American Heroes: The Complete American Heroes Collection

by Teagan Kade

“She’s coding!” the Doc shouts, hitting the crash button.

  I turn to see three nurses rushing towards the bed.

  Still, her heart rate continues to plummet.

  I don’t know why, but I reach back for her hand, squeezing.

  Almost immediately her heart rate begins to stabilize, slowly rising until it levels out.

  Doctor Grant reaches over the monitor to switch off the alarm. He looks to me and a couple of rather bemused nurses. “On second thought, Meyers, stay right where you are.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  SOFIA

  Fog blankets everything. Within it I can see shapes and colors, but they do not take on any defined form. They remain ghostly and distant.

  I’m trying to find my way through it, but there’s no end.

  Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I begin to pull through the mist, slowly stepping towards those shapes and colors that now seem like something real and tangible.

  A voice enters this world. Is it calling for me? Warning me? I don’t know, only that I want to make my ways towards it.

  The further I go, the clearer the voice becomes, but whatever I do I can’t seem to ‘catch’ it.

  I pull with my hands outstretched, dragging the fog behind me until it clears for good and I lift myself free.

  Confusion—that’s the first thing that hits me when I open my eyes. They’re so heavy. My entire body is heavy, as if I’m being slowly pressed downwards.

  I’m lying down. I figure that much.

  It’s bright, hurts my eyes, this new world.

  “While Kim prepares for their next child, Kayne said there was no beef between him and infamous rapper wha—”

  The voice stopped.

  The voice.

  It takes all my energy to shift my head sideways to locate the source of the sound. There’s a man sitting there in a red jacket, his dark hair tussled and a copy of something called the National Enquirer in his hand.

  I don’t recognize him. I don’t recognize where I am.

  I don’t recognize anything except the sound of his voice.

  “You’re awake,” he says, placing the magazine down and standing.

  I notice he’s holding my hand. I wonder why.

  He smiles. I don’t think there’s any malice in it. “You really had me going there for a while.”

  My mouth is so dry when I go to speak my lips can barely part. “W— W-where am I?”

  The smile fades, concern sketching itself over his features. “You’re at Grand Mass Hospital. You were in an accident.”

  “An accident?” I ask, but it’s little more than a whisper.

  He points to the side of my head. “You took a bullet to the head, but you’ve pulled through. That’s a hell of a fucking feat, Jane, let me tell you.”

  The confusion’s muddying everything, scattering every thought that comes to mind. “Jane?”

  “I don’t know your name,” he says.

  My name? Jane? Nothing is making sense. This whole thing is insane. I want to go back to the fog. At least it was simple there.

  “I— I—” I start to the stutter, looking around, something coming free from my head. An alarm starts to sound—ding, ding, ding. It’s too loud. It’s too white. I can’t get free.

  “Help!” I screech out, my throat sandpaper, a hot tear cutting a path down my cheek.

  I start to thrash, the alarm getting louder and louder, faster.

  I can’t do this. I need to get away, get back… I don’t know.

  Two strong arms hold me down. “Hey,” the man says, “hey now, it’s okay. You’re safe. You’re fine. Listen to my voice. Breathe.”

  I do as The Voice says, drawing in a rattling breath and settling back into the bed.

  “You’re safe,” he repeats. “No one’s going to hurt you while I’m here.” He squeezes my hand. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

  I nod shallowly.

  Another man in a white coat has appeared at the end of the bed. He looks to the man with the voice, who tells him, “She’s okay, Doc. She’s stable.”

  ‘Doc’ comes forward leaning over the bed and shining light into my eyes. “My name is Doctor Grant, Miss…?” He looks to the other man.

  The man in the red jacket shakes his head.

  The light returns, swinging from one eye to the next. I want it to go away. “Do you know where you are?”

  The Voice told me. I try to recall. “A hospital?”

  The man in red holds a straw to my lips. “Sip, slowly.”

  I do as he says, the cold liquid a welcome relief.

  The man who introduced himself as Doctor Grant continues to rattle off questions, but I don’t have any answers for him. I don’t even know my name, even though I’m sure it’s not Jane.

  It’s intensely frustrating, the fog refusing to lift fully.

  The doctor leaves, but the man in the red jacket remains. He introduces himself as Ethan, tells me he’s one of the paramedics who found me.

  “Do we… know each other?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. I notice his eyes are a pearlescent blue, the color of the Coral Sea.

  “Coral Sea,” I say aloud.

  Ethan looks just as confused as I am. “Your name’s, ah, Coral? Coral Sea? Coral Seers?”

  I smile at a little. “No, it’s… never mind.”

  “Take your time,” he says. “You’ve had pretty major surgery. It’s going to take a while for things to come back to you.”

  “How long?” I ask, twitching my toes under the sheets, pleased to find they’re there.

  “Hours, days, weeks? I’m no expert, but from what I understand every case of amnesia is different. Perhaps it’s a good thing you don’t remember everything about what happened, you know what I’m saying?”

  It’s so strange. Why do I feel like I know this man, that I can trust him? Perhaps it’s his eyes, the gentle tone of his voice, but something is drawing me to him, telling me he’s okay.

  Safe, says my head.

  Ethan looks at his watch. “Ah, shit. I’ve got to go.”

  I squeeze his hand, terrified of him leaving. “Don’t, please.”

  He squeezes back. “I’ve got a shift. I’ll come right back, I promise.”

  I don’t know what that means, ‘promise,’ but I nod accordingly and slowly release his hand.

  He reaches up and sweeps a strand of hair from my eyes. “I’m glad you’re back,” he smiles, turning and walking away.

  Alone, I try not to panic. It presses in from all sides, threatens to suffocate me, but the moment I close my eyes and picture Ethan, it dissipates and ebbs away.

  Breathe, I tell myself. Think. Who are you?

  I don’t know how long I lie there waiting for him. People come and go, flashing by the end of my bed. Sometimes they stop to check the machine beside me or ask me questions, but it’s all very mechanical and detached.

  A young, blonde woman who introduced herself as ‘Sally’ wraps something tight around my arm. I wince when it gets tighter.

  “Sorry,” she smiles.

  “Where’s Ethan?” I ask.

  She stops. “Ethan Meyers, the paramedic?”

  “I think so.”

  Her eyebrows jerk upwards and she returns her attention to the thing wrapped around my arm. She seems to be having something of a moment with herself.

  She looks at me smiling before glancing to the chair beside my bed. “You know he’s been sitting in this chair there for three days straight? He took a couple of sick days to do it, told us he ‘had’ to.” She laughs a little, trill-like. “I don’t think he ever let go of your hand, even asked us to bring over a urinal so he could… you know,” she makes a strange motion with her hand, “without having to get up. Hopefully you weren’t awake for that.”

  I’m not exactly sure what she’s saying. I try to say, “Excuse me,” but she replies, “Sleep? Oh yeah, he slept right in the chair, his head back, bit of drool running from the corner o
f his mouth. Pretty damn adorable in a way. We told him we could bring a cot in, set him up, but he wouldn’t have it, stubborn bastard. You know why he was holding your hand?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  She looks to the machine beside me, the one that hasn’t stopped beeping in the background since I came to. “Every time he did your vitals would drop. Weird, I know. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen plenty, believe you me. And then he started reading you those god-awful tabloids from the waiting room, had Belinda bring them up. That is, after he’d been yacking your ear off with his life story for forty-eight hours.”

  So many words. It’s so hard to untangle the vague outlines of what she’s saying, but from what I gather Ethan’s been here longer than I thought. I have been here longer than I thought. And where was I before that? It’s all a mystery.

  The pressure on my arm releases with a soft wheeze. Sally lowers her head to my ear, whispering conspiratorially. “I’ve never seen him do that for any patient. Note you’re probably going to have a few jealous nurses on your hand, present company included.”

  She rights herself and winks, smirking, packing up her device. “Good luck, Sofia.”

  “Sofia?” I query. “Is that my name?”

  She reaches behind my head to a side table there and returns with a silver necklace and locket, handing it to me. “Orderlies found it in one of your pockets when they brought you in.” Sally reaches down and pops the locket open. “It’s you,” she says, “on the left.”

  I look down at the small picture inside the locket. The briefest pull of familiarity surfaces as I look at the woman on the left. She looks so happy. There’s another woman beside her I don’t recognize, but again that thread of familiarity is being tugged somewhere deep inside my head.

  The nurse flips the locket over, showing me the inscription there. I read it aloud, “Sofia, you’re my sister forever, I love you’. Who wrote that?”

  Sally shrugs her shoulders. “I’d say it’s the other girl in the picture, but we don’t know for sure, of course. Does she look familiar to you?”

  I open the locket again. “No,” I reply.

  Sally smiles, placing a reassuring hand on my arm. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it will all come back eventually, but in a way I’m kind of envious of your situation.”

  It seems like a strange thing to say. “Why’s that?” I ask.

  She draws close. “Between you and me, there are a couple of years between eighteen and twenty-two I wouldn’t mind being wiped away, maybe an ex or three.”

  I smile because it seems like the right thing to do, to mirror her own.

  She goes to leave, but before she does I reach up and grab her arm. “Will he come back?”

  “Who? Ethan?”

  I nod.

  The smile returns. “Oh, I’m fairly sure he’ll be back alright. She looks down at my chest. For you, definitely.”

  She leaves and I can’t seem to unpack what she was saying.

  I scour my head for any kind of information, any random piece of the puzzle I’m so frantically trying to put together, any part of myself, but there’s nothing.

  It’s a big, fat blank up there.

  I laugh at myself because that seems amusing for some reason. Should it? I have no idea.

  I don’t even know who I am, for crying out loud, who I really am, or was.

  I have a feeling Ethan could help me unravel it, to provide some shred of information, a key to unlock the mystery for good. I want to see him again, even if it’s just his face, feel his hand in mine again—one more time, at least.

  He has to return first, I remind myself, noting how dark it’s starting to get outside.

  I take a deep breath and do my best to ignore the pounding pain in my head.

  That fog, thick as it once was, still hangs around.

  I’m fairly sure it’s going to take more than a locket to lift it.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ETHAN

  I look through the windshield of the ambulance. It’s raining hard, a full moon above looking like a runny egg lashed to the sky.

  I sigh and lean back. “It’s going to be a long night, isn’t it?”

  Vanessa comes to a stop at the intersection, tapping the steering wheel with her right hand. “Sounds to me like you wish it was shorter—a lot shorter.”

  I can’t help but smile. She knows me all too well. “What do you make of her?”

  “Jane Doe?”

  “Actually,” I say, recalling the text I got earlier from one of my many hospital ‘contacts,’ “she’s got a name—Sofia.”

  “You find that in your crystal ball, or was it your little black book? The one chockfull of your screw-a-thons?”

  “You’re telling you don’t have an LBB of your own?”

  Pushing forty, Vanessa’s been through four or five fiancés, but never anything permanent. Given her dating action of late, it’s possible she’s more promiscuous than I am.

  She purses her lips and runs her finger across them like a zipper.

  “Well, it is going to be a long shift if you’re giving me the silent treatment.”

  There’s a crack of thunder overhead, a split second of illumination making Vanessa look close to maniacal. “You’re dying to get back to her, aren’t you, Prince Charming?”

  We’ve always had a pretty open dialogue, Vanessa and me. You tend to develop a certain rapport with your partner when you’re elbow deep in blood and guts most of the day. You sure as hell don’t take things for granted, that’s for certain.

  I place my arm on the door, doing my best to look relaxed. “And if I am?”

  Vanessa’s smiles as she watches the road, the wipers whisking across the windshield. “You don’t know anything about her. She could be a cold-blooded killer, a lunatic… a pornstar.”

  “And that would be so bad how exactly?”

  “Being a cold-blooded lunatic serial-killing pornstar? Sounds like the perfect start to a wholesome relationship.”

  “She’s none of that.”

  “You sound certain.”

  “The way she was dressed, all labels, all Italian… fingers perfectly manicured, makeup light yet classy. No, she’s from money, most likely. She was definitely out of place under that bridge.”

  Vanessa takes it in. “Well, I can’t blame you for wanting her money given the peanuts they pay us to risk our lives each day.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “You’re after her golden vagina then? Add to your trophy case of poon?”

  “What makes you think I don’t have a whole room?” I joke.

  Vanessa gives a ‘pfft.’ “Knowing you like I do, and that’s pretty fucking well, you’ve run that little slugger of yours through half the city phonebook.”

  I push myself back in mock offense. “What makes you think it’s little?”

  She simply eyes me. “Just fucking with you, big boy. Don’t worry. I’ve heard the nurses yapping, hobbling around the ward the next day saying they tripped down the stairs. Yeah, tripped down the stairs and fell right onto that fleshy cockship of yours.”

  “All that and you still don’t want a piece, huh?”

  I can see her rolling her eyes in the windshield reflection. “I’ll stick to my mid-life crises sugar daddies, thank you very much. I’m not looking to be split in half anytime soon, get my cervix punched into my mouth. I’ll leave that to little miss amnesia.”

  “Sofia,” I correct.

  “The First,” finishes Vanessa.

  “Say what?”

  She rolls her eyes again, hitting the brakes. “You don’t hang around kids much, do you? Sofia the First? Disney princess?”

  I don’t have any siblings, no relatives left and, subsequently, no cousins or nieces or nephews. Kids are as much of a mystery to me as the Colonel’s eleven secret herbs and spices. “I’m not well versed in princess, sorry.”

  Vanessa nods. “Given the expensive tastes of Amnesia G
irl, you better start sharpening up, my friend.”

  A call comes over the radio. As expected, it’s an MVA, multiple causalities.

  I confirm while Vanessa hits the lights and sirens, cutting a path through the traffic and taking a hard right towards the highway.

  I push aside thoughts of Sofia and ready myself for the task at hand. A full moon always means fucking chaos. Add a thunderstorm to the mix and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

  *

  The MVA wasn’t pretty. Five cars, ten patients. It’s 2am when I finally make it back to the hospital, half-soaked and in desperate need of a hot shower, but strangely I find there’s a more pressing need at the front of my mind.

  I towel myself off in the lockers as best I can, wash the blood from my face. I see fragments of the accident, bits and pieces but nothing concrete. Like always, within those fragments I see scenes from my time in the service, but they’re always fleeting.

  We’re required to attend a counselling session every month, mandatory, and while I’ve deep-dived into that area of my life before, it’s not something I like to dwell on. I’ve seen way too many of my brothers go down that path and never surface again, the PTSD eating them alive.

  I worked, my hands moved, but the whole shift Sofia was in the back of my mind. It’s strange how she’s overcome me so completely. I tell myself it’s a temporary state, that as soon as I’ve been with her the feeling will diminish and drop away, the thrill of the chase gone, but something also feels different about her, about this whole thing.

  I’m surprised when I enter the ICU to find her bed empty. I go cold, standing there while the blood drains from my body. Shit, I think, she’s dead. I left and she’s gone, just like that. She took a round to the head, I tell myself. What did you think would happen? You know the odds, even after recovery.

  I sit in the chair beside her bed with my head in my hands. I should have taken the shift off, should never have left her.

  “She’s got a room downstairs, green wing,” says someone beside me.

  I look up to find a blonde nurse standing there. Her name escapes me. Her face and body do not. I recall her legs in particular and the way they were wrapped around my head when she came, a unique ‘ah, ah, ah’ coming from her mouth.