for some kind of hugely fucked-up Christmas card. The whole side of Mikey’s face is already turning black and blue. “Oh, buddy,” Taryn says, trying with every ounce of strength in her body not to cry.

  “Connor says I’m supposed to put a raw steak on it,” Mikey declares matter-of-factly. “But we don’t have any.” For how bad he looks he seems to be doing better than the other two, not glassy-eyed like Connor or gulping back hiccupy sobs like Caitlin. When Taryn reaches out to touch him, he shies away like a spooked horse. “Don’t, Tare,” he whines, and she’s horrified to the bottom of her soul until she realizes he’s just reacting to the vomit.

  “Sorry, dude,” she says shakily, stripping off her uniform shirt and scraping the rough fabric down both arms. “I know it’s gross. Plug your nose, okay?”

  Mikey clamps both hands over it, holding still while Taryn presses gently along his cheek and jawbone. There aren’t any fractures, to her huge relief, but his left eye is already beginning to swell shut. He whimpers when she pulls back the lid to check for internal damage. Next she makes him take his hands away and hold his breath so she can investigate the bridge of his freckly nose. “Looks good, buddy,” she pronounces, feeling sick to her own stomach. “No breaks.” Mikey nods and plugs it again.

  “I’m sorry,” Caitlin repeats. Now that Taryn’s looking she can see Cait’s teeth are stained red too, the bloody version of a cherry-Popsicle mouth. “He wanted a snack. I never thought she’d—” She breaks off to sob.

  Taryn didn’t either. Rosemary used to smack her and Jesse around when they were little—small stuff, mainly, and spankings when they were especially bad—but never while drunk, and never this. And she stopped altogether with Caitlin and the boys. A parenting book, Taryn thinks. Or maybe because Caitlin’s dad didn’t like it and she was trying to impress—

  “Tare,” Connor says. “Is Ma dead?”

  Taryn sits back on her haunches in front of the couch. She can’t hear any noises from upstairs anymore, which could mean anything. Maybe they’re still doing chest compressions. Maybe they’ve already called it, and they’re deciding who gets to break the news. Taryn hopes it’s Lynette. “I don’t know, you guys,” she says. She wants to gather them all up and smush her face against the tops of their heads, but she’s afraid she’ll lose it as soon as she smells L’Oreal Kids Strawberry mixed with blood. “Let’s just wait, okay?”

  “I told her to go to the bathroom,” Caitlin whispers. “She hit Mikey, and when I told her to go upstairs she hit me, so I—” She gasps. Taryn can see now that she’s got a vise grip around both boys’ shoulders. “I hit her back. Like, a lot, Tare. And I told her to go, and then I didn’t think to check on her for the longest time, and I didn’t call 911 right away because I was worried about the DCF—”

  Oh, Jesus Christ. Taryn’s crying now too, she can’t help it. “It’s okay, Caitlin, sweetheart, I promise you did exactly right—”

  That’s the moment when there’s movement on the stairs, Lyn and Doc coming down with Rosemary on a stretcher. She’s still tubed, Taryn can see that much. You don’t tube dead bodies. Like an instinct, she stands up in front of Mikey on the couch. “How’s it look?” she asks as Caitlin takes the hint and pulls him closer, hiding the worst of his busted face against her sweatshirt. Mikey doesn’t even make a sound. “Huh?” She wipes under her eyes with the heel of her hand, trying to pull it together. “Lyn.”

  Lynette glances up as they wheel the stretcher by, all business, too distracted by what she’s doing to notice the kids either way. Taryn breathes a silent sigh of relief. “Too soon to tell, sweetheart,” Lyn calls over her shoulder as they clear the wonky patch of carpet near the door. Lyn’s never called her by anything but her name. “Got a pulse though.”

  Taryn nods. It’s weird to be on the other side of it, not to be the one deciding what information to dispense to a worried family. She could press for the medical details, and doesn’t. “Where are you taking her?” she asks instead, motioning for the kids to stay where they are and following the stretcher down the cracked cement of the front walk. “Berkshire, or…?”

  Emily, God love her, picks up what Taryn’s putting down right away. “Not Fairview,” she promises as they load Rosemary into the back of the bus. “You wanna ride along, or—”

  Taryn shakes her head before Doc’s even got the words out. No way is she leaving her brothers and sister alone for one more second, and no way is she bringing them with. “Not just yet,” she says, averting her eyes so she doesn’t have to look at their faces and see whatever pity or curiosity is lurking there. “Thank you,” she says uselessly before she turns around and goes back inside.

  When she gets to the living room she finds Nick standing in front of the couch, gazing at all three of her siblings, calm as the surface of a motherfucking lake. “Gotta get a steak on that eye, huh?” he says.

  Taryn blinks. “I’ve got this under control,” she tells him, shoving past him and scooping Mikey up off the sofa. Caitlin’s stopped crying, for the most part. Connor still looks totally stunned.

  “Okay,” Nick says, backing off to let her get past him toward the kitchen. All of a sudden she’s furious, an anger so deep and so wide it feels totally immeasurable. “I know.”

  Caitlin follows close behind her as she sets Mikey on the counter—”You stink,” he says again, which she takes as a good sign—and rummages around in the freezer till she finds a bag of pearl onions that’s probably older than he is. What any of the Falveys ever thought they were going to cook that would require pearl onions is beyond Taryn. “On your face, buster,” she tells him, wrapping it in a paper towel so it’s not too cold for him to keep his little hand on. “Come here,” she says to Cait, tilting her sister’s chin up into the light for further inspection and handing her an ice cube to suck. “You too, girl.” She hugs them both hard then, barf smell and all. “It’s going to be okay, hear me?” she tells them. “I promise, I swear to you it’s gonna be fine.”

  She’s hoping Nick’ll be gone when they get back, but she’s pretty sure he won’t be, and sure as shit, there he is sitting on the sofa, talking to Connor in that same steady voice. Taryn arrives just as he’s finished asking after Connor’s name and age. “What grade?” is the follow-up.

  Taryn’s pretty sure Nick knows the answer to all three, the quick and dirty primer she gave him on the kids instead of offering up any real information, but he nods all the same when Connor holds up nine silent fingers, then four. “I’ve got a niece your age,” he declares.

  “You don’t have to stay,” Taryn tells him. It comes out louder than she means to, and both Nick and Connor look up, startled. Connor’s still got four fingers in the air. “I mean. Shift’s over in ten.” She wants him gone like a physical thing, wants him to pack up his fucking preternatural calm and get it out of her trashed-up life. She wishes she could protect the whole big Falvey disaster from prying eyes as easily as Caitlin hid Mikey’s face in her sweatshirt.

  “Yeah,” Nick says, standing up. “Because that’s why I’m still here. The hours.” His tone is as mild as a summer wind, but Taryn feels the rebuke all the same. For a truly terrifying second, she thinks he’s going to take her at her word.

  But when he moves, it isn’t toward the door. “C’mere a se
c,” he says instead, closing his fingers around her wrist.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nick leads Taryn out into the hallway, keeping the kids in view. He’s pretty certain the older boy is in shock, which he doesn’t love, and possibly the girl too. Maybe even Falvey herself, although right now she seems stalled out hard at anger. “Look,” he starts. “I’m sorry. I get you don’t want me here, I do, but I’m not leaving you alone.” Taryn opens her mouth, looking furious, but Nick barrels right over her. “And I know you’ve got this. It isn’t that. But I’m not jumping ship until we know your mom is okay.”

  Taryn slumps, her wrists going limp in his grip. Both of them are gritty with Rosemary’s vomit. Nick isn’t at all sure this thing is going to have a happy ending, Lynette’s flat expression as they intubated. “Who knows how long she’s been without oxygen,” she said, handing Emily the bag.

  “It’s not normally like this,” Taryn’s whispering now. She looks like her mother, same eyes, same skin, same birdlike bones. The only Falvey who doesn’t is the girl, Caitlin, long blonde hair like Alice. Then again, Nick still hasn’t seen the oldest brother. “We’re not—” Taryn breaks off, shaking her head. “Look, whatever, it doesn’t matter. We don’t need your help.”

  Whatever. Jesus fucking Christmas, this girl. For a second, Nick forgets her mom is at death’s door. “I don’t effing care what it is you think you need, Falvey,” he spits, sinking into her space so they’re at eye level. “I’m not leaving. You can be pissed at me over it later, okay? Break up with me, fuck, do whatever it is you need to do.” Her bare arms are shaking under his hands. It’s colder out here by the stairs, the front door hanging open the entire time they worked on Rosemary. Nick can see where they tracked spring mud across the carpet. “Not right now though,” he finishes, trying to soften his tone. “Got it?”

  “Break up with you? Seriously?” Taryn’s mimicking him again, as bitchily as possible. Nick doesn’t let go of her wrists. He stands there for a minute and looks at her, stubborn jaw and those haunted green-gray eyes. Finally Taryn sags.

  “I’ve got barf all over me,” she says, her whole body dropping a couple inches like a general who just lost a war. “I just need a minute to—I’ve got barf all over me, Nick.” She wriggles free of his grip and heads for the staircase, shoulder blades like wings inside her tank top. “I’ll be down in two seconds, you guys,” she calls toward the living room. “Okay? Two seconds. I’m right here.”

  Nick watches her go, rubbing hard at the back of his neck. When he turns around, he finds the kids looking back at him with varying shades of curiosity. Mikey’s got a bag of frozen veg on his face.

  “You guys hungry?” Nick asks.

  Which is how he winds up washing off in Taryn’s kitchen sink and making PBJs for all three of the youngest Falveys, serving them up on paper towels with glasses of milk on the side. Caitlin reaches over and cuts the crusts off her brothers’, repositioning Mikey’s ice pack while she’s at it. Nick feels like somebody kicked him in his fucking chest.

  “Those taste okay?” he asks them, clearing his throat so the words don’t stick, like maybe he’s the one with a mouth full of peanut butter. Connor looks up at him and nods. Nick thinks about fixing a fourth sandwich, wonders if that’ll make it worse or not. He isn’t certain what she needs from him at all.

  Taryn doesn’t say anything when she comes through the door, her hands and face scrubbed pink and clean, and finds them chewing in relative quiet. She doesn’t say anything when they file into the living room and cue up the Cartoon Network, the screen blinking to life bright and clanging. And she doesn’t say anything when her phone buzzes on the arm of the sofa, though she does hand it over when Nick raises his eyebrows in her direction. at Berkshire, Doc’s text reads. hard to tell yet.

  So.

  Caitlin’s the first to fall asleep, the food or the postcry hangover or just plain exhaustion, folded into the smallest version of herself in the armchair in the corner of the room. Connor goes next, gingery head lolled back against the couch. When Mikey passes out he’s curled in Taryn’s lap like a toddler, thumb shoved in his swollen mouth. Taryn strokes through his hair over and over again. After a while Nick notices her shifting her weight underneath him, like she’s getting ready to lift and carry him upstairs.

  Nick gets up first. “Want me to?” he asks, motioning at the heavy, boneless mass of kid draped over her shoulder. It’s the first thing either one of them have said in almost an hour. The TV is still jabbering softly away.

  Taryn’s eyes flick in his direction and back at her brother, alert. “I can do it,” she says, bracing one arm on the sofa for leverage. She stands up and hitches Mikey higher on her hip.

  “I know you can,” Nick says.

  Just then her phone trills, vibrating across the sofa arm like a live thing. She can’t bend with the kid weighing her down, so that’s the end of that particular stalemate. “I got him,” Nick murmurs, sliding his hands down between their bodies. Miracle of miracles, Taryn lets go without comment, Mikey sleeping through the transfer like a champ, messy head coming to rest against Nick’s shoulder with the kind of weight only achieved by the stone-unconscious. He smells like stale milk and boy.

  “Hey Emily,” Taryn murmurs, picking up the phone and turning her whole self away from them. The line of her spine makes for a very elegant wall. “How is she?”

  Nick doesn’t love the dismissal, but there’s not a whole lot he can do about it with an armful of bruised six-year-old. He waits until he’s certain the call is just a routine check-in, then trudges upstairs in pursuit of the right bedroom. The first one he checks looks distinctly feminine, two single beds shoved against opposite walls and a dingy rug shaped like a strawberry in the middle. Next is the bathroom, still in complete shambles. Finally he hits on what looks like the safest bet, a tiny room with cheap, aluminum-frame bunk beds beside the window and a rocket ship stenciled on the far wall. When Nick flicks off the overhead, a friendly Elmo night-light blinks on in the corner.

  “Here you go, buddy,” he says, tucking Mikey into the lower bunk and mounding the solar-system covers on top of his tiny body. It’s cold up here too, what feels like shitty insulation coupled with bad central heat. And God, Nick knew Taryn’s family wasn’t well off, all of those little clues adding up, but it’s different to witness firsthand. The exposed wiring and chipped paint aren’t theoretical.

  He runs into the two older kids on the way down, Caitlin holding her brother’s hand to lead him up the stairs. “Our mom’s stable,” she tells Nick in a voice gone scratchy and worn from crying. “Just so you know.” Her T-shirt says Berry Cool across the front, an explosion of textured raspberries along the hem. Nick can see a spot of red on the shoulder that might be blood.

  He nods his acknowledgment. Then he takes a chance. “Listen, Caitlin. Did any of the other medics see your brother?” He wants to be prepared. If the Department of Children and Families is going to be beating down the door in the next hour, Nick would prefer a heads up before the inevitable happens.

  Caitlin stops, nudging Connor up ahead with her knee. Her stare is deep and still. “You mean Mikey?” she says. “No. I told him to hide under the kitchen table before I called.” She chews on her hair for a second before continuing. “Are you gonna report it?”

  Nick shoves both hands deep in his pockets. He should. Any other call, any other family, and that would have been his first instinct. “No.”

  Caitlin nods, looking at him for another minute. “Okay,” she says.

  Downstairs he finds Taryn neatening the kitchen in a haphazard kind of way, bouncing from the sink to the table to the counter and back again like a pinball inside an arcade game. She changed her clothes when she cleaned herself up earlier, jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. In the half second before she notices him watching, it looks like she’s made entirely of glass.

  “So.” Taryn catches sight in the window above the sink and turns to face him, wringing a dish t
owel between both hands like she’s aiming to strangle it. “Happy now?”

  Nick blinks. It’s after midnight, the spindly outlines of a few spring trees just visible in the tiny yard. “Am I happy?” he echoes. “Why would I be happy, Falvey?”

  Taryn shrugs, defiant. “You solved the big mystery, didn’t you? What’s the deal with Taryn’s family?” Her lips twist. “Well, congratulations, Niko. Now you know.”

  Now he knows.

  It explains the shit with Pete, he guesses, in broad terms at least—whatever he saw, Taryn sure as shit wasn’t about to give him the opportunity to see it again. Nick thinks he’s going to need to be very, very careful. He’s not sure why she hasn’t already kicked him out. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks.

  Taryn rounds on him. “Because it’s none of your business, Nick, Jesus. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I have it under control, and just because we’re—because you—” She shakes her head, sounding close to tears, and swallows. “It’s my family, okay? It’s none of your business.”

  Nick chances one step toward her, scratching through the hair at the back of his neck. He wants like hell to get his arms around her. Knows there’s not a hope in the world. “It’s my business now, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No!” Taryn explodes. “I didn’t want this!” She glances toward the kitchen door, lowers her voice. “I told you I didn’t want this. I was really clear about that, and you didn’t listen, and you pushed and you pushed and you made me—you made me—” Taryn breaks off, hands fluttering in front of her like birds. “Forget it,” she says, like she’s pulling herself back from someplace dangerous. “You should go.”

  Yeah, there’s no way that’s happening. Nick takes another step. “Made you what, exactly?” he asks.

  Taryn shakes her head again, stubborn. “Nothing,” she insists. “It doesn’t matter.”

  It does matter, is the problem. It matters to Nick more than he’d like. “Say it,” he tells her. “By all means, tell me what exactly it is I made you do.”