Chapter Ten Standby Mode #2
Trent tapped the dashboard twice and pulled out of their lay-by spot, tyres crunching over grit.
The grey buildings of Worthbridge blurred past the windscreen, housing blocks rising like concrete warnings.
Kids in hoodies loitered under the busted streetlights.
A dog barked from a fenced-in stairwell.
The air tasted metallic. He already knew something bad had happened.
They rolled to a stop outside Block C. Police tape cordoned off the stairwell, and a familiar uniform stood guard.
“Freddie.” Liv stepped out first. “Didn’t know we’d be getting the premium welcome service.”
Freddie’s frown softened when he saw them. “Kid’s in the stairwell, halfway up. Knife wound to the thigh, some defensive marks on the arm. But that’s not all.”
Trent grabbed the trauma kit. “What else?”
Freddie hesitated. “Burns. Hand and forearm. Says he got them cooking.”
Trent nodded, and they climbed the stairs fast but steady to where the kid slumped against a graffitied wall, eyes glassy, a thick trail of blood smearing across the tiles. He couldn’t have been older than fifteen.
“Hey.” Trent crouched beside him. “You with me? What’s your name?”
“Jordan.” The kid coughed.
“Alright, Jordan. We’re going to patch you up, yeah? You’re doing good. Stay with me.”
Trent worked quickly. Firm pressure on the wound, elevating the leg, every movement efficient. Mechanical. Liv was already running a set of vitals, quiet but focused beside him.
Then she peeled back the sleeve of the kid’s hoodie.
Burns.
Not fresh, but not old either. Blistered, bubbled, pink and raw, curling at the edges like melted plastic. The smell of char clung to the fibres.
Trent’s gut twisted .
“That didn’t come from any cooking accident.” He eyed the kid. “What’ve you been burning?”
Jordan looked away. Said nothing.
But the flinch in his shoulders, how his eyes darted to the shadows as if someone could be watching, said more than words ever could. It was the fear of who would come for him if he talked.
Trent looked up at Freddie. One glance at his furrowed brow was enough.
“I’ll call that in.” Freddie stepped into the alley.
Trent swallowed the grit in his throat and finished dressing the burns. Clean, careful, even though the knot in his chest made his hands want to shake, or wring the neck of this stupid, vulnerable kid who was clearly in over his head. But all he could do to help him was get him on the stretcher.
Liv radioed ahead to the hospital while Trent secured the belts and got the kid in the back of the ambulance.
Jordan lay motionless, limbs too long and too thin for someone still so young.
Trent kept his voice low as he worked, giving quiet reassurances more for his own sake than the kid’s.
Maybe if he spoke gently enough, it might undo some of the damage done.
Freddie appeared at the doors. “There’ll be officers waiting at the hospital. Safeguarding team too.”
Trent nodded. “Yeah. Good.”
Freddie tapped the side of the doors, once. Then again. Hesitated. Then leant in, brow pinched. “You, er…” he glanced off down the street, then back. “You call him?”
Trent focused on the boy’s burns, the warped edges of skin like candle wax, the mottled pain of someone who hadn’t known how to scream. Then, slowly, he met Freddie’s eyes.
“Tried.” He shrugged .
Freddie gave a knowing sigh. “Stubborn arsehole, Reece Morgan. Won’t ask for help, even if he’s on fire.”
“Or maybe he doesn’t need help.” Trent snapped off his gloves. “Maybe he’s not on fire.”
Freddie raised an eyebrow. “So what? You’re giving up the fight before you’ve even stepped in the ring?”
Trent snorted, nodded at the kid strapped beside him. “Better than ending up like this one. Hoping for something that’s never coming.”
“Some things are worth the fight though.”
Trent cocked his head. “You saying Reece is?”
Freddie flicked his gaze to the street, jaw working as if chewing on the irony. Of course, it was complicated. He’d walked away from Reece’s flirt-and-deflect game long ago for something steadier, something that stayed. Encouraging Trent now was like throwing a lifeline he’d once cut himself.
Still, after a moment, he said, “You’ll know when to give up… if that time ever comes.”
Then he was gone. Down the alley, back into the noise of blue lights and paperwork. Leaving Trent sitting there, adrenaline dulling, breath shallow. He scrubbed a hand down his face, pressing his knuckles to the bone beneath his eyes. His phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn’t check it.
Didn’t need to.
It wouldn’t be Reece.
Didn’t stop the hope though.
But that was dashed after he dropped Jordan at A&E, handed over to a specialist trauma nurse with Freddie’s team not far behind and Liv ducked off to debrief with the hospital crew, but Trent stayed back by the ambulance, fiddling with the jump seat straps longer than necessary and checked his phone .
Jamie .
“Fuck it.”
Instead of heading to the changing room to finish his shift, he cut through the back corridor, passed the vending machines, and ducked into a room marked Staff Welfare – No Public Access. No one batted an eye. Faces changed too often for names to stick.
He found who he was looking for in the breakroom off the loading dock. Lewis, third-year A&E reg, sat with his feet up, flicking through paperwork with the half-dead eyes of a man who hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours.
“You got a sec?” Trent asked.
Lewis didn’t look up. “Depends. Is this a ‘you owe me for covering your night shift’ sort of sec or a ‘you want something you shouldn’t’ sort of sec?”
Trent gave him a look.
Lewis sighed. “Jesus, Trent.”
“I’m not asking for the moon. Just a couple more.”
“That makes it the third time this month.”
Trent said nothing as the exhaustion pooled at the base of his spine.
Lewis rubbed a hand through his hair. “You need to talk to someone. Properly.”
“I’m talking to you,” Trent said with a small, tired smile.
Eventually, Lewis reached into his locker and handed over a plain blister pack. No questions asked. “Last time. After that, I don’t want to see you unless you’re bleeding or dying. Got it?”
“Crystal.” Trent hid the pills in his jacket as if shame could make them invisible.
Outside, dusk slipped its fingers around Worthbridge, casting the seafront in that soft, golden-pink light that always made the place look gentler than it really was. A pastel lie, told nightly.
He checked his phone again.
Still nothing.
Of course.
He visited Jamie, listened to his brother talk at length about freight schedules and locomotive paintwork.
He then went to the pub, listened to his friends talk over each other.
Kinks, gossip, the usual declarations of never texting exes (lies, all of them).
He smiled where expected. Laughed once or twice.
Then he went home, alone, Dev having called up the ex he’d said he wouldn’t ever go back to, but still fucked around with and was at their place, leaving him to listen to the stillness along with the steady, stupid thud of his own heart trying to fill the empty flat.
He sat on the edge of his bed in the dark, lamp off… waiting.
All he wanted was a second without noise. Without listening to anything. Fixing anything. Without the constant drag of feeling too much.
He opened the drawer. Reached for one of the many foil strips he already had.
Just one.
Not because he hurt, but because he couldn’t stand feeling anything anymore. Not the quiet. Not the ache Reece’s silence left behind. Not pretending to be fine.
He swallowed it dry.
Lay back on the mattress. Eyes on the ceiling.
And waited for the world to dim.
“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”