Page 75 of Reckless
Cole motioned her toward a quiet corner of the hospital’s lobby. “We just got here five minutes ago. Alex was injured during a rescue. They’re assessing him in one of the trauma rooms right now.”
Zoe locked her knees to keep herself upright. “Injured,” she repeated, and God, if she didn’t get a straight answer, she was going to lose her ever-loving mind. “How bad? Come on, Cole, talk to me here. I need to know.”
The firefighter hesitated, only for a second, but with Cole, it might as well have been a screaming admission of things gone wrong. “Part of a ceiling beam collapsed across his back and shoulder. He lost consciousness, and Jones and I dragged him to the ambo. Rachel said he woke up just briefly on the way here, but…”
“But?” Zoe rasped.
“The docs have to check him out, Zoe,” Cole said, his voice canting lower with concern and the sharp undercurrent of fear. “He’s hurt pretty bad, but I don’t know any more than that.”
Every ounce of despair that she’d stuffed into her chest in the last few hours came surging up in a hot rush, the absolute irony of Alex’s voice echoing through her head.
“Fighting fires might be risky, but I’ve got the best team on the planet with me. I’ll be all right…I promise…I promise…”
Except the promise had been a lie. Just like all the other ones that had come crashing down on her today.
Zoe exhaled, and her fingertips and toes tingled with numbness that starting working its way inward. “Is everyone else in the waiting room?”
Cole nodded, just one lift of his cleft chin. “Everyone except for your father. He said he needed some space. Last I saw he was by the ambulance bay.” He paused. “Do you want to try to talk to him?”
“No,” Zoe said, her arms heavy with the prickle of non-feeling. “I’d like to sit in the waiting room with you guys, if that’s all right.”
“Of course,” Cole said, ushering her toward the double doors markedEmergency Department.
By the time she’d reached the tiny room filled with stony-faced firefighters, her heart had gone as numb as the rest of her.
* * *
Alex swallowedpast the steady stream of fire ants in his throat, and Goddamn, whoever was playing the samba in his skull needed to lay off the fucking percussion.
“Mr. Donovan. Nice to see you made it back.” The voice was just as unfamiliar as Alex’s surroundings, and wait…where the hell was he?
“Thanks,” he croaked, shocked to hear that his own voice vaguely resembled forty-grit sandpaper. “Where…?”
“Take it easy.” The voice was joined by the face of a gray-haired man in a white coat. “My name is Dr. Ward, and I’m the attending physician here in the Emergency Department at Fairview Hospital. Do you remember being brought in?”
Alex squinted, which proved to be a stupid move because now there were two guys in front of him, and he was pretty sure the doc didn’t have a twin. Clips of memory swirled in his mind’s eye, surging and then slipping away. Narrow stairs, a smoke-filled hallway, backing up Everett on the nozzle?—
“There was a man in that bedroom.” Alex froze in realization for only a second before bolting upright against the mattress where he lay. The move sent a shockwave of pain on a nasty route from his left shoulder to his fingers and back, and what was with the sling on his arm?
“Take it easy, Mr. Donovan.” Dr. Ward’s voice tacked on an unspokenor I’ll restrain you, but Alex didn’t really give a shit. “You’ve sustained a few injuries. You need to be still so you don’t make them worse.”
Yeah, yeah. Alex shook his head even though the move made throwing up a distinct probability. “I pulled a man out of that fire. Where is he?”
“He’s here at the hospital, too.” Dr. Ward’s expression stayed completely neutral, but he moved forward to look Alex in the eye. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Are you feeling any pain right now?”
Even though he wanted to barrel past the Q & A, it was clear from the look of things that getting chippy wouldn’t get Alex very far. “The back of my shoulder hurts a little.” Okay, so bya little, he really meanta metric ton. But still. “And my head feels kind of weird, but otherwise, I’m fine.”
“Weird, as in, you’re feeling pain?” Dr. Ward asked.
The guy clearly wasn’t going to give up until Alex answered, so he said, “A little. Maybe a four out of ten,” he added, because he’d done the drill before. “But mostly, I just feel a little foggy.”
“I see.” Dr. Ward took a hard look at the monitor by Alex’s bedside, following up with the whole stethoscope-flashlight thing. “Well, you were brought in by ambulance with injuries to your head, your upper back, and your shoulder.”
“Really?” Shock prickled a path up his spine. How did he not remember being in the ambo?
“You sustained a moderate concussion. It’s not unusual for people to have memory gaps immediately following a traumatic brain injury,” Dr. Ward assured him, as if he’d sensed Alex’s concern. “Fortunately your gear kept you from sustaining any burn damage, and your colleagues got you here very quickly, but you did lose consciousness at the scene, and you’ve been in and out during your assessment.”
“Good to know,” Alex said, the joke falling flat. Holy shit, how much time had he lost?
