“You still with me, Celia?”
She blinked, then inclined her head. He was relieved to see that she was no longer frozen, but he still didn’t want to take any chances.
“Try not to move around,” he cautioned with a smile. “Hard to say if anything’s broken, and I’d like to retain the role of hero for a little longer.”
One corner of her mouth tipped up and she breathed out. His relief was short-lived. As quickly as her little show of amusement came, it left. Her whole face drooped and her eyes dropped shut.
Damn, damn, damn.
Remo dragged his hands up and clasped Celia’s face. She was cold.
Because it is cold out here, he told himself.
He clasped her wrist and pressed his head to her chest. Her pulse was strong and steady, and her breathing was slow and even, and that was something.
“Did you faint on me, Celia?” he murmured, brushing her hair back from her face.
He leaned back and studied her for a second. Her skin had a hint of a tan, but mostly it was a connect-the-dots palate of freckles.
More than pretty.
She had that clean-faced, granola-girl feel that made it easy to picture her hiking up the side of the Grouse Grind. Remo liked it. Which made him sigh and question his sanity.
“Obviously even more tired than I thought,” he said.
Checking out a girl—a patient...sort of—was very low on his list of priorities. Right below the washing machine emergencies. Remo gritted his teeth and told himself to stop before he even got started. Except as soon as the self-directed order made its way into his mind, her hand lifted and found its way into his palm, and a shot of heat cut through the chill.
He looked down in surprise. “Celia?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Xavier.”
For a second, he thought she’d mistaken him for someone else. “Sorry, honey, I—”
She cut him off. “Please, Remo.”
“What do you need?”
“Xavier.”
“Where is he?”
“The back.”
“The back?”
Her eyes flicked toward the shattered car. She couldn’t possibly be saying there’d been someone else inside. Could she? He looked down at her, hoping he’d see a hint of delirium in her gaze. Instead, he just saw faith. She didn’t know him at all, and she still believed in him.
“I’m not even wearing the uniform,” he muttered.
“Help him.” Her fingers tightened around his.
Remo inhaled. “I don’t think Xavier’s here, Celia.”
“He is. In the back.” Her eyes closed for a second. “I hurt.”
“Where do you hurt?”
“Everywhere. My leg, mostly.”
Remo tilted his head down. A dark splotch stood out on one of her thighs. It nearly blended in with her rain-drenched jeans, but staring at it made him sure it wasn’t just water.
Blood. Damn again.
“The ambulance will be here soon,” he said, careful to keep the growing concern from his voice. “Hold my hand as hard as you want. Sometimes that helps.”
She gave him a weak squeeze. “Promise me.”
“I can’t do that.” It pained him a bit to say it.
“Xavier, Remo.”
He glanced toward the car. The engine was crumpled so badly that it was barely recognizable, the hood disintegrated. No doors. No steering wheel. An empty back seat. Except...
What’s that?
Remo pulled off his glasses, gave them another wipe, then looked again.
A stuffed bear.
His gut churned. She didn’t just mean there was another person in the car with her. She meant there was a kid in the car. A kid named Xavier.
She had to be mistaken. She had to be confused. There was no car seat. No other sign that a child had been there. Yet there was that horrible instinct again, telling him he’d read the situation correctly.
“Celia?”
But her eyes were still closed, her breathing even and slow once again. She had a small crease between her brows, like her worry carried over into her lack of consciousness. Remo freed his hand from hers and smoothed his fingers across the wrinkle. It faded for a second, then reappeared. He sighed.
“All right, honey,” he said. “I promise. If there’s a kid around here named Xavier, I’ll do my best to find him.”
He stood and stepped woodenly toward what was left of the car. The rear seat was shredded, its leather split and its foam exposed. Rain thumped down on the remainder of the roof, then poured down onto the remainder of the floor.
“Xavier?” he called softly.
There was no answer.
“You there, kid?”
He took another step and called out a little louder.
“Xavier? I’ve got a lady here who’s pretty worried about you.”
Still nothing.
He swiped the rain off his chin and squinted through his glasses, considering whether both Celia and his gut feeling were off. He tossed another quick look her way. From a few feet back, she looked smaller and more vulnerable.
Shouldn’t have left her lying there.
He moved to go back to her, but sirens cut through the air then, startling him so badly that he jumped. He stumbled a little, trying to catch his footing. He wasn’t quite successful. Cursing his own overreaction, he put out a hand to stop himself from doing a face-plant. The new position—one knee on the ground, body bent over—gave a different perspective.
Between the split cushions of the car seat was a gap that led to the trunk. And inside that gap was an unmistakable object. A small, limp hand.
Chapter 2
The sirens he’d been counting on and the flashing lights that accompanied them became secondary. Remo raced over the puddle-drenched ground, desperate to free the child from inside the trunk.
The trunk. What in God’s name was he doing in there?
He brushed off the question as secondary, too. Something he could deal with later. He reached the rear end of the car just as the first emergency vehicle arrived. Vaguely, he noted that it was an ambulance. A good thing, because he would likely know whoever rode in it.
He stared at the tiny hand for a tenth of a second before deciding two things. One, he shouldn’t wait for anyone else, and two, he shouldn’t try to go in through the trunk itself. He dropped to his knees, stuck his own hands into the crack and pulled. At first, he met with resistance. Then the seat groaned. It creaked. And finally, it cracked and sprung forward. Soaking wet pieces of fabric and shards of plastic flew out, and a chunk of foam smacked Remo directly in the forehead, then stuck there. He brushed it away, straightened his glasses, then bent down. His breath burned at what he saw.
The little boy was splayed out on his back, his legs spread wide, the one arm flung near Remo, the other tucked up on his chest. He had his thumb jammed in his mouth, which hung slightly ajar, and his eyes were wide-open.
For a moment, Remo feared the worst. Then the boy—Xavier, he reminded himself—blinked slowly. He pulled his thumb from between his lips and reached out his arms. The needy gesture tugged at Remo’s heart, and without thinking it through, he bypassed protocol. He leaned deep into the trunk, slipped his hand under the kid, then scooped the boy to his chest.
“You’re okay, Xavier,” he said gently. “I’ve got you, kiddo.”
He pushed to his feet, spun, and just about smacked straight into one of the first responders. He recognized him immediately—a senior EMT known for his by-the-book standards. Of all colleagues, this man was his least favorite. The one he’d least want to run into, even under normal circumstance.
He forced himself to back up and nodded an acknowledgment. “Isaac.”
The older man blinked. “Remo?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Lucky coincidence.”
Isaac glanced down at Xavier. “What are you doing now?”
“Saving this kid’s life.” His voice was embarrassingly thick with emotion.
“You moved him?”
“Had to.”
Isaac’s eyes went from the boy’s small body to a spot over Remo’s shoulder to the shattered vehicle. He opened his mouth. Before he could speak, though, a thunderous rattle came from all around. Something popped. And from the corner of his eye, Remo spotted the source.
The electrical pole.
A crack as wide as his arm split the damned thing down the middle. Its two pieces shuddered, then tilted. One went backward, but the other came forward, and as they watched, it fell fast and hard. Straight into the car.
Remo wished he could feel smug. Instead, he just felt relieved. Maybe a bit stunned. He swung back to Isaac, but the other man didn’t acknowledge the fortuitous result of his rule breaking.
“Guess you moved the woman, too?” he asked.
“She would’ve been electrocuted otherwise.”
“Fine. What’s done is done. I’ll get a gurney over here so you can put the kid down.”
Xavier buried himself in Remo’s chest, his small hands gripping his shirt tightly.
“I don’t need a gurney. I’ll hold him in the back.”
Isaac blinked. “What?”
Remo shook his head, not buying the ignorant act for a second. “You heard me.”
The older man narrowed his eyes. “You want to keep ignoring protocol?”
“Done it twice in the last twenty minutes. Saved a woman and a kid. Think I’ll stick to my own rules for just a little while longer.”
“I’ll have to put it in the report.”
“Go for it.”
Isaac’s expression didn’t change, but the tightness in his jaw told Remo he was annoyed. The irritation rolled off him, and the seconds ticked by with neither of them backing down. Finally, the second EMT—a younger, part-time kid named Tyler—called out, breaking the tension that radiated through the air.
“Isaac! Need a hand over here, please!”
The older man twitched, then spun to offer his assistance. Remo didn’t bother to gloat. All he cared about was keeping his promise to Celia and making the kid feel safe. He stepped over to the ambulance, murmuring that Xavier’s mom would be fine, and explaining that he’d made sure himself that she’d be safe.
“It might be a little scary in the ambulance,” he said, “but it’s just science, and there’s nothing really scary about that, right?”
For the first time, Xavier pulled back and looked up into Remo’s face. His eyes were the same unusual shade of gray as Celia’s, and he had a smattering of freckles that matched hers, too. There was no doubt that the kid was her son.
“Science?” he repeated in a small, curious voice.
“Science,” Remo confirmed. “Do you like science?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too. Do you want me to take you inside so you can see?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay. Let’s get in before they bring your mom around, okay?”
Xavier nodded, and Remo used his height—six foot four, and sometimes an inconvenience but right that second an advantage—to propel them up together.
“One,” he grunted. “Two.”
“Three!” added the little boy, quiet, but almost gleeful, too.
“Wow.” Remo put some extra awe into the exclamation.
“What?”
“You can count.”
“Yeah.”
“I dunno. Are you old enough to count?”
“I’m five!”
Remo suppressed a chuckle and let out a whistle instead. “Holy cow.”
“How old are you?” the boy asked.
“Old.”
“That’s not a number.”
“Maybe I’m so old that I don’t remember.”
“A hundred?”
“Hey, now. Do I look like I’m a hundred?”
Xavier leaned back and studied Remo’s face like he really had to think about it. “I dunno.”
Remo suppressed a grin. “Is my hair gray? Or falling out?”
“No.”
“Is my face wrinkly?”
The kid lifted a hand and pressed a finger to Remo’s forehead. “A little right here. The same kind of wrinkly my mom gets when she worries about me.”
“Yeah, I’m a bit of a worrier myself.”
“Do you have a boy like me at home, too?”
“’Fraid not.”
“How come?”
“Well. For starters, I don’t have a wife.”
“My mom doesn’t have a husband.”
Remo couldn’t quite block out a trickle of interest at the statement. “No?”
Xavier shook his head. “My dad isn’t in the picture.”
It had the ring of something oft-repeated, and this time, Remo couldn’t stop a smile. “Well. I guess that makes you the man of the house, hmm?”
“That’s what my mom says, too.”
“Glad she and I agree.”
The little boy’s gaze flicked toward the open doors at the back of the ambulance. “Is she okay?”
Remo considered the question and how to answer it. Over the course of his career, he’d learned more than a bit about how to read people. Some wanted a gloss-over. Others wanted the worst case scenario presented in black-and-white. A kid, though, was a bit of a curveball. Protectiveness was a reflex, spurred on by the solemn, needy gaze zeroed in on him. No dad in the picture. Celia could be all the boy had. But Remo’s own history made it hard to tell a lie. The kid didn’t deserve it. Especially not if things took a bad turn.
So he chose his words carefully. “She could be hurt, buddy. Car accidents are tricky. But those guys out there are experts. Do you know what that means?”
“Kinda.”
“Well, just in case, I’ll tell you, all right? It means they have lots of training for emergencies just like this one. They’re going to check her over really well before they load her up in here. Then they’re going to take her to the hospital, where they’ll check her over even more.”
“Can I watch?”
“At the hospital?”
“Yeah.”
“Probably not, kiddo. The doctors like to keep things pretty private while they’re doing their job. And the hospital’s like school—it’s full of rules and bossy grown-ups.”
Xavier’s face fell. “Oh.”
Remo gave his shoulder a squeeze. “But hey. There’s always pudding to sneak. And when they’re done, I’ll make sure you’re the first one to see your mom.”
“You’ll stay with me?”
“Sure I will. Unless you’d rather call someone else. Grandma, or a babysitter or something?”
The kid shook his head. “I’d rather be with you.”
“Then it’s settled. You and I will steal pudding, eat it until we feel sick, then check in on your mom.”
“My mom says stealing is wrong.”
A chuckle escaped. “All right then. We’ll ask the nurses if we can have some, and if they say yes then we’ll eat it.”
A smile cracked Xavier’s face. “I like chocolate best.”
“Me, too.”
“I think they’re bringing my mom in now.”
Remo turned his eyes to the door. Sure enough, Isaac and Tyler had the blonde woman on the stretcher, which they were wheeling closer.
“You good in there, Remo?” called the younger EMT.
“Yep. We’re ready for you.”
“All right. Up we come.”
With another reassuring squeeze, he tucked the kid in a little clos
er and gave his colleagues room to climb in.
* * *
Because of the ring, Celia was sure she was in a dream. It sat on her index finger, catching the light and sparkling in an unnatural way, especially considering all the darkness around her. But it wasn’t the unusual contrast that made her so sure. It was the fact that the ring was her own personal trick. Something she’d learned in therapy. A lucid-dream tool. She could see it. Feel it. And use it to protect herself from the onslaught of seemingly endless nightmares.
When the counselor had first introduced the idea—a subtle implant in the back of her mind—Celia hadn’t bought the idea that it would work. In fact, she’d assumed it wouldn’t. But on the third night after the initial subliminal suggestion had been given, she’d been tossed into the throes of the familiar, terrifying dream.
It was the same as always. The pause before she realized she had to run. Then her feet hitting the floor of the long, pitch-black corridor. Dread not just pooling in her gut, but overwhelming it and making her heart thunder so hard against her rib cage that it felt bruised. And of course, the fear was warranted. Because next came the furious growl from behind her. The bellowing of her name and the warning that she wouldn’t make it out alive. She didn’t have a name for who chased her—half man, half monster maybe. All she had was the belief that she would never break free. So she ran harder. But the effort lasted only a few seconds before she had no choice but to slow down. Under her aching ribs was something that forced her legs to cease their pumping. Something huge and cumbersome—an undeniably pregnant belly. Which startled her into stumbling and brought the man-monster so close that his self-satisfied laugh cast a breath over the back of her neck.
But on that day...she’d known it wasn’t real. And while she couldn’t force herself into consciousness, the knowledge made the experience just palatable enough. It would end. She would wake. Life would go on.
Just like it would at that moment.
So in her present-day dream, Celia lifted her hand for a second to stare down at the shimmering stone and glittering gold. She acknowledged it with a resigned nod, then moved on. And it happened. The run. The never-ending hallway. The man, the baby, and the laugh. But strangely, it didn’t end in the same way it always had. Instead of the sheer terror and the awareness that her time was up Celia normally experienced, a light appeared. And the light became a door.
First Responder on Call Page 2
