Chapter 22 #2
Reid is in the middle of a passionate monologue about whether Alanis Morissette's "Ironic" contains any actual irony when Blake's foot hits the brake.
The truck slows hard. Not a panic stop, but deliberate. Controlled. My coffee sloshes against the lid.
"What—" Reid starts.
"Vehicle." Blake's voice has gone flat. He's already pulling the truck onto the shoulder, gravel crunching under the tires. "Cliff side. Looks fresh."
I crane my neck to see past him. We're rounding a curve where the road hugs the mountainside, guardrails separating asphalt from a steep drop into pine forest. And there—maybe fifty yards ahead—a silver sedan sits at a wrong angle, its front end up on the concrete barrier.
The back wheels are still on the road, but barely. The whole car lists toward the drop.
Not good. Not at all.
Blake kills the engine and he's out of the truck before I can even get my seatbelt undone. Reid's hand lands on my shoulder from behind.
"Laine. Stay back until we know what we're dealing with."
"Reid, I'm a nurse—"
"I know." His voice is calm but firm. "And I need you. But let us assess first. That car is not stable."
He's right. I hate that he's right. I hate sitting here like a passenger in my own life while the men go handle things, but I don't know the first thing about stabilizing a car that looks like it's one sneeze away from rolling. So I get out and stand near the door like a very useful traffic cone.
Blake is already at the truck bed, hauling out supplies.
Road flares. Orange hazard triangles. A coil of heavy rope that looks like it could tow a boat.
Of course he has all of this. Of course Blake Lawson drives around with a full disaster kit like he's expecting the apocalypse on his Tuesday commute.
"Laine." He doesn't even look at me, just tosses a handful of flares in my direction. "Set these up. Fifty feet back, then another set a hundred. Both directions. Anyone comes around that curve too fast, they'll hit us."
I catch the flares. "On it."
"Stay on the road side," he adds. "Away from the edge."
I want to argue—I'm not fragile, I've worked trauma, I've seen worse than a car accident—but there's no time and he's not wrong. Someone has to manage traffic or we'll have a bigger disaster on our hands.
I sprint back the way we came, boots pounding asphalt.
The morning air burns my lungs, sharp with pine and diesel.
I crack the first flare and set it down, the red glow harsh against the gray road.
Fifty feet. Another flare. I keep going until I've got a line of them stretching back around the curve.
A minivan appears, slowing when the driver sees the flares. I wave them around, directing them to the opposite lane. They gawk as they pass, but they pass. Good enough.
I run back toward the accident, setting the second line of flares on the far side.
By the time I reach the truck again, Blake has the rope secured to his trailer hitch and is approaching the sedan in a low crouch, testing each step like the ground might give way beneath him.
I don't like them that close to the edge.
I want the people in the car to get help, but not at the expense of my guys.
The concrete barrier is cracked where the car hit it. Spider-web fractures spreading out from the point of impact. The sedan's front bumper is wedged into the gap, and that's the only thing keeping it from sliding over.
Reid is at the driver's side window, and I hear his voice—calm, steady, the one he uses on calls. "Ma'am? Can you hear me? I need you to stay very still. Don't move, okay? We're going to get you out."
A woman's voice comes back, high and thin with panic. "My daughter—she's in the back—she won't answer me—"
There's a kid in there. My hands go still at my sides. Everything in me wants to move, to do something, but I make myself stay back and give them room to work. What am I going to do, shove Blake out of the way? Climb onto the sedan myself? So I just stand there. Useless.
Blake loops the rope around the sedan's rear axle, his movements quick and sure. "Reid. Status."
"Driver's conscious, seems mobile. Passenger in the back seat, child, unresponsive." Reid's voice doesn't waver. "Car's not stable enough to open doors. We need to secure it first."
"Working on it." Blake pulls the rope taut, testing the tension. "Give me thirty seconds."
Thirty seconds. I count them in my head because if I don't count, I'll think about the kid.
About how "unresponsive" is a word that covers a lot of territory, and most of that territory is bad.
The driver's talking—I can hear her through the cracked windshield, high and reedy, asking about her baby, and that word lands like a fist between my ribs.
Baby.
Not now. Focus.
Blake's hands are steady. I want to yell at him to hurry up. But I know rushing is not the right move here.
I check my watch. Fifteen seconds.
The sedan groans against its perch, a low metallic complaint that sends my stomach into my throat.
The driver screams. I lean closer to the window, without touching the frame, keeping my voice in that register I use when everything's going sideways and the patient needs to believe someone has this handled.
"Ma'am, I need you to stay as still as you can. We're securing the vehicle right now. You're going to be okay."
I don't know that. I don't know any of that. But I say it like gospel because that's the job—you project certainty into the void and hope to God reality catches up.
Twenty-five seconds.
Reid's expression shifts. He nods once, short and sharp. "Stay on the road side. Don't touch the car until Blake gives the all-clear."
Blake is back at the truck, wrapping the rope around the hitch in some kind of knot that looks complicated and unbreakable. He gets behind the wheel and inches the truck forward until the rope goes tight. The sedan groans, metal on concrete, but it stops listing.
"Secured," Blake calls out. "It'll hold. Go."
Reid and I move as one.
The driver is a woman in her forties, mascara streaked down her face, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. She's got a cut on her forehead that's bleeding freely, but head wounds always look worse than they are.
"Ma'am, I'm Reid, I'm a Paramedic. This is Laine, she's a nurse. We're going to help you, okay?"
She doesn't move. "My daughter—please—she won't talk to me—"
"We're going to check on her right now." Reid's hand is on the door handle. "I need you to unlock the doors for me. Can you do that?"
A click. The locks disengage.
Reid eases the driver's door open, and I circle to the rear passenger side. The car rocks slightly, and I hear the rope creak, but it holds.
I pull open the back door.
A girl, maybe eight or nine, is slumped against the window. Her seatbelt is still fastened. There's a jagged cut on the temple, and a goose egg forming underneath it. The blood is everywhere.
My training kicks in like a switch flipping. Everything else falls away—the cold, the fear, the precarious angle of the car. There's only the patient. Only what needs to be done.
"Pediatric head trauma," I call to Reid. "Unresponsive but breathing. Pulse is strong."
Reid is helping the mother out of the front seat, one arm around her waist. "Spinal?"
I'm already running my hands along the girl's neck, feeling for deformity, swelling. "No obvious injury. But we should immobilize just in case."
"Agreed." He gets the mother clear of the vehicle and guides her to sit on the guardrail, far from the edge. "Ma'am, I need you to stay right here. Don't move. We're going to take care of your daughter."
The woman is sobbing, but she nods.
Reid jogs back to me.
"What do you need?" he asks.