Chapter 4
4
Asher
This job came with things made of nightmares. The things I’ve seen both here and abroad haunted me every time I closed my eyes. How simple fender-benders could quickly become a car flattened and torn to pieces by a drunk driver. A faulty stove could easily become charred flesh.
The details numbed me after a while, because if I lingered on it too long, getting out of bed and doing it all over again quickly became paralyzing.
I didn’t expect her to be alive. I wasn’t able to check on anyone else as we carried Mr. Fleet to the awaiting ambulances. Five of them had staged over at the far end of the festival, safely away from any other possible flammables. More ambulances were en route. So was the coroner.
Chatter over the radio confirmed two victims. It wasn’t clear, but they may have been from the first food truck.
We even had two helos on standby in case we needed Medevac. I grabbed the toppled canopy blocking the area and dragged it out of my way.
Relief flooded me as I took in the sight. She was alive, huddled on the ground next to several crushed boxes of flowers. Long, raven-black hair covered her shoulders as she rocked herself back and forth, over and over again. Her palms were pressed tightly over her ears in an attempt to drown out the world around her.
I got down next to her as quickly as possible. “Miss, are you hurt?”
She lifted her head, her eyes snapped up to look at me, but her breathing was erratic and rapid. Those blue eyes?—
Shit . She was hyperventilating. “Easy. You’re okay. Just breathe. Easy. In through the nose. Out through your mouth. That’s it.”
Apparently, she didn’t believe me. After a few breaths, more crackling and popping echoed out around us. She squeezed her eyes shut and curled in on herself. That simple action was enough to punch me in the gut.
She was clutching her head, but I didn’t see any blood, so I tried one more time. “Miss, are you hurt?”
When she didn’t answer, my partner tried. “Hey. My name is Hawk. We need to know if you’re hurt.”
She was shaking badly now. Her hands trembled as she lowered them from her ears and raised her head to look at me. She opened her mouth to speak, but another loud pop from the fires made her curl back into a ball.
“Easy. Easy. You’re okay. I promise we’re here to help. Are you hurt?” I asked again.
“My chest hurts.” She tugged on her shirt, gasping. “I can’t… I can’t… catch my breath.”
Odd, but I felt the same way, as if her pain was echoing through my lungs. I scanned the area all around her, but nothing was burning. No signs of metal or anything that could have impaled her.
I examined her back and arms for blood or foreign objects while Hawk pitched boxes out of our way.
“Anything?” Hawk asked.
I was relieved nothing was visible, but that didn’t mean there weren’t internal injuries. The smoke was thick and blowing our way with the breeze. “Clear.”
I moved some of her long, silky hair, checking her scalp for any signs of injury. Pieces of that first truck had launched out like shrapnel. “Scalp and neck are clear too.”
She finally looked at me, darting her eyes from my face to Hawk’s and back again. She was absolutely gorgeous. Full, pink lips. Soft, smooth skin. A quick guess, but she was probably in her mid to upper twenties. My mask interfered with seeing her clearly, but that nagging feeling reared its ugly head again, and the sense of deja vu consumed me.
I couldn’t stop looking at her. Not only because she was in distress, but there was something familiar about her. I just didn’t know what it was. I’d remember those blue eyes and jet-black hair if I had met her before. The part of me that had felt numb and lost suddenly blazed hot through my veins, distracting me.
When Hawk moved in closer, she quickly scurried closer to me, grabbing ahold of my fire jacket. I felt her hands clutch through the heavy fabric, squeezing onto my arm.
“Can you tell us your name?” Hawk asked again.
Our frightened patient parted her lips as if ready to tell us, but another loud pop had her shutting down again.
A quick, shared glance between me and Hawk made it clear: we needed to move. Fast.
I pulled my mask up—something I was never, ever supposed to do—but I needed our patient to grasp the seriousness of the situation. “Miss, look at me,” I ordered more firmly. The second I had those blue eyes on mine, I said, “I need to see if you’re hurt. I need to move you if you aren’t. But I need you to trust me. I swear I won’t let anything happen to you. Understand?”
When she finally nodded at me, I motioned for Hawk to get the board under her.
“No!” she shrieked, practically throwing herself into my chest. Her arm wrapped around the back of my neck, holding on for dear life.
Hawk froze, assessing her panic just like I was. He gave me a quick shrug.
I slid my hand under her long legs, hooking her knees. “I’m going to lift you up. Hey, look at me.” She quickly obeyed. “Hold onto me. Do not let go. If anything hurts, you tell me immediately, okay?”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I hefted her up and got to my feet; Hawk and Atta on my heels with all our equipment in hand. We quickly traversed the parking lot, weaving through the maze of cars and onlookers, until we reached the area set up to triage anyone wounded.
Two EMTs were working on another woman who had sustained second degree burns on her arm. One look from my partner and I knew Hawk’s earlier comment about barbecue was a long-lost thought.
“I need everyone to back up. Nothing to see here,” Sarah, the EMT out of Station 42, ordered loudly. She waved at us to bring our patient over to her.
Another medic on their crew—an odd guy I kind of knew named Mike, pulled new gloves on. “Status?”
I ran through what I knew. “Shortness of breath. Chest pain. Possible smoke inhalation. No visible injuries. No entrapment or impalements. No crush wounds. She was about thirty feet from the initial blast.”
Mike grabbed their gurney. “Set her here.”
I shifted her a bit in my arms, trying to see if she cried out in pain anywhere. Her hand clutched tighter into my jacket but beyond that, she was just still frozen in terror. “Hey, don’t be scared,” I whispered to her. “I know him. He’s a good medic. We just need to know if you’re hurt. I’m going to set you down. You’re okay.”
Those amazing eyes narrowed on me as if she was sizing me up for lies. I gave her a wink, hoping that would ease her somehow. “Trust me. We’re going to take good care of you.”
“Hey there. Can you tell me your name? Mine is Michael.”
Good luck with that. We’ve already asked her several times, I thought to myself.
“Don’t be scared,” Michael said. “We’re here to protect you.”
What the hell? No, I’m here to protect her. Can’t you see she’s holding onto me for dear life? Why does everyone think they need to protect her. I’m not going to hurt her. I’m the one keeping her safe.
What the hell is wrong with me? I shook my head. Shit was still popping and burning near where we pulled her out. The stench of burnt rubber was everywhere.
Her blue eyes locked on me before returning to Michael. In a faint voice, she said, “My name is Sil. Sienna.”
Sienna . I let the name sift through my memories. No, I’d never met a Sienna before.
Sarah, Michael’s partner, was all business. She pushed their gurney even closer, locking it so I could set Sienna on it.
Sienna shifted in my arms. “It’s okay. They just need to check you out.”
She gripped harder. “Will you stay with me?”
“I’m right here,” I found myself admitting out loud. “But they need to make sure you’re not hurt, and I need to keep looking for others who might need help.”
Her grip on me eased a bit. “Okay.”
I set her gently onto the gurney, making sure she wasn’t going to wiggle away or fall.
Sarah immediately hooked an oxygen mask on her while Michael started getting her BP. She was safe and getting treatment, but for some reason I felt locked in place.
“150 over 90,” he said under his breath.
Within seconds, Sienna was in the back of the ambulance.
Hawk nudged me. “Yo, Hayes. Let’s go. What’s up with you?” He waved his arm for me to get moving. “Come on, dog. We still have work to do.”
Two hours, later, we were finally cleared to leave the scene. The fires were all out and what was left of three food trucks sat in the lot like burnt-out metal shells.
I put the last of our equipment away, functioning purely on muscle memory. The annual festival everyone looked forward to every year was now nothing more than a scarred blemish in the huge mall parking lot.
Hawk opened his jacket, getting some relief from the heat. “You still thinking about that girl? She’s gonna be okay.”
My thoughts were none of his business.
He locked the cabinet next to me that held our fire axes. “If it’s any consolation, she was checking you out just as hard.”
“I was not checking Sienna out,” I said as I walked away. I hadn’t even noticed anything about her except her face. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. No, that was a lie. I’d taken in every aspect of her in ways that went beyond inappropriate. Everything about her was sin in a tight package. Carrying her in my arms had been replaying in my mind. I had to figure out how I knew her or it was going to bother me all night.
“We on a first name basis now with our patients? You were looking at her pretty hard, Bro. Sure you weren’t thinking about what she’d look like naked, Hayes?” Hawk asked. “Because she was sexy as fuck.”
I fought the urge to punch him and knock that shit-eating grin off his face. “Between the two of us, you’re the player, not me,” I snapped.
“Was,” Hawk replied. “I was a player. Now, the only woman for me is Skye. Maybe it will come to you tonight when you’re scrolling through your spank-bank stash.”
“Just shut up. You’re the one taking long fucking showers every night.”
“Hey, never say never. Remember that guy—Valentini?” Hawk chuckled as he tried to catch up to me.
“Yeah, and if they hadn’t transferred his ass, I was going to put Superglue in his lube bottle. The station isn’t where you do that shit. I don’t care how horny of a fucker you are. Wait till you get home.”
“That shit would have been funny,” Hawk replied as he joined the rest of the crew.
It was pitch black outside by the time we were all packed and pulling back into the station. The whole scene had been bad, but at least we were all whole, well, except for the ache burning in my chest. Hawk was still strapped into his seat, eyeing me over. His elbow knocked my arm. “Still thinking about her?”
Fuck, was I that transparent? My best friend was starting to grate on my last nerve. “Who? Your mom?”
“Very funny. No, Sienna. Hey, Marchy, do you recall any bunker bunnies down at Ruby’s by the name of Sienna?” Hawk asked.
The names these guys called women made my head spin.
“I prefer to call them fireflies,” Cooper “Marchy” March replied as he climbed out of the truck. He stood there thinking. “I don’t recall a firefly by that name.”
“I think the appropriate name is Hose Hoes,” Atticus “Atta” Matson chimed in low.
“Cap’s gonna send you all back to sexual harassment training if you don’t shut the fuck up,” I snapped. “Whatever you want to call them, that girl wasn’t one of them.”
“What girl?” Marchy asked, leaving the door wide open for Hawk to give everyone the rundown.
One thing was for sure: I knew her. Not her name or face, but something ; otherwise, this gnawing feeling in my gut wouldn’t be there. Now, all I had to do was find her again and figure it out. I knew where I could start though: before the explosions, she was selling flowers in the Four Seasons Florist booth.