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“Can’t get a line started on her. She’s no doubt got some internal bleeding going on. From what I could tell, she wasn’t seat-belted in and got fuckin’ thrown. He was holding her in his arms when I arrived, begging for someone to help her, but he wouldn’t give her to me.”
Son of a bitch.
“It’s been a long time, but let me try the line.” I reach my hand out for the needle. In our medical classes, I usually had the best luck when it came to kids. Probably because I was used to dealing with Trinity.
“Go for it, LT. Can you ride with me? Ambos are short-handed tonight. That’s why I’m by myself.”
“Y’all gonna be okay?” I yell out to the group.
“We got this,” a few respond back to me.
Moving my eyes back to where I’m trying to place the line and sticking my tongue between my teeth, I focus. “I’m in; give me a bag.” I reach over, taking the bag of fluids and holding them up. “Let’s go.”
Together, we get her into the ambulance.
“Do you want to drive?” He asks.
“Yes, I’ll get us there. You have better medical knowledge than I do.” Divide and conquer is how I prefer to work with all of my crew. It’s how we’re able to get so much done with a smaller staff.
As I sprint around the side of the ambulance, I hear raised voices and what appears to be flesh against flesh.
“Check it out,” Chance yells. “Be quick about it, though.”
Going back around, there are cops fighting with the father, trying to get him under control. “I didn’t mean to do it!” He’s screaming. “You have to let me go with her.”
“You don’t deserve to go with her.” The oldest is standing over him, yelling.
The scene isn’t good and it’s getting more heated by the moment. The oldest kid isn’t doing anyone any favors. Running over to him, I grab him around the waist. “Look, my man, you’re not doing anything for your sister right now. He’s made a mistake.” I point over to his dad. “You yelling at him isn’t going to make a difference. Come with your sister. She’s going to need someone she knows when she wakes up.” Grabbing him by the back of the shirt, I drag him over to the ambulance. “You ride shotgun.”
“Cam, we’ll be behind you with the other kids,” Noah, one of the cops, yells over. “Just get her to the hospital.”
“Got it. Get in, kid.” It takes longer than I want, but we finally get on the way, lights and sirens blaring. The kid beside me is sniffling and I try to imagine what I would need in his situation. One time when I was a newly single-dad, I had to rush Trinity to the emergency room. With any other child, I would’ve been able to handle the situation with a clear head. Knowing it was my own daughter was daunting and made me question everything I was trained for. More than anything, I’d wanted someone to talk to me and take my mind off the situation at hand. “What happened here tonight?”
“He drinks.” His voice is flat and unemotional. “Especially when Mom’s at work. He expects us to keep it quiet and not tell her what happens.”
“And do you?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “It’s not worth the argument with him.”
“Has he ever raised a hand to you?”
“No, but he’s also never gotten this drunk before. We begged him…”
He stops. I can’t imagine how he’s dealing with this. As I slow down to go through an intersection, the sound of a hand hitting the dashboard startles me. Looking over, the kid has tears trailing down his face, his mouth screwed up in a frown. “Let it out, man. Do what you need.”
“He’s a fuckin’ asshole. All he cares about is drinking. I tried to get him to stop, to think about what he was doing. But, like always, he didn’t. He never does. We all knew he was going too fast when we felt it go up on two wheels. I turned around to tell them all to buckle up and, as they were doing it, we hit something.” He rubs at the tears on his face. “It felt like we’d never stop rolling. I could hear all of them screaming, asking what happened, and he wouldn’t answer. He’d passed out or something. I could see her from where I was sitting, could tell something was wrong. I scrambled out to help her but, when I got to her, she was barely breathing. There was so much blood.” He inhales a shaky breath. “I didn’t know how to help her. I always know how to help her.”
We park at the hospital emergency bay. “Listen to me. You did the best you could and that’s all anyone can ask for.”
“I tried,” he cries.
Nurses come out and it’s then that I hear the screams of what sounds like a wounded animal. “Cecily! Oh my God!”
“That’s my mom,” he whispers. “I hoped she wouldn’t see this.”
I can’t even imagine what she’s feeling right now. The only thing I want to do is get home and hug Trinity as hard as I can.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
