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“What did the vehicle look like that cut her off?” Malachi asked, focused.
The man’s face turned to Malachi, and he visibly winced.
Malachi didn’t miss a beat.
“He, uh, it was a car. Smaller. Older. I’m not sure about anything else. I’m not good with cars. I…I…I ride a moped.” He gestured to the moped that was pulled off to the side of the street behind him. “Really not good with cars. I just know it had really fancy, sparkly rims. I might be able to pick it out of a lineup…but that’s about all I can tell you.”
I nodded, then turned when the first ambulance pulled up.
I nodded my head at Drew who got out first, followed by Tai, another one of his buddies.
“Status?” Tai, a veteran firefighter/paramedic for the Kilgore Fire Department, asked.
I left Malachi talking to the witness and moved to the side of the car.
“DOA,” I said softly. “She’s got injuries not compatible with life…though I’m not the expert here. Gonna need y’all to…disentangle her first. I don’t even think you can get a lead on her to test if she has any heart rate.”
She was one with the dash of her car…and the motor.
And the entire thing smelled like it was burning flesh while it was at it.
It was quite disturbing, to say the least.
“We’ll figure it out,” Tai rumbled. “Drew, pull the medic up here and block the road.”
Drew did what he was asked, and soon a firetruck pulled in doing much the same on the other side.
I would’ve pulled my bike up to the back, but there was no need.
Not much could be seen due to the angle of the concrete pillar, as well as the two fire department vehicles.
More officers arrived on scene, one of which was an accident investigator.
After releasing the scene to him, Malachi and I took off, grabbing lunch before we headed back out on shift.
“That was fun,” Malachi said as he bit into a hot dog. “Do you think seeing that didn’t affect me all that much because my brain is wired weird?”
I thought about it for a long moment, then shook my head.
“If you were a SEAL like you said you were,” I said. “You’ve probably seen way worse than that,” I confirmed. “And, it’s possible, you’ve been the person to afflict those wounds in the first place.”
Malachi took a bite of his hot dog.
“I feel like something’s wrong with me,” he admitted. “My parents didn’t come see me in the hospital. I saw my still missing best friend’s parents before I saw my own. I have money in the bank account that I could live off of, yet I want to be a police officer. How does that make any sense?”
I didn’t have an answer for him.
“I wanted to be a police officer ever since I was a kid,” I said. “My dad’s a cop. Was on the SWAT team for years. He’s a hostage negotiator. He’s seen his fair share of fucked up. I’ve watched him, idolized him for a long time.” I paused. “It’s possible that you’ve just got the bug, the need to feel the adrenaline, and you can’t put that on pause, no matter if you have a memory or not.”
I found that I quite liked Malachi over the course of our shift together.
I also found that I was very protective of him when people would stare at him.
“This uniform invites people to stare,” he murmured, catching my rising anger as we left yet another accident scene. “They look at me, expecting something pretty, and end up getting a nightmare.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
False platitudes, I knew, would definitely not be welcome.
So, I stayed silent and hoped that was the right thing to do.
He grinned. “I enjoyed myself, Lock. I was told that you were the laid back one. I hope the rest of them are the same.”
I laughed then.
“There are some characters on this team,” I found myself saying. “Jonah, he’s my uncle, by the way, isn’t very talkative. In fact, it’s like pulling teeth sometimes, but he’s a good guy. You’ll like him. Then there’s Justice and Pace. Both good friends. Logan is an instigator, but I highly doubt that you won’t like him, too.”
We parked our bikes at the back of the station and were just dismounting when a black-haired woman caught Malachi’s eye.
I watched him go still and his head turn in confusion.
“What?” I asked.
“She’s…intriguing,” he said.
And then he was walking, following the woman into the front doors of the police station.
Since she was practically jogging, it took us a while to catch up.
When we finally did, it was to hear her talking to the receptionist, saying that she had to file a police report.
Malachi went absolutely still as he watched her and I wondered if there was something there—or had been at one time—that caused him to latch onto this woman the way he had.
