Page 58 of Embers in Our Past

“Listen, just get me to the hospital, please,” I beg, just needing him to get me to Boston General, which is not that much farther. I would have walked if I could, but I’m exhausted from hours hugging the porcelain throne.

Shit, that metallic taste is making a comeback, and the vomit is inevitable. Right when the panic sets in that I’m going to vomit all over this guy’s back seat, my hand feels the plastic of the bag, and I pull it out just in time. I grab it, and I’m about to hurl into the bag when I hear a horn ahead of us. I look up and scream. My driver looks in the direction of the horn.

The car swerves, but the impact is inevitable.

CHAPTER 20

Clay

We area guy short now that Jamison decided to move back to Minneapolis. He and his wife recently moved back to his wife’s hometown for the extra help, and I can’t blame them. But fuck are we feeling his loss at the station.

Being a man down and having a night like this feels like being kicked in the face on little sleep. It doesn’t help that Abby isn’t feeling good either. I can’t be there to console her, which isn’t helping matters. We are riding in the back of the fire engine, the sound of the siren alerting those on the street of our presence.

We have been on back-to-back calls since I walked into our station tonight, and I haven’t had a chance to check in on Abby. As much as we can have our phones on us if we are sitting around, when on a call, we can’t have our phones for personal communication while out.

I look over at my brother, and he can see the agony on my face because he understands what it’s like when one of us is in pain. We wear the other’s pain in moments like this, and he knows how much I want to be with Abby right now. But my mind needs to be on the guys tonight. They depend on me, and I have to be focused on them.

We pull up to the scene and find two vehicles involved in what looks to be a motor vehicle accident. It doesn’t look too bad, but I can see onlookers on their phones, and one of the drivers seems to have a gash across his forehead.

The truck stops, and we hop out, walking over to the wreck to assess the damage to the vehicles and to take note of how many victims there are. My guys are walking around the car to the right, which sustained the biggest impact, while I’m taking in the perimeter. I look down and note something by the rear tire, which looks familiar.

I bend down and notice it’s a key that looks much like one I have on my own key ring. I bend down to grab it, and I feel all the air in my lungs escape.

It’s a fucking SpongeBob key, eerily similar to the one I have. What are the chances someone has the same damn taste in keys? I’m hopeful someone just loves SpongeBob as much as Abby. But my panic doubles when I look up and take in my brother speaking to someone in the back seat of one of the vehicles in the accident.

As I move toward him, it feels like everything around me goes eerily quiet. The only thing I can hear is the blood pounding loudly through my ears. The alarm I’m feeling coursing through me is beyond anything I’ve ever felt. I can’t lose her. I know he’s talking to her. The way his expression holds tension in his muscles, I know he’s holding it together for me.

I reach River, and his focus is on whoever is in the backseat, so he doesn’t even look at me. He’s blocking my view into the car, speaking to the person, but now there’s so much damn noise around me, along with my heart pounding, I can’t make out much from his communication with the victim in the car.

But now that I’m closer, I can focus enough to hear it’s a female’s voice.

I want to shove my brother out of the way and take over, but he’s rooted in place. It’s like he can read my mind in this moment, and it confirms my fear that it’s Abby in that seat. That key isn’t a fucking coincidence. She’s there, and I need to get to her. My life is in this car.

“River, move out of my way.” I grab his bicep, urging him to move.

Without looking at me, he tries to free his arm away from my grasp. He stays trained on the person in the car, his focus solely on them. The way he keeps his face trained on her, he’s treating her beyond a victim—he’s treating her like she’s family. I feel it down to my core. It’s this damn twin thing others just don’t have, and it’s fucking powerful. Right now, it’s fucking pissing me off.

“River, move out of my way. Now!” I yell.

“No,” he roars, something I’ve never heard from him. He’s commanding, and it’s confirmation of why we don’t treat family. He knows that if I get in his way, I’ll throw everything out the window. And he needs to keep a clear head between the two of us.

He looks back into the car, this time addressing her by name, “Abby, look at me. I know you’re scared. Does anything hurt?”

“No, I just can’t get the door open. I think it’s stuck,” she says. “And I can’t stop throwing up.” I can tell she’s been crying from the way she’s catching her breath.

“Did you hit your head?” my brother asks her.

“No. I was throwing up before the accident. I just don’t know what’s wrong with the door,” she says as she tries to open it.

The way the cars hit one another, the airbags deployed on the sides of the vehicle. She was, luckily, wearing her seatbelt, but it must have jostled the latch on the doors in some way, keeping her and our crew from easily opening the doors on either side.

After a few more minutes, our guys are able to get to her. They’re gentle with her, and once I’m able to see her in the light, it’s evident she doesn’t have a scratch on her.

Her eyes are puffy from the tears, and she looks exhausted, but you wouldn’t guess she was involved in a car accident. She’s placed on a stretcher by the paramedics. Luckily, no one stops me from running to her.

“Abby, baby, are you okay?” I move my hand through her hair.

“The baby, Clay,” she says, tears falling, fear evident as she looks at me, and all I want to do is take the pain away. “The driver looked back when he noticed I was sick, and he took his eyes off the road. He ran the red when he wasn’t paying attention.” She struggles to catch her breath, likely from crying. “But luckily, the light had just switched, so the other car wasn’t going too fast. The windows were open. Things went flying everywhere. Then the airbags. It all happened so fast. It could have been a lot worse, but I’m still worried.”

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