Page 9 of A Breath of Life
I forced his hands away and was greeted with a canvas of darkly mottled skin. Bruises in the shape of fingers. Whoever attacked him had likely done severe damage to his windpipe. If it was crushed, he was fucked. Either way, internal swelling was likely cutting off his air supply.
“He can’t breathe,” I shouted at Tallus, who was on the phone with emergency services. “Tell them to hurry the fuck up, or he’s going to die.”
I’d taken first aid and CPR ages ago when I worked for the department, but hell if I remembered what to do in a case like this. Mouth-to-mouth would be useless if the swelling was obstructing his throat, so I kept hold of the man’s wrists, preventing him from doing more damage, and offered him something I could barely give to most people on a good day: Calm and reassuring words.
“Slow breaths. Nice and easy, pal. Youcanbreathe. I can hear the air whistling in your throat, but if you panic, it’s going to feel like you’re drowning. Do you hear me? Slowly. Inhale. Exhale.” I demonstrated, urging him to copy.
Tallus moved around me, his phone still pressed to his ear. “Holy fuck, Diem. He’s been stabbed.”
“I know, Tallus. We have bigger problems.”
“Bigger problems? The man has a knife in his belly.”
“I know.” The stab wound felt less important than the man’s lack of oxygen. Besides, I didn’t know what to do for that either. If memory served, I wasn’t supposed to remove the knife, or he could bleed out. “Is the ambulance coming?”
“They’re on their way. 9-1-1 wants me to stay on the line. She wants to know the extent of his injuries.”
I didn’t have time for a fucking briefing. A man was dying.
When I refused to entertain Tallus’s question, he told the operator, “He’s been beaten and stabbed in the gut. That’s all I know.”
The gentleman must have been listening and understood our exchange. He peered down at his stomach, where the handle of a large knife protruded from his belly. Even in the dark, I saw the moment he realized how dire his situation was.
The blood drained from his already pale face as he peered up at me in desperation. Wheezing and whistling, he grasped hold of my T-shirt with a strength he shouldn’t have possessed and made every attempt to draw me to his level.
He spoke—or tried to—but without enough air to push the words out, I didn’t understand.
“Focus on breathing, not talking, you idiot.”
Shaking his head, he repeated almost soundlessly. “Poc-ket.” The single word came out thin and airy.
“Pocket?”
A nod. “Look… find… poc-ket.”
“He wants you to check his pockets,” Tallus said, bouncing between feet, hugging his phone and our food for dear life.
“Why?” I growled.
The man’s glassy gaze landed on Tallus. Still struggling to suck air down his damaged throat, he wheezed, “Poc-ket. Please.”
Something in my brain told me not to look. If I was caught rummaging through a beaten man’s clothing as he lay dying in a back alley,Iwould be the one arrested. Who were the police going to believe? Never me.
Echo whimpered and moved to my side.
“Find… it,” the man said. Another wheeze. Another whistle. His mouth opened and closed like he was doing all he could to gulp air. “Find… it… Poc-ket.”
“Find what?”
“Find… Poc-ket.”
“Diem, he wants you to—”
“All right. I know. Hang up the fucking phone first.” The last thing I needed was some nosy operator listening in while I frisked a dying man for his wallet or whatever he wanted me to find.
I refused to act until Tallus had obeyed, then I rummaged inside the man’s coat pockets but found them empty. “There’s nothing there.”
“Find… somewhere.”
