Chapter 11 #2
I blink. Once, twice. So, he wasn’t here. But… “Where’s Alice?”
“She’s over there,” he nods toward the shoulder.
I turn and spot her immediately, sitting on the ground and wrapped in a shiny foil-looking emergency blanket from either one of the firetrucks or the rig Scott brought that’s sitting nearby.
Her face is streaked with soot and tears. But alive, very clearly. Relief crashes into me so hard my knees almost give out.
I’m moving again before I even realize it. Scott lets me go.
“Alice-”
Her head snaps up. “Liv-”
I drop to my knees in front of her, hands on her shoulders. “You’re okay? You’re okay.”
“I-” her voice breaks. “He didn’t- Liv, he didn’t-”
My stomach twists.
“The driver hit us,” she says, shaking now. “We were going code- th-three, lights and sirens. He just- he didn’t stop-” Her words dissolve into sobs.
I pull her into me immediately. “It’s okay,” I murmur. “You’re okay-”
But it’s not. Because behind us, there’s a body. I know it. I don’t need anyone to say it. It’s Brian, the new guy. He’d just joined the station last month and was getting paired with everyone to see who he jived well with.
Young. Too young.
My chest hurts; my eyes are burning. We called him, “the kid.” We joked about his age, but he’d graduated top of his class. He was so smart. We were lucky to have him-
“Liv.”
I look up. Alex is standing just beside me, looking down at Alice and I. Watching everything, taking it in. But his attention quickly shifts to me, full of concern.
I didn’t even realize how hard I was shaking until his hand settles lightly on my shoulder with a steadying weight.
“I’ve got you,” he says quietly.
I almost hate how much I need that right now, just because I do need it right now.
Alice and I escorted the body to the hospital, leaving Scott on the scene with other responding emergency vehicles. After seeing Brian off, I took her to the ED, explained what happened, and settled into a room with her.
It’s nauseating here. The clinical smell of the bay mixing with the scent of smoke and asphalt on Alice’s uniform.
We haven’t been here long, but they got to work on her quickly. They’ve assured us that she’s fine… physically.
Mentally it is a different story.
I stepped out of the room ten minutes ago to give Scott an update and see how the scene of the crash is being handled. I got off the phone with him a minute ago, but I haven’t gone back in yet. I know my friend needs me but something Scott said has me wanted some more time to collect my thoughts.
“I called Jett,” he’d said fleetingly.
That doesn’t tell me shit. Is he on his way? Does he know she’s in the hospital and not still at the scene? Is he losing his mind? Cause I feel like he will be.
I’m still staring at the wall opposite me when the sound of the TV down the hall makes its way to me. I trail down to the waiting room and see it’s exactly what it sounded like.
“…tragic collision involving an ambulance transporting a patient…”
Footage of the crash, the mangled rig, all of the emergency vehicles lights filling the sky.
“…one paramedic, one patient, and one citizen confirmed dead…”
My stomach turns. They say it so clinically, so detached. Like it’s just another story. Not a life. Not a person. Not someone who had a name, a family, friends, coworkers…
I look away. I can’t watch it.
I start back down the hall to Alice’s room aiming to head back inside but another voice stops me in my tracks.
“Liv!” It’s panicked, fear filled, and Jett’s.
I glance up. He looks wrecked, eyes red and face pale.
“I came as soon as I heard,” he says, voice tight.
“She’s okay,” I tell him quickly. “Alice, she’s cleared. They’re getting discharged papers.”
Relief floods his face so fast it’s almost painful to watch. “Thank God,” he breathes.
I open her door for him and he doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask anything else. He just moves past me. I can tell it’s a need I don’t understand yet but accept. Of course he needs to see her immediately.
I close the door again and sink back to the floor. And for the first time since Scott called… I feel it. The weight, the guilt. Because it could’ve been Jett. It should’ve been him.
And that thought is going to haunt me. But it’ll haunt Alice far more.
Familiar footsteps approach. I don’t need to look up to know it’s Alex.
“I should’ve been there,” I whisper.
He sits down beside me. “You couldn’t have known.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
I shake my head. “I respond to these calls,” I say. “I’m supposed to be there. I’m supposed to help.”
“And tonight,” he says quietly, “you did.”
I laugh bitterly. “Not enough.”
His gaze hardens slightly. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
I look at him. This, what’s floating between us, is no longer about the case, the girls, or the neighborhood.
I understand why he tried to keep me at a distance.
And why it didn’t work. I thought the danger in my life was my neighborhood.
But it’s not that simple. We both work jobs that threaten your safety, threaten to take your life.
There’s no way to avoid the thought now. It’s been thrust into my face.
Now we’re both in it. And there’s no clean way out.