Chapter One #2
Fighting against the seatbelt, he yelled, “I don’t…help me!”
She grabbed the crowbar and got to work, trying to pry the door open. “I need you to stay as still as you can while I get this door open. What’s your name?”
“Zeke,” he said as she fought with all her might to open the door.
She’d traded lifting bottles for lifting weights and, more recently, had added pole-dancing classes to mix things up. Both of which gave her killer upper-body strength.
Zeke flailed, panicking and rambling incoherently as she fought to get the door open. She urged him to stay calm, but he continued fighting, and just as the door gave way, he went limp. Fuck. The smoke thickened.
“Zeke, can you hear me?” She needed to get him talking, conscious, and out of the vehicle. “Zeke!”
His eyes fluttered open as she grabbed the cutting tool for the seatbelt.
“That’s it. What’s your last name?” His eyes closed again. “Zeke, stay with me. Can you tell me your last name?”
He opened his mouth, but no words came.
Between the shock and his head trauma, she wasn’t surprised by his inability to speak, but she didn’t like it.
“I’m going to cut the seatbelt and get you out of here.
I’m sorry, but it’s probably going to hurt.
” Stabilizing his head and shoulders as best she could, she cut the seatbelt and used all her strength to drag him out of the car.
He cried out in pain as his body hit the ground, but getting him farther away from the vehicle was imperative.
She dragged him a few feet, slipping under his weight, causing another anguished cry.
Flames ignited from the hood of the car, and Shauna dug the heels of her boots into the dirt, dragging him a safe distance from the wreckage.
He was shivering as she laid him in the grass, that freaking metal sticking out of his left side. Worried about hypothermia, she shrugged off her coat and placed it over his right side, quickly checking for a medical alert bracelet or necklace. “I need to get my first aid kit. Try not to move.”
She sprinted back to the mangled car and peered inside to make sure she hadn’t missed any other passengers. It was empty, except for a shattered guitar and a leather vest. She snagged the vest to put over him.
Rushing back, she shook out the vest to rid it of glass and laid it over him, taking in the Dark Knights patch above a skull with dark eyes, sharp brows, and a mouth full of jagged fangs, with a Bayside Chapter patch beneath it.
She didn’t know much about the Dark Knights, but she knew they were an important part of the community, and they held all types of charity events.
“You’re lucky you weren’t on your motorcycle,” she said as she put on sterile gloves from the first aid kit and withdrew the scissors.
He mumbled incoherently as she cut his T-shirt away from the metal and opened a package of gauze. “Zeke, do you know what day it is?” she asked as she used the gauze to try to stop the bleeding and stabilize the metal in his side.
He slurred a response.
“Can you tell me who the president is?”
He said something that sounded like “Preach,” and then his eyes rolled back in his head and his body went slack again.
“Wake up, Zeke!”
He didn’t respond.
“Come on, Zeke. Open your eyes,” she ordered, relieved to finally hear sirens in the distance.
He remained still and silent, but he was breathing.
Using her knuckles, she applied pressure to his sternum, and he cried out. Relief swamped her. “I need you to stay awake.” She grabbed more gauze, trying desperately to stop the bleeding in his side. “Where were you headed this morning?”
He groaned, his eyes closing again.
“Tell me about your motorcycle. I bet it’s cool, huh?” She had to keep him talking.
His eyes fluttered open and locked on hers, stealing her breath for a split second before those deep pools of blue brimmed with fear, pleading as he weakly panted out, “Don’t…let me…go.”
Her chest constricted, an unfamiliar choke of emotion stealing her voice. There was something familiar in his eyes, something tugging at her. She tried to break that chokehold but was unable. What the hell? Get your shit together, Shauna.
“You’re not going anywhere, big guy. Not on my watch.” She hoped to hell that was true, but she was worried about his blood loss. “We’re going to get through this together. You hear me?”
He mumbled incoherently.
“I’ve got you, Zeke. Just stay awake. We music buffs have to stick together. What kind of music do you like?” He mumbled again as she grabbed more gauze. She began singing her go-to song when she needed strength, “Keep Holding On” by Avril Lavigne, hoping it would give him strength, too.
Moments later the first responders arrived, a different crew from her own since it wasn’t her jurisdiction.
As the firefighters headed for the wreckage, Shauna brought the medics up to speed, reluctantly stepping back as they stabilized Zeke.
She felt uneasy, like she was breaking a promise.
Don’t…let me…go. She’d heard things like that plenty of times from people in crisis and had no idea why it hit differently this time.
She kept an eye on Zeke as she gave the police a description of the accident and the truck that had hit him. When the ambulance drove away, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should have gone with him.
She turned back to the scene. The flames were out, the police and firemen milling about, doing their jobs.
She went to get her coat, which was lying beside a bloody patch of grass where Zeke had lain.
That’s when the gravity of what had happened hit her, and the breath rushed from her lungs.
She hadn’t even realized she’d been holding it.
She’d handled dozens of emergencies that were worse than this one, but this was the first she’d handled on her own, without any time to mentally prepare or get into the headspace of anticipating a tragedy, as she usually did when she arrived at work.
She felt like she’d run a marathon and prayed Zeke would be okay as she picked up her coat and found his leather vest beneath it.
A lump lodged in her throat, and she pressed the coat and vest to her chest, pride gripping her.
She’d handled it, and she hadn’t flinched or floundered.
She’d always thought she had it in her, but until now she hadn’t known for sure.
Her phone rang, startling her. She pulled it from her pocket, seeing Brian’s name on the screen, and didn’t think as she put it to her ear. “Hey.”
“I need that money…”
She closed her eyes, accepting a pang of guilt as she tuned him out, unable to deal with the selfishness of addiction when she’d just been knee-deep in a life-and-death situation.