Chapter 1
Tristen
Three hours into my shift and I’ve already busted my watch, taken an elbow from an unruly elderly man, and been pissed on.
This day can go to hell for all I care.
“Dude, turn it down.”
My partner throws a grin over his shoulder and presses the skip button instead, flooding the bus with a blast of 90s grunge that I secretly love but wish wasn’t harassing this headache that’s determined to take me out before lunchtime.
We’re on our way back out from the hospital, having just dumped off the feisty old fart that was in desperate need of a cast for the wrist I know he broke over my head.
There’s already another call in the queue waiting for our response despite how small of a town this is.
The places we pass are all dark. It’s past closing time and last call was hours ago.
I don’t know much about it—well, I don’t remember much about Barren Ridge—but the guy with a savage smile and a beef stick hanging from his gritted teeth seems to know just fine.
Which makes sense. Hatley might live with me on the outskirts of the next town over, but he grew up here from the day he was born.
Works both firehouses like a total beast of an EMT, even if I’ll never admit that to his face.
Like, I seriously don’t think the guy ever sleeps except on Sundays.
Those days, I order take out and leave it at his door if I’m feeling risky.
Anything more than that and I might lose my head.
But Monday to Saturday?
He’s driving this bus around, chasing the savior’s high of saving lives and running towards the danger like the adrenaline junkie I know he is. And when we’re not on shift? He’s still chasing that high elsewhere.
It’s why Hat and I get along so well.
He’s my best friend.
I, on the other hand, like my sleep from time to time.
Which is why this is the first time I’ve been back to this town in something like ten years.
With the shortage of medically trained dumbasses like myself willing to hit raccoon mode and take the night shift, our captain widened our district and promised assistance to good ol’ Barren Ridge. Meaning; I had a chance to volunteer.
Because I’m just as thirsty for that edge that Hat is.
He thinks he’s hot shit with his light hair and careless grin, but he’s clearly running from something like the rest of us. There’s an air about him that just draws you in and makes you want to laugh with him, even though he’s fucked in the head. We all are a little bit, I think.
Too bad I’m mostly straight.
“Burritos are calling my name, man,” I grumble and climb into the passenger seat. “And that shit stinks worse than I do,” I say, gesturing the beef disappearing between his lips.
I snatch the stick straight from his mouth and take a giant bite.
“At least I don’t have to tell you how bad you smell.” My lip lifts in a mock snarl he just laughs at and steals the stick back. “We’re on our way to a ghost dial for wellness, bro. The diner should be open when we’re done there.”
Ah, how the off-shift rolls.
Fuck small towns and their propensity to shun the night owls of the world. I’d like my grocery shopping done at midnight, please and thanks.
“There’s a stash of uniforms—” he reaches into the space behind his seat and starts tugging “—in. Here. Shit.” He yanks and nearly smacks me in the face when I lean to help relieve the bag from its prison.
“Jesus. Cram it in there harder next time.”
He snorts. “That’s what he said.”
I let my face go slack, then flip him off as he tosses the bag at my head.
“ETA two minutes.”
I curse and kick off my boots, shimmy the pissy pants down, and pull fresh ones from the bag.
It’s not ideal but it’s also not the first time I’ve had the change mid-shift. Certainly, won’t be the last, either. We all learn early on to have spare uniforms stashed somewhere.
I’m stomping back into my boots when Hatley pulls the bus over and hops out to grab his go-bag from the back.
Fly zipped and pockets refilled, I’m right behind him on the cracked pavement you could barely call a sidewalk with all the weeds growing through it.
There are no lights on in the house, all the blinds are drawn, and there’s a shadowy feeling to the porch when we step up to it.
“Hello?” Hatley calls when no one answers his knocking.
The look he throws my way has a chill rolling down my spine.
Something’s off.
I nod and step off the side of the porch where the railing is already missing and walk down the side of the house, my flashlight guiding the way.
Peeking into windows as I pass, I curse silently when most of them are obstructed, almost like each pane has been covered in more than just curtains and move onto the next one.
Two more down and I’m growing increasingly antsy with how shut off this place seems to be from the inside.
There’re only two reasons to block out the rest of the world and neither are good ones.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I move to the final window and nearly jump when the faint sound of a vibration breaks the otherwise oddly silent night.
Not even the crickets are chirping back here.
A quick pat confirms it’s not my phone that’s cutting through the silence, but somewhere inside instead.
I curse and lean close to the smaller pane, desperately hoping it’s not someone inside taking a shit and ready to shoot me for trespassing.
Blocked.
The window is already frosted, further pointing to it being a bathroom, and covered in the same shit the rest of them are.
“Fuck this,” I whisper to the too-quiet night before biting down on my light. With my hands free, I feel around the frame, pressing and hoping that it’s not locked.
It creaks.
A loud sigh of triumph flows through my nose when it cracks open, only to die off with the rest of my breath at the sight it reveals and the scent that follows.
Body.
Vomit.
Bile.
“Going in,” I rush out to the radio as I’m climbing through the window.
I step in a pile of puke that doesn’t stop me from diving towards the guy on the floor. My knee slides in the fluids pooled around him, the shit soaking into my pants, and yet I feel none of it as I shove one hand in my pocket and two fingers from the other against his neck.
“Can you hear me? I’m an EMT and I’m here to help. Let me know if you can hear me.”
I repeat both as I pull the small mirror from my pocket and stick it in front of his face.
No fog.
“Shit.”
A quick visual tells me he’s not got a back or head injury. Assuming either would be a huge risk, but if I take my fingers off his pulse, I might miss it.
Instead, I hope that this isn’t due to a fall and roll him onto his back and shove those two gloved fingers into his mouth to clear his airway.
I glance around the room and curse again when the tipped over orange bottles register.
No response.
Pressing two clean fingers to his neck, I lean down in search of air, only to come up with none.
Chest compressions.
The Bee Gees fill my head as I pump my layered palms into the guy’s chest.
Stay alive. C’mon, just stay alive.
A rib gives way.
“Fuck.”
My stomach rolls.
“C’mon, man. Not today.” I look down at his pale face and blueish lips.
His blond hair falling over the darkness surrounding his eyes.
There’s a too-big striped long-sleeved shirt hanging from his frame.
The tinge of recognition twists me up even more, though I can’t place him.
“You ever been to Alaska? Seen the Northern Lights? They’re hella pretty man. You don’t want to miss that.”
I’ve never seen them either.
My chest goes tight.
“Don’t give up.”
Eyes sting as my mind races me right back to a night a long, long time ago.
An orange bottle.
So much vomit.
Pain.
I shake the thought right out of my head and hum the lyrics to the song. Gotta get the job done. Get him to the ambulance. Get him the help he deserves.
“Hatley!” I call out on a shaky breath when I hear him clamoring through the window. I’d look, but something about this stranger on the floor makes me feel like I shouldn’t look away. Like I can’t. If I do, I might miss something. Like maybe I might lose him. “Check the bottles.”
“Shit. Narc, Narc, Narc.”
I lean back when Hat dives in, shoving the nasal tube into the guy’s nose holes and spraying.
One dose.
No response.
Second dose.
I rub his sternum, then check his pulse.
“C’mon. C’mon. C’mon,” I chant with my heart in my throat.
My hands shake when Hatley administers a third and taps his too-pale cheeks.
Three is it. It’s all we’re allowed to give to one person at a time.
Please be enough.
Two fingers to the pulse, I grab Hat’s forearm and still us both.
One beat passes with nothing.
Another and I’m holding my breath.
“C’mon, man. C’mon,” Hatley mutters next to me and slaps the guy’s cheeks again, a little harder this time.
I’m frozen over him, kneeling in stomach acid, and desperate for this guy to take a breath. Just take another breath. One more—
There’s a faint pump beneath the pads of my fingers and relief floods me.
“We got a pulse!”
A rush of adrenaline has both of us in a flurry of movements as we secure the stranger to a board Hat brings in through the front door and load him up in the back of the bus.
I hook him up to a monitor that beeps its recognition of his heartbeat, then clean a space in his elbow for an IV as Hat pokes him.
We’re back on the road within two minutes, but even with the bumpy ride, I find myself just staring at the translucence of his slack face as I bag him. How pale he is. How thin his skin looks.
What made you this way?
There’s a strong jaw, despite what appears to be malnutrition. Some muscle definition as if maybe he works a labor job rather than hits the gym.
An empty house at midnight.
Taking enough pills to…
Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I force myself to clean up as best I can with one hand instead of just staring at the limpness of him.
“It’s okay,” I whisper to him. “It’s okay.”
I don’t know why I do. I don’t know him. Once he gets inside those glass doors, there’s nothing more I can do. He’ll be out of my hands and under someone else’s care, just like everyone else.
We just have to get him there first.
But there’s something about that hair sweeping over his face. It’s light, a contrast to the darkness of him, that’s got my sight seeking him out repeatedly. Watching his chest barely lift with each compression of my hand.
He looks like he’s my age.
Bile burns the back of my throat, and I swallow hard.
“It’s almost burrito-o’clock, man,” Hat calls from the driver’s seat. He’s joking, but it’s a somber, almost desperate thing, that’s said with barely enough volume to be heard over the sound of the sirens wailing around us.
My stomach churns.
“Yeah …”
The doors are flung open before I realize we’ve even stopped moving, and a team of scrubs are pulling our gurney from its tracks.
I follow until someone else takes over the bag and suddenly I’m standing just outside the hospital entrance watching as the stranger is swallowed up by staff in the rush of the emergency.
Pulling away from me. Disappearing from sight.
I didn’t even find out his name.
It’s not uncommon for us to end up with nameless patients. Unidentifiable transports. Searching for ID’s on unconscious bodies is the last thing on my mind, but this one … it feels too close.
A violent heave catches me off guard, and I dart across the pavement to the trashcan, emptying the contents of my stomach. It burns through my nose and throat, landing mostly in the can, and I curse.
What makes me any different than him?
Another wave flies into the can and makes my eyes water.
“Don’t fight it.”
Pressure fills in between my shoulder blades.
“Not.”
“Uh-huh. That was a fucking rough one, man.” Hatley circles that hand, and I focus on it, allowing it to pull me back. Tether me to the cement poles holding up the emergency sign. Place me back in my boots with the toes touching the mesh layer around the outside of the trashcan.
“Yeah.” I cough and shutter, spitting a mouthful of chunky saliva into the can. “Never easy.”
I feel Hat nod more than I see it through the tears I blink back and accept the paper towel he hands me.
“We got a knife fight calling our names. Let’s get it.”
And so, we do.
Ain’t no rest for the damaged.