Page 109 of Protect

“Roycie doesn’t know much.” Sup grins.

“Fuck.” I chuckle.

“There’s no way she’s working things out with him, kid.”

“I have no doubt about that. I don’t know if it’s the haze of being gone, but I just needed to hear it from someone else, so thanks.”

He nods and we chat for the next half hour about the Montana fire we’re going to be heading to this weekend if it gets any more out of control over the next twenty-four hours. By nine, I can tell Sup is exhausted and I decide to let him go home.

I take to driving around Sky Ridge to bide my time because going home to my empty house is not an option. I feel like I’m going out of my skin waiting for her shift to end. I think back to the last time I saw her. It feels like so goddamn long ago. I’m lost in remembering the way we kiss as I follow an old pickup truck onto the highway and cruise out of Sky Ridge into the countryside.

It’s just getting dark and the sky is beginning to come alive with a thousand stars. As I drive and listen to the country station, I think of all the ways I’m going to tell Violette I’m madly and deeply in love with her. I’m so distracted by my thoughts that I don’t see the elk running out onto the highway from the field beside us until the old truck in front of me is swerving to miss it. The sound of tires screeching is deafening through my open windows. The SUV in front of him hit the tail end of the elk as it veered wildly off the road into the ditch, it punches through metal fencing before it settles.

I slam on my breaks and come to an abrupt stop. Thankfully, there’s no one behind me, and the truck is still standing right side up on the wrong side of the road, but the SUV is a fucking mess. The elk is gone; either its injuries aren’t life-threatening and it took off for safety, or it’s going to get a hundred feet into the field and die.

I go into medic mode. I’m not on duty during fire season but I have a Samaritan duty being trained to help, and I know any doctor at Bakersfield will back me. I pull my phone outof my pocket as I get out of my truck and dial emergency simultaneously. I dart across the road to get a better look at the SUV and to make sure whoever is inside is still alive, because fuck, this thing is face planted into metal fencing and the front end is non existent. It isn’t until I get closer that I realize I’ve seen this black Mercedes SUV before.

About three hours ago, parked in front of Violette’s house.

None of this makes sense, Troy was leaving town at six thirty. What the fuck is his SUV doing in a ditch beside the highway a few miles outside Sky Ridge three hours later?

I rush across the road.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi, Laurel, this is Rowan Kingsley. I’m off Route 12, just past Yarmouth Line near the Pinery Motel. There’s been a car accident. One vehicle swerved to miss an Elk, hit a metal guardrail.”

“They okay, man?” An older man comes darting across the road from the pick up that was in front of me.

“I don’t know. I’m a medic, are you okay?” I ask him. He looks fine, the vehicle sustained no damage.

“Yeah, I’m good, man. Holy shit, look at that front end…” he rambles on as I get back to my phone.

“Okay, Rowan, we’re going to send a team out right away, can you see the patient? Will they need an airlift?”

“I’m just approaching now, I’m not sure yet,” I tell her as I notice the smoke coming from under the hood.

“Stay back, okay? I have an ambulance on the way,” I tell the man from the truck.

He nods and says something about waiting with me in case I need him. As I get closer I can hear yelling for help. But it’s not Troy, it’s a female voice. My heart rate spikes, and I break out in a cold sweat as I rush to the vehicle. I swear to God if it’s Violette who’s injured, I might fucking pass out. I run the last fifteen feet, getting close enough to see that, thank Christ, it’s not Violette.

“There are two patients, vehicle is front loaded against the rail, smoke is coming from the hood. One male, early thirties, unconscious,” I check his pulse, it’s steady. “but alive, bleeding from the head. His injuries, I’m unsure of at this time. One female late twenties, significant bleeding from her forehead and her right arm. Looks like fencing from the roadside has punched through the window and given her a deep gash.”

Actually, it looks like she’s damn lucky she still has an arm.

Metal fencing is embedded in the front end, the windshield is shattered from the impact, and it’s obvious that the broken glass has cut them both to shit.

“Can you hear me?” I ask the woman in a calm voice as I approach. I search for any immediate dangers surrounding the vehicle, and aside from that smoke, I see none. Her door is mangled and part way opened and she’s clinging to her bleeding limb but her fingers are doing nothing and she’s losing blood, fast. She’s moving her head without trouble but she’s hysterical.

“Don’t move,” I tell her as I rip off the bottom of my shirt, creating a tourniquet of sorts to wrap around her arm and slow the bleeding. “What’s your name?” I ask her

“Angela,” she answers crying.

“Okay, Angela, I’m Rowan, I’m a trained emergency responder but I’m off duty. Help is on the way, but every move you make exerts you and causes you to bleed more, and right now we don’t want that, okay?

She nods as she sobs.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” I ask, pushing aside the deflated airbag.

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