Page 6 of Rookie Days

“What?” she panted.

“Are you trying to kill him?” Quinn hissed. “Goddammit, Ellie!”

Kill him?It was like a bucket of ice thrown over her head. Reality rushed brutally back in for Ellie, and the grim result of her actions confronted her. Jorge Gonzalez lay very still on the ground; with both arms out, and his mouth hanging open, on a bed of blood-red snow. A grotesque angel.

“I need an ambulance on the corner of Jefferson and 10th,” Queen instructed sharply over the radio. “Thirty-year-old male with head injuries. Currently unconscious.”

“He’s breathing,” Ellie stated in a rough whisper.

“Yeah, not thanks to you, uh?” Quinn looked and sounded terminally pissed-off. “Let’s just hope he keeps doing it.”

Ellie went quiet. She started to feel cold. And it wasn’t due to the freezing temperature, or even shock at the realization that she had almost murdered someone in a fit of temper. Ice truly seemed to have settled in her bones. Her right arm was aching. It was a deep, dull, radiating pain. She tried to flex her fingers and found that she could not. More officers arrived on scene. An ambulance rolled up.

“You freaked out on me, Detective.”

Quinn was staring at her hard. Still livid, you bet. But also looking puzzled as well. Ellie knew why. For sure, this was not her style.

“I’m sorry.” She wished it didn’t come out so flat. She really was, deeply, truly sorry. Now if only it weren’t so hard to get the words out. “It’s… Uh… I was—“

“Shit.” Quinn suddenly grabbed hold of her and she swore, interrupting a sentence Ellie had no idea how to finish.“You’re bleeding like a fountain here, rookie!”

“I—”

“Shut up a minute. Sit down. Hey, you!”

When the medic that she called over pulled up her sleeve to check the extent of the damage, Ellie almost screamed in agony. She did not, but only because she lacked enough air.

“Deep slice you got there,” he stated.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Quinn snarled.

Her next glance was less furious and more concerned. She took off her jacket, wrapped it around her shoulders, and kept her arm in place. The gesture was oddly protective and it made Ellie want to burst into tears. Something else which was not her style. She told herself it must be shock, clenched her teeth a bit harder, and clamped down on her emotions.

“It’s gone right down to the bone,” the medic announced.

The cut had to be five inches long. Her forearm looked like a piece of butchered raw steak. No wonder it hurt so much. Then again, Ellie reflected as he secured a temporary bandage around the wound to stop the flow of blood, she deserved to hurt after what she’d done.

“Move your fingers for me.”

“I can’t,” she answered through chattering teeth.

“Can you feel them at all?”

“No.”

“Alright. We’ll squeeze you into the back of the ambu—”

“No,” she gasped. “No way. I—"

“We’ll take a cruiser to the medical center,” Quinn growled, interrupting her again as she probably recognized the wisdom of not having her detective travel in the same vehicle as the man she had almost killed. “That works, yes?”

“So long as you step on it,” the medic advised.

“No problem.”

chapter 3

Janet Fox, one of the top neurosurgeons in the country, was on the hunt for coffee and cake. She had just completed a successful craniotomy to settle an aneurysm in the brain of a twenty-two-year-old college student with a bright future ahead of him. Right before that, she’d performed a regular miracle on a helmet-less motorcycle rider who came in with a crushed skull, following a collision with a Range Rover. She was with him for four hours straight, picking at microscopic pieces of debris and bone in his brain with a pair of surgical tweezers, managing loss of blood, and repairing vessels until she knew for sure that he would live to tell the tale. Many would have deemed the patient a lost cause on arrival, but not Janet. Saving lives was her business; and hopeless cases, a real passion. Now she was rightfully lusting after a piece of cake and a cup of black coffee when she spotted the police officers bursting through the entrance doors. Quinn Wesley, a close friend and one-time lover, half-carried and half-dragged Ellie James, another fine specimen of a woman, into the lobby. Shelving her plans for food and a break, Janet hurried to meet them.

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