Chapter 7 #4
Blake was struggling to breathe. His lungs felt like wet paper bags, and the harder he tried to inhale, the more they ripped, shredding helplessly in his hands.
He tried to tell himself this wasn’t like Graves.
But, he couldn’t help looking down at his clenched hands and remembering the feel of the syringe as he stuck it into his flesh, depressing the plunger and injecting the poison into his body that would kill him.
And then he couldn’t stop seeing the relief in Emily’s mother’s eyes when she took the bowl of oatmeal from Tommy.
The teary thanks she couldn’t quite say, as she made sure her child and husband were fed.
The hell they’d been through had lifted from her shoulders, and he watched her nearly break down over the first bite of food.
The relief in her eyes. The thanks they’d given him.
Blake felt sick. He was going to watch her die. In a matter of days, Emily’s body would kill her right in front of him.
Hi there, my name is Blake. I’m a paramedic. I’m going to help you today.
He blinked. That’s what he used to say when he first arrived at the scene to his patients. He wanted them to know his name, even if they didn’t remember it. He wanted them to know he was a human, that he cared. That he was going to do everything he could to save them.
The Blake, back then, was proud of his paramedic license.
The effort he’d put in, not just to pass the exams, but to really understand.
To be the first person on scene and do the best he could to hold the line until he could get them to the hospitals.
Even if it was just comforting an old woman who’d fallen, or a kid who’d been in their first car accident.
Now here he was, having a panic attack. While this girl, his patient, who was actually dying, remained calm.
She had accepted it. The Blake back then never would, couldn't. The Blake back then held himself suspended above a seizing patient so he could get the IV to give them medications.
The Blake back then would have told Emily that he would help her. No matter what.
He clenched his fists again, feeling the bite of his nails in his palm. Not an axe this time. Or a syringe.
Pushing himself to his feet, he looked down at Emily.
“Hi, my name is Blake. I’m a paramedic. And I’m going to help you today.” He swallowed and did something he was told to never ever do. “I promise.”
Gabriel would never allow him to go out. It wouldn’t matter the reason. He would insist on going out himself, but he didn’t know where to look. Didn’t know which clinics would be the least likely to be looted or destroyed. He didn’t know the city like Blake did.
There would be hell to pay. He would be hurting Gabriel. But Blake was tired of avoiding his reflection in the mirror. Tired of seeing that goddamn coat haunting his peripherals. He was tired of almost drowning.
Blake was going to swim.
And there was only one person who would go against Gabriel.
Storming across the courtyard, he just barely tugged on his hat before he saw Beaumont and Alvarez loading up one of the diesel trucks.
Blake jogged over. “I’m coming with you.”
Alvarez looked down at him from the bed of the truck. He scanned Blake’s face, looking for any hint of a joke. When he didn’t find any, he crossed his arms.
“Get out of here.”
Clenching his teeth, Blake pulled out the only card he had. “I know the door code for an urgent care.”
They froze. Beaumont was on the ground, leaning up against the dropped tailgate. He glanced between Blake and Alvarez, pushing himself off the tailgate when Alvarez didn’t immediately shut him down.
The looting in and around DC had been bad; hospitals, clinics, and urgent care centers were the hardest hit.
People needed medical supplies. But most of those places were also equipped against theft—their medications behind double locks or other kinds of not impossible, but difficult to break into spaces.
Especially when people had aliens on their ass.
But Blake still remembered the back door code for an urgent care right on the outskirts of a rich suburb. It would definitely have all the medications they needed.
And Alvarez knew it. “Could be ash.”
“Or it could have everything we could need, not just for us, but for the secondary sites,” Blake reasoned. “I think that would impress Irving.”
Beaumont choked, hiding his face from an unimpressed-looking Alvarez. He knew he was being manipulated. It was heavy-handed, but he could see Alvarez softening.
“I can’t guarantee your safety,” he said.
Blake bit back the urge to remind him that he had survived in DC longer than any of them, but he didn’t think it would help his case.
It was still early, but the unchecked wind was whipping through the parking lot.
It bit through his clothes and burned his ears, and Blake tried not to imagine what it would feel like without gloves.
His sacrifice for his daughter won’t be in vain.
Alvarez sucked his teeth before reaching down into the bed and hefting a helmet. He had no idea where it came from, but he caught it when he tossed it to him.
“Lennox is going to be pissed,” Beaumont hissed.
Alvarez grinned. “Get in.”