Page 2 of Love Me Steadfast
Burton and I jump out and open the back doors. We both glove up and I grab our med kit, then follow him to the door. Engine 5 parks to the side. They’re only here for backup so they’ll stay behind for now.
On calls like this, we’re usually accompanied by a Finn River deputy or two. But they’re not here yet and I’m eager to get inside and check on Morgan.
“You wanna wait?” Burton asks over the steady hum of our engine as I glance over my shoulder, hoping to see a silver sheriff’s rig materializing out of the darkness.
“If she’s alone, we should be okay.” If this was a domestic, we’d be forced to wait. Firefighters and medics don’t deal with violence—just its aftereffects.
Apprehension fizzles under my skin as we step inside the house.
“Morgan?” I call out.
I’m instantly hit with a scent I don’t like—it’s sour. And stale. Though the house is dark, I make out the shape of the couch in the living room, the piano, and to the left, the dining room table cluttered with junk.
Burton peeks into the kitchen, then shakes his head.
“Morgan?” I call out, projecting my voice into the void.
There’s a thump from upstairs. We hurry to the staircase at the back of the house and climb single file. The stairs creak and the wall alongside it looks like someone tried to tear off the old wallpaper but didn’t quite get it all, then abandoned the project.
The top of the stairs is a carpeted hallway with bare walls. We move ahead, passing an empty room and a bathroom, drawn by the faint light coming from the end of the hall.
In a split second, the details of Morgan’s bedroom come into focus. Only it’s all wrong.
“Shit,” Burton mutters as we race to where Morgan is limp on the floor. I almost trip over a pile of clothes and the thick faux fur blanket that she’s twisted up in.
“We need the medics!” Burton says.
I push through my growing panic and get on the radio while Burton rolls Morgan to her back, exposing not just the blood that’s soaked into the blanket, but the deep wounds on her wrists.
Fuck, she’s pale.
Kneeling on either side of her, Burton and I jump into action, applying direct pressure to her wounds with our gloved palm, then rip open layers of gauze and pack them tight against the bleeding. With one hand still adding pressure to the wound, I find a pulse, but it’s thready and way too fast. Her breathing rate is also elevated. I don’t have the luxury of taking down exact numbers yet but she’s definitely showing signs of hypovolemic shock.
“Morgan,” I say, loud. “It’s Will Hayes. Can you open your eyes?”
Her lids flutter, and she makes a low growl in her throat.
The hit of relief that she’s at least partially conscious vanishes when I clock the ashen look to her skin and the thin layer of sweat—both signaling a decline in her body’s ability to compensate for the blood loss.
“We need an IV,” Burton says.
“I got it.” I lunge for our kit. I rarely do IVs because that’s a skill usually reserved for our paramedics. But we can’t wait for them.
“You sure?”
“Yes, damnit,” I say, tearing open the alcohol prep pad and circling it over where her median cubital vein should be. With her shocky vitals, this is going to be the hardest stick of my life.
One I can’t miss.
I rip open the catheter and slide my thumbs up the vein, mapping its shape.
“Stay with us, Morgan!” Burton calls. Footsteps in the hall signal the approach of help, but I’m locked on the vein I need to access.
“Little poke, sweetheart,” I say to Morgan, and go. Because her skin has lost so much perfusion, the needle puckers for a tense instant before it breaks through. I aim for the vein beneath.Come on.There’s the slightest resistance, and then red blood oozes into the catheter.
“Hallelujah,” Burton says, handing me the tape. I add it to the catheter and connect the IV to the bag of saline, then open the tubing all the way. She’ll need another IV as soon as the medics arrive, but this will hopefully buy us the time we need.
The two firefighters from the engine—Rumsey and Hobbs—rush into the room with a gurney and we work as a team to transfer Morgan onto it. It’s then I get a better look at how thin she’s gotten. Her long dark hair is limp, like she hasn’t washed in a while. There’s a bruise on her thigh as big as a softball.
