Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Arizona
A fter the unforgettable evening I had spent with Jameson, where I drifted off to sleep on his chest, feeling as if I were floating on a cloud, reality quickly jolted me back to earth with a sudden impact.
Everything about my day had started on the wrong foot.
Our phone alarms failed to go off for work since we were distracted by one another and forgot to set them. The power at Jameson’s house went out while I was in the shower, leaving me with wet hair and no way to dry it. To make matters worse, I hadn’t had any coffee, so by the time I arrived home to change into my uniform, a pounding headache had already set in. It only worsened when I discovered that my flower garden had been completely destroyed overnight. It looked like some wild animal had torn through the soil, searching for its next meal beneath the flowers.
As if that wasn't enough, Alex was in a bad mood when I arrived at work, and it didn’t take long before he got on my last nerve. I had always trusted him and believed that we worked well together, but during every call, it felt like his head wasn’t in the game, which wasn’t an attribute I tolerated on the job where time was often of the essence.
Alex tapped his knuckles on the front door before pressing the doorbell.
“Try the handle; he’s notorious for leaving it unlocked.”
“Hello? Malcolm?” I called out as I stepped inside his house. “It’s Arizona.”
The living room was empty. The Price is Right episode on television was muted, and a half-eaten sandwich was on the coffee table.
“Maybe he’s in the bedroom?” Alex suggested.
When the call came into the station, the dispatcher reported that the line disconnected after a person requested paramedics on scene. They attempted several callbacks, but there was no answer.
“Malcolm, are you here?” I quickened my strides as I rounded the corner from the hallway into his bedroom and found him unconscious on the bed, his hands lying peacefully over his chest.
“Malcolm,” I cried out and rushed to his side, dropping my jump bag at my feet. “Malcolm, can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?” I touched his shoulder and shook him gently.
When he didn’t respond, I leaned in closer, tilted his head back slightly, and lowered my ear to his mouth, hoping to feel his breath on my cheek and see the rise and fall of his chest. It was there but faint, as was his carotid pulse beneath my two fingers on his neck.
“His pulse is weak, and his breathing is shallow. I’ll check his blood sugar levels; you hook up the heart monitor.”
“Stay with me, Malcolm,” I pleaded, willing my voice to remain steady and calm under my increasing concern as I pricked his finger and drew blood. “Everything’s going to be okay. We’ve got you, I promise.”
I’d been so hyper-focused on Malcolm that I hadn’t noticed Alex wasn’t in the room with me.
“Alex!” I shouted.
Now wasn’t the time, I thought; Malcolm’s pulse wasn’t just weak from a sugar imbalance—it was weak because his heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen.
“Alex,” I called out again, straining to hear any signs of movement, wondering if he’d accidentally left the ECG monitor in the ambulance.
All I heard in return was silence.
With no other choice, I grasped the radio clipped to my shirt and asked, “Medic one-four-nine, do you copy?”
As the words left my lips, I heard my voice crackling through the static of a radio in the hallway.
“What the hell?” I didn’t have the luxury of time to question it; I needed assistance.
“Dispatch, this is medic one-four-eight requesting backup at the scene. I’ve got an unresponsive seventy-two-year-old male who is unconscious and has a history of diabetes. I suspect he’s suffered a cardiac episode, and my fellow medic has disappeared. Over.”
“Copy medic one-four-eight, sending additional backup now.”
I placed an oxygen mask over his face, adjusted the levels, and began prepping an IV line, as I needed to start pushing fluids to help with his circulation since his lips were beginning to turn blue and his skin was cold and clammy.
“Malcolm, can you hear me?”
There was still no response, so I checked his pupils; they were dilated and unresponsive to my light.
“Come on, Malcolm, stay with me,” I begged him while grabbing the glucose gel from my bag.
It was then that movement caught my peripheral vision, giving me pause. However, it wasn’t until a hand clamped down over my mouth and a sharp pinch pierced my neck that confusion quickly turned to panic.
My cries for help came out garbled as I struggled against an unyielding grip. I scratched and grabbed at the person’s hands and kicked my legs until I fell backward and bounced my head off something hard. Suddenly, a heavy fog enveloped me, causing my limbs to lose all sense of feeling. At the same time, an unfamiliar numbness took hold, and my eyesight faded until nothing remained but darkness.