Chapter 6 #2
And how could it come out on its own when the people he’d wronged were dead?
Their corpses wrapped in flimsy motel sheets, frozen, picked apart by animals and time.
They didn’t even get a decent burial. No one said words over their bodies, because they didn’t know any.
Didn’t know them. They were people—good, bad, indifferent, Blake didn’t know.
He thought about it sometimes. Tried to tell himself the sweet elderly lady who didn’t make it had probably poisoned her husband, or that the guy with the nose ring had overdue library books.
But the truth was probably much more mundane. They were probably just people. Imperfect people living their best lives who didn’t deserve to die under Blake’s hands. But they did. And Blake didn’t know how to fix it.
He couldn’t get better. He couldn’t learn from his mistakes. He couldn’t even blame the system or the circumstances that got them there.
Accountability tasted a lot like rock bottom. And it hurt twice as much.
They say the good thing about rock bottom is you can’t go any deeper, but you can’t get up either. Not when someone is holding you down. That boot on your chest might be there out of care, but it’s still just as suffocating.
Gabriel had apologized for everything, but that, and Blake knew it was because he wasn’t sorry. Not for keeping Blake safe. Even if it meant he couldn’t breathe.
“Yeah,” Blake said, not knowing if it was a lie or not. “We’re fine.”
Tommy’s brows furrowed, but before he could say anything, Sabrina came running through the door. “Refugees! And they need medical attention.”
The huddled group looked more like mounds of rags than people. Phin and Alvarez were eyeing them, guns pointed down but in hand. Gabriel was speaking with one of them, his head bowed, arms crossed.
There were five of them in total. Even with all their clothes, Blake could see they were thin. Desperation was etched in the tense lines of their shoulders and the way they pressed together like a herd surrounded by predators.
It made Blake angry.
“Get back,” he snapped, waving his hand at Alvarez and Phin. “Put your guns down.”
Gabriel turned to look at Blake. His mouth was set. Commander face.
“We don’t know these people. There are security risks—”
“Of what?” he snapped, pushing past Gabriel to look at the man he was speaking to. “Fainting on you? These people need medical attention. And as I’ve been repeatedly told, that’s my department.”
Gabriel’s jaw worked, taking in Blake’s sullen expression.
After a moment, he took an exaggerated step back and called for Phin and Alvarez.
The whole thing was a ridiculous show of force.
Judd had set up sentry points at the farthest reaches of the property.
If the bedraggled group made it as far as the parking lot, they’d already been vetted and frisked.
Maybe if he had been in a better mood, Blake would have acquiesced to the whole show. He knew how important it was to show outsiders they weren’t to be messed with. But he had a job to do. And Blake never turned down an opportunity to be petty about it.
Blake approached the man Gabriel was speaking to. It was difficult to make out the details of his face under the dirt and grime, but he looked to be about middle-aged. His dirty hat had seen better days, leaning askew on a head that hadn’t seen hair in a decade or so.
“Hi, my name is Blake, and I’m the medic here. Would it be okay if I took you into our…inside and gave you medical attention?”
The man’s pronounced Adams apple bobbed as he swallowed.
His yellowed eyes glanced between him, Tommy, and the armed guards before finally nodding.
Tommy jogged ahead and opened the door for them.
The bald man immediately placed himself between them and the women, his body turned so he could keep both groups in his peripheral vision.
Blake’s stomach sank.
Inside the conference room was gloomy. Blake hurried to light some of the candles and the stove, not that they cut through the thick gloom any better. It was a losing war.
The group of refugees made a beeline for the stove, crouching over it with their hands extended. At least most of them. The bald man and one other, Blake thought he might be the only other man in the group and had to be at least sixty, maybe seventy, stood between them.
Blake took a moment to look them all over.
Much like the people at the motel, they were clothed in whatever they could find.
Bits of a t-shirt had been ripped and wrapped around their shoes and hands, jackets that obviously didn’t fit were perched on their shoulders.
Maybe they found them, or maybe they fit when they first put them on, Blake wasn’t sure.
But from what he could see of the fingers poking out from the long sleeves of the bald man's red jacket, they weren’t enough.
Blake wanted to tell them all to disrobe so he could look them over, but they were too skittish.
Not unlike wild animals in a slowly closing trap, they stayed together, shifting.
The two men looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks, but they refused to sit, staying on the balls of their feet.
Blake didn’t take his eyes off the men, but he addressed Gabriel, “Leave.”
Gabriel scoffed. “I’m not leaving you alone with them.”
“I won’t be alone. Tommy is staying.”
“That does not reassure me.”
They both knew Tommy wasn’t worthless in a fight. Kid fought like a honey badger—completely unaware of his own size or ferocity, all teeth and ambition.
“You’re scaring them,” Blake emphasized, looking Gabriel in the eye. He knew he was the big, bad commander right now, but Gabriel wasn’t a monster. He could see what the presence of soldiers with guns were doing to these people.
“Stand just outside if you must, but I need to do my job, and I can’t do that if they don’t trust me. Look at them, Gabriel. They’ve been through hell.”
Gabriel looked at the group, his mouth set in a grim line. Finally, he ordered the other men out. “I’ll be right outside.” He let his voice carry.
Blake wasn’t hopeful enough to think they’d relax the moment the soldiers left. It didn’t work like that. He shared a look with Tommy.
“I’m Tommy,” the EMT said with a dazzling smile. He slowly approached the women. “Can I stoke that stove a little? Bring you some water?”
Blake took off his jacket. He wasn’t warm, but he thought the bulky material made him look less human. Bigger than he really was. And a jacket could conceal a weapon.
The unfortunate reality was that this wasn’t the first time Tommy and Blake had dealt with traumatized patients. They’d been on countless scenes of assault or domestic violence. It never got any easier. But as a team of two men, they’d found a way to minimize their patients' fear.
“Care to sit?” Blake asked, as he pulled the chair out from behind his desk. He thought the man might feel better if he sat on something that was easier to get to his feet from.
The man glanced back at Tommy and saw what they wanted him to see—a young, thin, boy with an honest face. He wavered for a moment and then sat. Or more accurately, fell onto the chair, his head hanging.
Tommy retrieved some water bottles they kept in their supplies and handed them out. The bald man glanced at it before taking it between his palms, his jacket sleeves pulling up to reveal his hands.
The man’s fingers were in bad shape. Red and swollen, with patches of white skin. The tips of his pinky and ring finger on his right hand were black. Blake’s mouth went dry.
Frostbite.
He leaned forward and uncapped the bottle, helping tip it into the man’s mouth. He didn’t stop drinking until the empty plastic bottle crinkled. Blake took it away.
“Thank you,” the bald man said, his voice hoarse. “I don’t think we would have…made it another night.”
Judging by the state of the group, they wouldn’t have. “Someone will get you some food. It’s not much, but it’ll fill your belly.”
He nodded, eyes on his fingers. “I can’t remember the last time my stomach was full.”
Blake nodded, keeping his eyes on the raggedy pompom on the top of the man’s hat. His father once told him the pompoms were for sailors, to keep themselves from slamming their heads in low ceilinged area of the ships. Blake didn’t know if that was true or not, but it sounded good.
“What’s your name?”
“Richard,” the bald man answered. “That’s my wife, Martha, and daughter, Emily. And our neighbors, the Staceys.”
Now that they’d begun to warm up and Tommy had softened their wariness, they’d begun removing hats and outerwear.
Blake assumed the older couple were the Staceys.
They looked rougher than the others, skin practically dripping off their bones, and their hands shaking.
Mrs. Stacey was staring vacantly, not blinking, while her husband tried to coax her to drink.
The two others were Richard’s family. Emily looked young, her hair wild and curly. Her mother’s face was obscured behind her ratty blonde hair. She had her arm around Emily.
“The TV said we should go to the refugee camps. That we would be safe. I—our car died. We walked.” Richard was still staring down at his fingers, his shoulders slumping.
“Where are you from?”
“Philly.”
“That’s a long walk.”
Richard nodded, dumbly. Blake tried to piece together how long a walk like that would take—especially with an elderly couple who might not be in the best shape. Richard and his family could have left them behind and made better time. Maybe avoided the worst of winter.
This was the worst winter Blake could remember. It was also the first without central heating. There were nights when Blake had curled up with Tommy or someone else, anyone else, as long as they were warm. His hands shaking, breathing in air so cold it felt like razor blades in his throat.
And he’d been in the motel, by the stove. With shelter.
“We finally made it to the refugee camp, and I thought we’d be safe.
I thought—but it…” he heaved a ragged breath.
A breath he seemed to have been holding for a while now.
The kind that propped up his ribs and spine, kept him putting one foot in front of the other.
Now he was nothing more than flesh, collapsing in on himself.
“I couldn’t protect them.” Richard flinched at whatever memories he couldn’t avoid, turning his face so Blake could see a dark, purpled bruise taking up most of his left side.
Blake could guess what happened. His stomach dropped, and he had to bite back the urge to look away. He didn’t want Richard to carry any more guilt than he already did.
Tommy walked past him to ask the soldiers at the door for more blankets, food, and water. He glanced down at Richard’s hands and paused before asking for a bowl of water.
Richard followed his glance and winced as he tried to flex his fingers.
“May I?” Blake asked, reaching for his hands. Richard nodded.
All ten fingers were affected in some way.
The thumbs seemed to be in the best shape, probably because he could curl them into a fist, while the most distal fingers were the worst. They were solid and cold to the touch, like a corpse.
A couple had ugly, fluid-filled blisters.
Blake’s hands shook as he poked at the fingertips, asking Richard if he could feel his touch.
His heart was thundering in his chest, and it hurt.
Like a physical ache, cramping down harder and harder until his lungs didn’t have room to expand.
His mouth was dry, and he tried to wet his lips, but his tongue felt thick and useless.
No, no, no. Not again. I can’t—
“Just cut them off.”
Blake jerked his hands back, holding them to his chest like they’d act on their own. They trembled, and he tried to press them into his stomach to stop, but his whole body was shaking. His breaths were wheezing in and out from between numb lips.
…the thick grain under his fingernails as he hefted the axe for the first time.
It was heavier than he thought. Rust flaking off the blade except for the edge.
That was shiny, sharp. Phin had sharpened it for this.
It smelled like metal and bark. Someone poured alcohol over it, and Blake wanted to laugh. Why couldn’t it have been a finger?
Blake’s limbs were filled with static, his vision tunneling. What—oh. He wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t breathe. He was staring at the corner of the room, the one taken up by that starched white coat. It fluttered on the hook, even though there was no breeze. Haunting him. Mocking him.
Ten. He would have to do it ten times. It would bleed, too. There was still blood in those digits, and it would hurt. Richard was strong. He’d seen his family over hundreds of miles; he wouldn’t pass out. He wouldn’t—
Then there was sunshine. Two big, doe eyes staring at him. Tommy’s lashes were long. Thick. Pretty. Tommy once said he thought his eyes were plain, Blake had scoffed at him. Barely even glanced over.
Now they were pulling him back. Like the first breath of fall air after a sweltering summer. Blake inhaled deeply.
“Blake? Are you okay? You—we don’t have to amputate. Let’s try treating them first, yeah?”
Tommy had to say it a few times before the words sank in. Before Blake could comprehend anything. His fingers unclenched, and the tingling in his limbs abated. The knot in his chest loosened, and he took another breath, this time of the damp air in the infirmary.
“Yes. Let’s do that. I’ll need a bowl of warm water and some bandages.”