Chapter 41 #2
She holstered the Glock and crouched beside him. Found a handcuff key from her duty belt. Unlocked the cuffs. His wrists fell apart and his arms dropped to the floor like they belonged to someone who wasn't in them anymore.
She hauled him up. He was a dead weight. Two hundred pounds of unconscious muscle and she got him to his feet by bracing against the wall and lifting with her legs. His head lolled against her shoulder. His feet dragged.
"Stay with me. Noah. Stay with me."
She dragged him to the stairs. Looked up.
Twelve steps. All concrete. She pulled his arm across her shoulders and started climbing.
One step at a time. His boots catching on every riser.
The vest pressing against the bruise on her sternum with every breath.
The blood from her head wound running into her eye and she couldn't wipe it because both hands were holding him.
She made it to the top. Through the silo.
Out the door. The rain hit them and Noah's head dropped forward and she almost lost him.
She tightened her grip and kept moving. Across the field.
Through the mud. Past the barn. Across the yard.
Every step a negotiation between her body and the ground and the weight of the man she was carrying and the blood she was losing and the pain in her chest that pulsed white with every heartbeat.
She reached the cruiser. Got the passenger door open. Lowered him in. His head fell against the headrest and his mouth was open and the blue in his lips was darker now.
She pulled the second Narcan dose from the kit in the glove compartment and administered it. Nasal spray. Watched his face. Counted. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
Nothing. His breathing didn't change. The color didn't change. The morphine was winning.
Naloxone didn't always fully reverse an overdose on the first dose. She'd used the first on Seraphine. This was her second and last. And it wasn't enough. He needed a hospital. He needed advanced care. He needed more than she had in the cruiser.
Where the hell is the EMT? She thought.
There was no time to wait.
Callie slammed the passenger door and ran around to the driver's side.
She got in and started the engine and threw the cruiser into reverse.
The tires spun in the mud, caught, and the cruiser lurched backward.
She swung it around and accelerated down Mountain Lane with the wipers on full.
The siren was blaring, and the lights flashing as the rain turned the road to a river.
She passed the first cruiser two miles out.
Then another. They were coming the other way, responding to her dispatch call, lights and sirens cutting through the downpour.
She didn't stop. She couldn't stop. She pressed the accelerator and the cruiser fishtailed on the wet road and straightened and she held the wheel with both hands and drove.
She glanced at Noah. His head was against the headrest. His mouth was open. His chest rose. Paused. Rose again. The pauses were getting longer.
"Don't you die on me." She looked back at the road. Wiped the blood from her eye with her sleeve. "Don't you die."
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Seraphine was still on the back seat, still unconscious, but her color was better. The Narcan was working on her. It wasn't working on Noah.
Route 73 opened up in front of her. Nothing but straight road. Two lanes. The hospital was twelve minutes away at the speed limit but she wasn’t driving the speed limit. The cruiser screamed through the rain and the trees blurred past.
She looked at Noah again. "Stay with me." She looked at Seraphine. "Both of you. Stay with me."
The hospital appeared through the rain. She didn't slow for the turn into the lot. The cruiser jumped the curb and skidded across the wet pavement and came to a stop at an angle in front of the emergency department doors. She threw it into park and got out and staggered.
The ground tilted. The rain hit her face. The blood was in both eyes now.
She made it through the automatic doors. The lobby was bright, fluorescent, blinding after the dark of the road. There were nurses at the station. Patients in chairs. The ordinary traffic of an emergency room that didn't know what was coming through the door.
"Help!” Her voice cracked. She grabbed the edge of the admissions counter. "I need some help. Now."
They looked up. They saw the blood and moved.
Two nurses came around the counter. A doctor appeared from somewhere. Callie pointed at the cruiser through the glass doors. "Two patients. One in the front, one in the back. Morphine overdose. He's not responding to Naloxone. She's drugged, don't know with what. I gave her Naloxone.”
They ran. Through the doors. Into the rain.
Callie turned to follow them and the floor came up to meet her.
She caught herself on the wall and pushed off and kept moving.
Through the doors. Into the rain one more time.
She watched them pull Noah from the passenger seat and get him onto a gurney.
She watched them reach into the back for Seraphine.
The gurney moved through the doors and the emergency team closed around Noah and the fluorescent lights caught the blue of his lips and the gray of his face and then the doors swung shut behind them and he was gone.