Sacrifice. Brigid Kemmerer
looked at her. Blue eyes, their brightness dimmed a bit from exhaustion. Blond hair cut just above her shoulders, gone flat and tucked behind her ears. She’d lost her coat somewhere along the line and sat there in a T-shirt, worn red suspenders, and reflective pants. Soot smudges were everywhere. He wanted to pull her into his lap and not let go, to reassure himself that there was something in his life that couldn’t disappear between one heartbeat and the next.
Then the light was in his eyes and he couldn’t see anything.
“You really need a trip to the hospital,” she said quietly.
“My eyes are fine.” He did sound like he had gravel for lungs. He cleared his throat. It hurt. He wasn’t sure whether to blame that on the near-drowning or the smoke inhalation. Probably both.
“I’m not worried about your eyes.” She lowered the flashlight and clicked it off. “You need a chest X-ray.”
No, he didn’t. He might not be all the way healed, but Nick’s power over air had done its work. What he needed was to get out of here.
What he wanted was to hold Hannah’s hand against his face and not let go. What he wanted was to tell her everything.
And yet, he didn’t.
“I’m not going to the hospital.” He wanted to fidget, but there was nothing to fidget with. He dug his fingers into the edge of the stretcher mattress.
“I don’t know how you’re sitting up talking to me. Are you aware we were calling for someone to put a tube down your throat so you could breathe?”
Michael didn’t look at her. The panic of the moment he’d woken was still too fresh. He wondered if he would’ve been able to stop the earthquake if he’d woken up strapped to a gurney with plastic tubing shoved into his lungs.
Hannah finally sat back, letting her hands fall to her lap. “They’ll make you sign something, if you refuse treatment.”
Was that supposed to be intimidating? “Fine. I’ll sign whatever so I can get out of here.”
She frowned, and Michael kept his eyes on the rack beside her head, regretting the sharpness of his tone. His fingers were lined with soot and dirt. It felt as if his swim in the creek had happened hours ago. Days, even.
She didn’t move. He didn’t either.
Silence fell between them, punctuated by shouted orders from outside along with bursts of static-laced information from her radio. He didn’t know the codes or the lingo, but then he heard, “I’ve got three possible DOAs in house two. Request assistance. Over.”
Michael rubbed his hands over his face. He didn’t know which one was house two, but he knew all his neighbors. Would it be the Stapleys, the young couple who’d only lived here a year, the ones with a new baby? Or maybe the Mellisarios. They had three kids. Sarah, John, and little Andrew. Michael remembered them coming to the house for Halloween—
His chest tightened, and he worried he was going to lose it again, like he had in the front yard. He tried twice to make his voice work. “Can you—are you allowed to turn that off?”
She turned a dial on the radio. It didn’t go silent, but almost. “Your house is the only one that wasn’t actively burning. How did you stop it?”
He swallowed. He’d never be able to sit here and lie to her for long, but at least this answer was easy. “I don’t know.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
He remembered going through the back door. He remembered crawling through smoke and darkness. He remembered breaking glass and splintering wood.
He shook his head.
“We found you in the kitchen,” said Hannah. “Do you remember getting there?”
“Someone broke in while I was looking.” Michael looked at her. “I think they did something . . .” He tried to force his brain to work, but his moments in the house were unclear, his thoughts as fragile and fleeting as wisps of smoke. “Did you find anyone else in there?”
“No.” She paused. “You might have heard me and Irish. We broke in to search the house. We smashed out the windows to let smoke out, then came through the door.”
Could that have been it? Could he have mistaken their rescue for an attack?
Michael drew back and rubbed at his face again. Sweat and dirt made his eyes sting.
Hannah spoke again, her voice quiet. “If you won’t go to the hospital, would you at least let me call a paramedic to listen to your lungs? I don’t want—”
“Hannah. No.” He started to shift off the stretcher.
She caught his arm. “Me, then. God, at the very least, let me get a pulse-ox to make sure you’re actually getting some oxygen.”
He sighed and eased back onto the thin mattress. He wondered if she realized how easily she could get him to follow orders, just by letting him feel her skin against his.
Hannah flipped on a machine behind her, then snapped a plastic clip onto his right index finger. She pulled a stethoscope out of a tiny cabinet, then shifted to sit beside him on the stretcher.
It put her thigh against his, and even though he wore soaked jeans and she wore bunker pants, he imagined he could feel her warmth.
“Just breathe normally.” She plugged the earpieces into her ears.
He nodded. It took everything he had not to lean into her.
Then her hand slid under the back of his shirt, and she might as well have hit him with a live wire.
“Sorry.” She winced and pulled the stethoscope away. “Cold hands?”
As if that were the problem. He shook his head quickly. “No. It’s fine.”
She put the metal and plastic back against his skin, her fingers warm where she touched him. Michael breathed and wished his worries could condense to the space inside this ambulance, just for a moment.
She moved the stethoscope for a few heartbeats, then again. Her other hand rested on his bicep, gentle and reassuring. Michael shut his eyes and tried to hold still.
“You okay?”
Her voice was very close. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “No.”
“You stopped breathing.”
“Oh. Sorry.” He swallowed and took a deep breath.
“If I’m making you uncomfortable—”
“Never.” He looked at her. “Never, Hannah.”
She studied him, her eyes full of uncertainty. “I thought you—I thought—” She broke off and looked away. He watched her throat jerk as she swallowed. “I thought I was going to have to give your brothers some very bad news.”
The words—the wavering emotion in her voice—hit him hard. He’d spent so many years worrying about everyone else that it was a shock to hear someone express worry over him.
He realigned everything she’d said to him since the moment he’d woken up, and everything he’d said to her.
Fine. I’ll sign whatever so I can get out of here.
He put his hands over the place where her fingers rested on his arm. He wanted to do more than that, to collapse on her shoulder, to curl up and clutch her against him, but if he fell apart now, he’d never get it together.
He ducked his head and kept his voice low. “How do my lungs sound, Doctor?”
After a breath, she rested her forehead against the side of his face. She smelled like soot and ash and sweat, but under that was something warm and sweet, like sugar cookies. When she blinked, her lashes fluttered against his cheek. “I’m not a doctor.”