Chapter 1
-:- CHAOS -:-
Ending my five-mile run along the river, I hear shouting and pick up my pace quickly. My reaction, as always, is to check out what is going on, see if I can help, or avoid a situation.
There is a small crowd all looking into the river. The river's overflowing thanks to all the recent rain. It’s rushing downstream higher and faster than I’ve ever seen it before.
A woman in jogging gear who had been running on the jogging path in front of me dives into the river and disappears under the water. As I reach the area, another woman is screaming and throwing her arms around.
“Help! Help!” I look at the woman and frown before I look at a man who is obviously taking it all in, but standing motionless, not making any attempt to help.
“My son, my son is in the river,” the woman wails, and the man steps closer to the river but I notice he doesn’t try to get in and help.
Nobody is attempting to help the woman who has dived into the river. The woman and boy have not surfaced as yet, and I’m checking the surface for any signs of where they are.
I am about to dive in when the woman surfaces a little further downstream. She is holding the child, and he’s coughing and crying. Thankfully, he’s traumatized but not dead as I thought he was going to be.
I rush to where they are, wade in fast and grab the child, quickly turning to hand the child to the guy. “Here, help you fuckin’ asshole,” I snarl. I make sure he has hold of the kid before turning in time to see the woman slip and smack her head against rocks on the side of the riverbank.
Not waiting any longer, I grab the woman as she slides under the water. Shit! She’s knocked out and has a nasty gash with blood pouring from it.
I struggle to climb out while holding the woman, but thankfully two more guys appear and give me a hand. “Call 911,” I say as I lay the woman down and check if she’s breathing.
“Is she okay? What happened?” One of the new guys asks as he squats beside me.
The wailing woman is holding her kid tight to her, and he’s creating a hell of a racket with his crying. That shows he’s okay thankfully, but the woman hasn’t asked how her kid’s hero is, and that’s what this woman is, a damn hero.
“She hit her head on a rock. Probably will have a concussion, but she’s breathing okay,” I reply as the guy looks up to his friend.
“On their way.” Squatting beside us this guy looks at the woman with a frown. “She just dove in and saved that kid with no thought to her own safety. The mother hasn’t even asked if she’s okay. People are such assholes.”
Nodding because I agree people are assholes and when someone does something like this they do it, not asking for thanks, they do it because it’s the right thing to do.
I move her hair, which is plastered to her head, and see a deep gash. “Do you have anything we can put on this to stem the bleeding?” I ask, looking at each of the men.
“I have a clean handkerchief,” the first guy says and digs one out of a briefcase I hadn’t noticed. In fact, the guy is in a suit, so he’s a businessman and may come in useful as a witness if one is needed.
The medics are here, and they quickly take the boy and mother into the ambulance. I’m getting into a temper, and I can feel it rising. If I blow, the fuckers will know it.
“Hey, the kid is fine. That fucking woman needs to wake the hell up!” the second guy with me shouts. “You need to come look at this lady, she’s unconscious…”
I grunt because I couldn’t agree with him more. I don’t, however, want to go into ‘Meat’ mode and throw a crazy at this point. But, you know, if I have to I am quite capable of doing just that.
A medic rushes over and quickly checks the woman. “How long has she been out?” he asks as he parts her hair.
“About fifteen to twenty minutes I would guess,” I reply. Taking my phone from the pocket of my joggers, I send a message to Wings.
Chaos: Going to the emergency with a woman who nearly drowned. I’ll be back when I can. Inform Target and Axel.
Yeah, I keep things short and sweet. No use wasting words or time. I get a thumbs up from Wings so know he’ll deal with everything.
“She has to go to emergency and be looked over. She’s obviously got a concussion, but how bad I don’t know. She’ll have to have a scan to see if her skull was cracked. We can’t wait to see if she has any brain swelling or bleeding.” The EMT shouts his work buddy over and they quickly gurney her and get her into the ambulance.
“You coming?” One of the EMTs asks, and I nod as I climb in with her. I take the purse she has fastened to her waist and check it out as best I can without making it obvious. Her drivers license shows she is Victoria Meadows, twenty-eight, 5’7”, green eyes. Her address is in a decent part of town.
My mind snaps to attention when the EMT asks who she is to me, and I’m about to say nobody when I blurt, “Girlfriend, we’ve not been together long, but gotta start somewhere!” I smirk, trying to cover up my snap decision.
“She’s a pretty lady,” the second medic says, then continues, “I hope she hasn’t any brain bleeds or swelling. The gash is damn nasty. I’ll tell whoever is on when we arrive not to cut a substantial chunk of her hair. They are too fucking happy to chop huge amounts of hair when they don’t need to.”
