Page 2 of Shielding His Heart
But I don’t need that information for my world to start crashing down around me.
Two vehicles—a sedan and a truck—are tangled in a mass of crumpled metal and a shower of shattered glass in the center of the intersection. There are several onlookers along the roadside despite the late hour, and I spot the telltale flash of a camera phone. I’ve responded to dozens of calls to this intersection, and several people have died over the years. Recently, a teenage boy bound for state college for baseball lost his life in a head-on collision. It’s notorious in Lake County for being a hazard. They’ve tried to mitigate the dangers with speed bumps and flashing lights at the stop signs, but it never fails that we get several calls a year just for this intersection.
I only see a flash of red and the sliver of a palm tree in the rear window of the sedan, but I know. Walker notices me turn to a statue and looks over as he gets ready to leave the ambulance. “You good, man?”
“They got a name on this patient?” My voice comes out hoarse. It’s pitch dark, but there’s enough light coming from the emergency vehicles and the truck’s headlights tangled with the small car that I can see blood on the dash of the sedan.
It’s spattered on what’s left of the windshield, too. There are blonde hairs tangled in the glass.
Walker shakes his head and moves closer to get a better look at my face, even though we should both be focused on the patient. “Not yet. Why?”
Beads of sweat coat my upper lip, moistening my words, the salt making me sick to my stomach. “Does that look like Tana’s car to you?”
He does a double-take at the sedan only a short distance away. He doesn’t seem convinced and looks back over at me. “What?”
“Pull up right fucking next to it.” I sweep a hand across my face to get rid of the sweat now streaming down it. I’m gasping for breath and expelling it in heaving shudders. This isn’t like me. I’m always in control at a scene. Always. I’m the one who tells the rookies and even sometimes the more experienced guys to keep their cool, take a breath and work the problem. But the more I try to find my sense of calm, the more it spins away from me.
“Are you sure?” Walker asks.
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. Pull the fuck up next to it.” My limbs are shaking, and there’s a pain in my chest, but I have to focus. If I’m right—and I hope to fuck I’m not—but if I am, she’ll need me to keep it together. I have to keep it together.
With one last wary look at me, Walker puts the ambulance into gear. “Yeah, man. Okay.”
He whips the ambulance around as fast as he can, and I jump out before it stops moving. I can’t seem to get a bead on things. Everything’s moving too fast for my thoughts to process, to make sense of it all. The sedan is a red Corolla. Or it used to be before it was T-boned by a black truck. What’s left of her car is unrecognizable. It looks more like a UFO than a sedan. Heart in my throat, I race to the site of the collision.
“Get the backboard, the neck brace, and someone find out the ID on the other patient!” At this point, I don’t know who I’m shouting at. I’m just praying the person ejected wasn’t Tana. It can’t be her.
I can’t picture a world in which Tana is dead.
I’m the first one to her car. Walker and Zeke follow close on my heels with all the supplies I left behind. The windows are shattered, the driver’s side is still intact, and I can see a body through the kaleidoscope of glass on the other side. The tableau is revealed by the flashing strobe lights and jerky flashlight beams from the cops and other firefighters.
“Tana!” I yell, even though the logical part of my brain knows she’s probably unconscious. “Tana!”
Zeke comes up behind, places a level hand on my shoulder, and I immediately shrug out of it. “Get ahold of yourself,” he says quietly. “Do you need a minute?”
“I need you to get out of my fuckin’ face,” I growl.
“I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you—”
“It’s his wife,” Walker interjects. “He thinks this is her car.”
There’s muffled talking following that statement, but I can’t hear it over the roaring in my ears. Eventually, someone comes to my side and brushes my hands away from the door. I turn, snarling at the intruder, and then I’m pulled bodily away from the car by the captain.
“You aren’t doing her any favors right now, Alec. Let us do our job. We’ll get her out.” There’s a reason Zeke is the captain. Nothing seems to faze him, not even me coming apart at the seams right in front of him. Later, I’ll appreciate his stoicism. Now, it makes me want to rage.
“Is she alive?” I bark out to Walker, who has got the driver’s side door open. “Is she breathing?” I don’t even think about fighting against the captain’s hold. All my focus is on Tana’s lifeless body.
“We’ve got a pulse,” I hear.
The captain doesn’t say anything when my knees go a little weak. They shout her vitals, discuss her various injuries, and for once, my head is completely blank through the chaos.
“Is she alright?” I ask, but I’m not certain anyone can hear me. The din of an accident scene is always overwhelming. The shouts and screams of loved ones or the injured themselves. Barked orders from first responders. Cackles from radios clipped to belts. I’m always able to focus through it all. Always. That’s what makes me good at my job. That’s why I love what I do. I thrive in the chaos.
“Is she alright?”
Zeke and Walker share another loaded look, and if it wasn’t Tana laying there bloody, I woulda had to coldcock one of them for treating me like a patient.
“Goddamn it, someone tell me if she’s alright or let me work on her.”
