31. Tyler
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
tyler
The shift starts easy enough that everybody gets restless. By mid-afternoon, half the crew is downstairs in the gym burning off energy before dinner, music drumming through the speakers while plates hit the floor every few seconds.
I’m halfway through a set when Mack comes back down from the captain’s office with a manila folder tucked under one arm. He drops it beside the water cooler on his way past like it weighs about as much as a grocery receipt before heading straight for the squat rack.
I glance toward it.
“About time.”
He gives me a nod before ducking under the bar.
“You’re telling me.”
A few feet away, Marco notices it too.
“Congratulations.”
Mack racks the bar and lets out a breath through his nose.
“Thanks.”
Coop wanders in carrying his protein shake, looking between the three of us.
“What are you ladies smiling about?”
Trick jerks his chin toward Mack.
“Show some respect.”
Coop frowns.
“For what?”
I grin.
“You’re looking at Boston’s newest official Chauffeur.”
Coop looks at Mack.
“You were already driving.”
“I was.”
“Then what’s different?”
Marco hooks his towel around the back of his neck.
“The city’s finally acknowledging it.”
Coop nods like he’s giving it serious consideration.
“Big guy’s buying dinner.”
Mack doesn’t even look up.
“Pretty sure it’s the other way around.”
“You’re the one with the promotion. Rules are rules.”
“Still not happening.”
Trick glances over from the rower.
“I’d support that motion.”
“I wouldn’t,” Mack says. “Besides, Ty’s cooking.”
I look over.
“Funny. I don’t remember volunteering.”
Coop claps him hard enough between the shoulder blades to rock him forward half a step.
“Seriously though. Congrats.”
Mack steadies himself.
“Thanks.”
Trick reaches over and smacks the back of Mack’s shoulder with his towel as he walks past.
“Proud of you.”
“Easy,” Mack mutters, shoving him away.
Coop points toward the envelope.
“You gonna frame it?”
“It’s paperwork.”
I shrug.
“Paperwork that comes with a raise.”
Mack rolls his eyes.
“You all done?”
Coop opens his mouth to answer.
The station tones beat him to it.
Music cuts off halfway through a song. Lockers slam open down the hall as dispatch starts feeding details through the speakers, every one of us already moving toward the bay before they finish the address.
MVA. Multiple vehicles. Possible entrapment.
Cars pull over before we’re through the intersection, horns blaring one by one as Mack leans harder on the siren.
By the time we turn onto Boylston, I can already see it from half a block out—a sedan stopped sideways across the near lane and an SUV folded into a light pole twenty feet past it, driver’s side compressed almost to the center console.
The sedan’s door hangs open, radio still running. Engine 9 is already standing at the driver’s window with a sheet.
Steam vents from beneath the SUV’s hood while the hazard lights flash across the pavement. Mack’s at the front of the SUV before my boots hit the pavement, eyes moving over the frame, the light pole, the angle of the front tire.
“Trick, driver’s side. Marco, tools. Tyler, passenger.”
I circle around and crouch at the passenger window and get my first look at her.
Mid-thirties. Dark hair. One hand still on the steering wheel like she can’t make herself let go.
Blood from a cut above her ear runs into the corner of her eye.
She keeps blinking against it, slow and confused.
In the back seat there’s a grocery bag—bananas, orange juice, a box of something I can’t read from here, spilled across the crumbled backseat.
“Hey.”
I get low enough that she has to find me.
“Right here. I’m Tyler. What’s your name?”
Her mouth moves before the word comes.
“Beth.”
“Okay, Beth. We’re going to get you out. Can you let go of the wheel for me?”
Her fingers release one at a time.
“Good. That’s it.”
I get a glove off and cover her hand with mine. A paramedic from the second unit moves in behind me without a word, close enough to monitor, one hand resting near Beth’s headrest. The hydraulic spreaders fire up, and the car shudders with the first bite of the jaws. Beth flinches.
“That’s just the tools. Keep your eyes on me.”
She does.
I keep talking—what we’re doing, what’s coming next. Anything that keeps her looking at me instead of the metal around her. Her breathing is fast and shallow and she keeps fighting the seatbelt with her free hand, fingers slipping every time she gets a grip.
“Leave the belt. We’ll get it. Just leave it.”
She stops pulling.
The spreaders work into the seam and the frame begins to give, metal popping and ticking as the gap opens.
Marco calls for another adjustment, Trick already moving like he has a hundred times before.
Mack reads the frame out loud in the low, even voice he uses when he’s already three steps ahead.
My eyes stay on Beth as they all move around me.
Then the whole driver’s side shudders.
Wrong.
“Mack—”
Mack’s already calling for Marco to back the spreaders off before I finish saying his name. Marco repositions and Trick moves to the hinge and the spreaders whine back to life.
I look at Beth.
“Almost there. You’re doing great.”
She nods and keeps her eyes on mine. Then she doesn’t.
“Beth.”
Her eyes close. The medic shifts forward and I feel his hands come in from behind my shoulder, bracing either side of her head.
“Beth…”
Nothing. Behind me Mack holds the frame while the jaws work another inch into the seam. I track Beth’s breathing and wait for the belt.
The belt clicks free.
“Got her.”
He forces the frame that last inch and holds it while I get both arms through and work Beth free—dead weight, but breathing. I’ll take it.
The EMTs are already beside me with the stretcher and I give her over but keep my hand on her arm the whole way across the pavement, her name lingering in the air until the ambulance doors close.
I turn around.
Marco’s already hosing off the spreaders before loading them back into the compartment while Trick starts the first notes for the report and Coop works with Boston PD reopening a lane, waving the first line of cars through one slow driver at a time.
Across the lane, the sheet is still on the sedan’s windshield.
Mack hangs back a few seconds longer beside the SUV, eyes moving from the light pole to the driver’s door, then down to the cribbing still tucked beneath the frame.
Then he turns and heads back to the truck. He climbs back in the driver’s seat, hits the airhorn, and pulls us into traffic, Boston moving out of his way while nobody in the cab reaches for the radio.
Nobody says much on the drive back. Mack keeps one hand loose on the wheel while Boston slides past outside, and by the time the station comes into view I’m still thinking about the groceries in Beth’s backseat.
Back at the station, everything falls back into routine. Gear gets stripped, bottles get swapped, reports get filed. Nobody has to think about any of it anymore, which is probably for the best because I’m not sure any of us have enough room left in our heads for much else.
Dinner happens somewhere in there, though I barely remember it. Coop makes an honest attempt at being himself again, gets maybe three words into whatever story he was about to tell, then looks around the table and lets it die before anyone else has the chance to. Nobody picks it back up.
Sometime after midnight, I’m still standing in the kitchen with a glass of water warming in my hand while Mack stands at the sink, working at the grease caught along one knuckle with the edge of a dish towel that isn’t doing much.
“Still on it?” I ask.
He glances up.
“Yeah.”
“Same.”
That’s all the conversation we manage for the rest of the shift. Mack drops the towel onto the counter, rubs the back of his neck, then reaches for his water. We just stand there until the sounds of the station start feeling normal again.