Chapter 1 #3
“I know.” Ethan’s voice was grim. “C-collar. Easy with the head. Check her pupils. I’m getting a line.”
Carla knelt beside the woman, her hands moving with practiced efficiency despite her obvious confusion. “Pupils equal and reactive,” she reported. “Breathing shallow, resp rate about twelve.”
Fire trucks roared into the driveway, their sirens cutting through the night.
Firefighters were already jumping out, running hoses, shouting orders.
And right behind Engine One, another ambulance.
Medic Twelve out of Station Four, dispatched as mutual aid.
Ethan had never been so relieved to see a second crew in his life.
“Medic Twelve!” he shouted, waving them over. “I’ve got four patients. Unconscious adult female, head trauma, she’s your priority. I’ll take the man and the kids.”
The Medic Twelve crew hit the ground running, their stretcher rattling across the frozen grass toward the woman. Ethan gave a ten-second handoff and then he let her go, hoping she would be okay and grateful the fire had spared her face.
Finally, they turned their attention to the rescuer.
“Sir, I need you to look at me.” Carla leaned over him, fitting an oxygen mask over his face. “Can you tell me your name?”
The man’s lips moved. “Caleb,” he rasped, his voice like gravel. “Caleb … Byrne.”
“Good. Caleb, do you know where you are?”
“Tennessee.” A pause. The man’s brow furrowed, confusion clouding his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Close enough. Virginia, actually, just over the border. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Fire,” Caleb said, as if it wasn’t obvious from the soot covering him head to toe, from the burns on his arms, from the smell of smoke that clung to him like a shroud. “Went in … Got the kids … And the woman … Then …” He trailed off, his brow furrowing. “Then … I don’t know.”
Ethan exchanged a glance with Carla, who was already setting up an IV line. Smoke inhalation, possible head injury, gaps in memory? All expected after what this man had been through. “You don’t remember coming out of the house?”
“I was … trapped,” Caleb insisted, and there was strength in his voice now despite how battered his body clearly was. “Second floor … Stairs collapsed … I couldn’t … there was no way out.”
Ethan’s chest tightened. The man believed it. You could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice. He genuinely thought he’d been trapped with no way out. And maybe he had been. Maybe that’s why neither Ethan nor Carla had seen them emerge. Maybe?—
“Well, you’re out now,” Ethan said gently, adjusting the oxygen mask. “Just breathe for me, okay? Nice and slow. We’re going to take care of you.”
But Caleb pushed the mask away with his good hand, the tubing tugging from the portable tank at the Ethan’s knee. His eyes snapped toward the darkness past the burning structure and their vehicles. “Where did he go?”
“Who?” Ethan asked, following his gaze. All he could see were firefighters, fire trucks, the smoking ruins of the house.
“The man who—” Caleb’s voice caught. He seemed to be struggling for words, for how to explain something he himself didn’t understand as his chest heaved in search of oxygen. “The man in the … white shirt … He was just here.”
“Sir, there was no one else here when we arrived,” Ethan said carefully. “Just you and the three victims. You did an amazing thing tonight, but you need to let us help you now, okay?”
“He was here,” Caleb said, but even as the words left his mouth, doubt flickered across his face. Like he was questioning his own memory, his own sanity.
Ethan had seen that look before. On soldiers in Kandahar who swore they’d seen things that couldn’t be explained. On patients who’d been through trauma so severe their minds had filled in the gaps with impossibilities.
Focus on the patient. That’s what matters.
He pulled the oxygen mask down over Caleb’s face again, and this time he didn’t fight it.
Clean air flooded his lungs, and Ethan watched the rigid tension ease from his body.
They lifted him onto the gurney and rolled him toward the ambulance.
Carla was already starting an IV while snapping the monitor leads into place.
Once secured, Ethan stood at the back doors of the ambulance, looking out at the scene one more time before they closed up and transported. The smoking ruins of the house. The fire trucks. The extra ambulance. The darkness beyond.
And there, at the very edge of the light, maybe a man?
He blinked, and the figure was gone. If he had ever been there at all.
“Let’s go,” he said to Carla, his voice rough. “They all need the hospital.”
The doors closed. The ambulance pulled away, sirens wailing as they raced through the night toward the regional medical center.
Ethan sat in the back, monitoring his three remaining patients.
The children were both alert now, scared but breathing easier.
And Caleb … Caleb’s eyes were closed, but Ethan could see his lips moving slightly behind the oxygen mask.
Like he was talking to someone. Or praying.
Or trying to remember something just out of reach.