by Emily Garnet
Matt eyed them warily, but he saw no signs of weapons. Finally, with a cautious nod, he said, “Why don’t you put down the tailgate, and you can sit on there?”
“Thank you, mister.” She pulled Bryce closer, and he was clearly doing his best to help her navigate, but it was a hard job for her petite frame. Matt felt bad for not helping, but he still wasn’t going to lower his guard or the gun. With a groan, Bryce heaved himself up onto the tailgate, and she spent a moment fussing over him.
“Are you okay, baby?” she asked the man.
Bryce grunted. “I suppose.”
“I’m going to go talk to this man.”
“Don’t. He might hurt you,” Bryce whispered in a low voice as he shot a furtive look at Matt.
Matt was relieved to hear the guy was as worried about his intentions as he was about theirs. He still didn’t lower his finger from the trigger guard, but he did lower the gun slightly. “I’m not going to hurt her or you. How did you guys end up in this situation?”
“We were at the Tattered Souls concert, and the lights went out. It was just a freaking madhouse,” said the girl.
“Keiko fell, and I used my body to keep her from getting trampled. Once I got her back on her feet, we made our way through the crowd and out of the casino. People were shoving and rushing, and one of them ended up pushing me off the curb. I landed hard on my ankle, and I was stuck there. Keiko couldn’t help me up very easily, and if it hadn’t been for an older couple with a huge boat of a car that was still running, we probably would’ve been stuck on The Boulevard as the fires got worse. I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but half the casinos are already gutted.”
“I don’t understand why people don’t come to help.” Keiko’s voice quivered like she was about to cry.
“They can’t. Most of their vehicles aren’t running either.” Matt shared that information as he nodded at Jolene, who was still unconscious behind the wheel. “My friend here is a police officer, and she said most of their cars aren’t working. It’s the same story with firetrucks and ambulances.”
“Then they should have a bucket brigade or something. You can’t just let The Boulevard burn. That’s Vegas in a nutshell right there.”
Matt tried to show no reaction to her naïveté. “I’m sure they’re doing the best they can.”
“I guess so.” She sighed.
“So, what happened to your ride, Bryce?” asked Matt.
Keiko burst into tears, and Bryce leaned forward to hug her. When she had calmed slightly, he shifted enough to look more fully at Matt. “A couple of thugs with guns stood in the middle of the street and forced Herb to stop. I told him to keep going, that they’d either move or get hit, but he didn’t. He couldn’t imagine it would be that bad. He tried to talk them into just accepting a ride with us, but they dragged him and Margaret out of the car.
“Keiko and I left voluntarily, getting on the side of the curb. Margaret was with us, but Herb kept trying to persuade the thugs not to steal his car. He was trying to tell them they could all share, but then more of them came out of the shadows, and it was clear there wasn’t going to be enough room for everyone. Herb should have given in at that point, but he was a stubborn old coot.”
Bryce’s voice broke for a moment, and he was clearly having trouble controlling his emotions. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “Rather than bother with him, or just make him get out of their way, they shot him.”
“And they just left him in the middle of the road and drove right over him.” Keiko still sounded near tears, but she seemed to have regained some control. “Margaret ran to check on him, and she collapsed in the street. I don’t know if she had a heart attack or stroke, but she was dead in seconds.”
“Maybe it was better that they went together,” said Matt. “It might’ve been easier on Margaret that way too.” From a strictly survival point-of-view, she probably would’ve had an easier time expiring in a relatively painless and quick fashion than she might’ve if she’d had to survive the next several months on her own.
Keiko interpreted that in a more romantic way. “That’s true. They said they’d been married fifty-seven years. I know I wouldn’t want to live without Bryce.”
“Don’t talk like that,” snapped Bryce.
Matt jerked in astonishment, as did Keiko.
Bryce’s tone softened a little bit. “I’m just saying, if something happens to me, I want you to keep living. Okay?”
She nodded, though it didn’t seem to be very convincing. “Sure, of course.”
Matt didn’t want to ever be that dependent on someone else for his survival, so he was glad in that moment that he hadn’t met a woman who made him want to spend his life with her. At twenty-five, he was usually too busy with short-term relationships to worry about anything serious anyway, especially with living a nomadic life on the road half the year.
Before he could say anything, he heard the unmistakable sound of wheels rolling over asphalt, and Ivy appeared seconds later with six people, two of each pushing a gurney on wheels.
“You made it.” Matt sagged slightly as Ivy approached at a jog. He caught her in a hug and held her for a moment before letting her go.
“I was lucky I didn’t have any trouble getting to the hospital. I had to use my fame to get attention and convince the medical people here to help get Jolene and her boys back to the hospital.” She whispered the last part, sounding embarrassed at the confession.
Matt just grinned. “Sometimes, it’s good to be famous.”
As though to emphasize his words, Keiko suddenly gasped. “Oh my gosh, you’re Ivy Gerard.”
Ivy turned to look at her, tensing visibly. “Who’s that?” she asked Matt.
“Meet Bryce and Keiko. They were at the concert tonight, and Bryce got injured in the rush to get out of Caesar’s Palace. They were waiting here for the medical team.”
“There are only three gurneys,” said Ivy. She looked at Matt, still not having acknowledged Keiko. “I was hoping to get a fourth one so we could get a chauffeured gurney back to the hospital for your leg, but there just weren’t enough people willing to leave the hospital. It’s a madhouse there.”
He shrugged. “We’ll be fine.”
“You are Ivy, aren’t you?” asked Keiko, slightly more insistently.
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m sorry that the medical people here aren’t going to be able to help your friend though. There’re only three gurneys, and they’re going to take the Haskins family with them.”
At that moment, Jolene started to rouse as Matt moved back to let two of the people in scrubs come forward. “Matt?” she asked in a groggy voice.
“I’m here, Jolene. These people are nurses, and they’re going to get you to the hospital.”
Jolene’s response was a low groan. Speaking seemed to have taken everything out of her. She was unconscious again by the time the two of them maneuvered her enough out of the truck for the third nurse to step in and lift her legs. They had her on a gurney seconds later, strapping her in since they were going to have to push her back to the hospital.
“Can the boys share a gurney?” asked Matt of a male attendant. He wasn’t wearing scrubs. Instead, he wore gray overalls.
“Don’t ask me. I’m just a maintenance guy who offered to help.”
“No, they definitely can’t,” snapped one of the female nurses.
Matt didn’t take it personally. She was clearly busy, and he was just grateful that she had volunteered to come help the Haskins family.
After they had the children loaded onto the gurneys as well, one of the nurses ripped open a package of something that looked like a thicker kind of gauze, but spongy. She put it on Dean’s gunshot wound, which was still bleeding freely. She must’ve realized Matt was watching her, because she looked up and met his gaze. “It’s a product called QuikClot. It helps stanch the flow of blood in an emergency, though of course he’ll still need surgery to have the bullet removed.”
&nbs
p; Matt nodded. “Thank you all for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” said the maintenance man. The other five, all wearing similar scrubs, appeared too busy to respond to Matt’s words, but he didn’t mind. They were busy because they were focused on caring for the family who had helped him. In a mass exodus, the six of them set off, pushing the gurneys.
Ivy moved closer to Matt, laying her head against his shoulder. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get you help back to the hospital. Let’s see if we can get the truck fired up.”
He wasn’t surprised by the suggestion, though it didn’t sit well with him to ride away and leave the Haskins to their fate. If the truck started, he’d tackle the subject of sticking around to check on them with Ivy afterward.
She got behind the wheel, turning the ignition. The truck stuttered and choked, temporarily firing to life before dying.
“Try again,” said Matt.
“Yeah, I will.” Ivy tried once more, gently pumping the gas. Matt swore they all gasped simultaneously when the truck fired to life.
“Hang on back there,” called Ivy to Bryce, who was still sitting on the tail gate. A moment later, she put the truck in gear and slowly eased backward. The engine sounded rough but remained running. She grinned at Matt. “Get in, and we’ll go to the hospital.”
“I could probably get by without a trip to the hospital.” Was he testing her? Maybe he was, and he realized that was a shitty thing to do. It shouldn’t matter if she wanted to go to the hospital for his benefit or to check on the Haskins, and he was feeling like a judgmental jerk for putting her in that position.
Ivy must have remained unaware, because she didn’t sound offended. “I think you should get checked out, but I also want to make sure the Haskins are safe. We wouldn’t have made it this far without them.” She nodded her head in the direction of Bryce and Keiko. “Besides, it looks like he needs a trip to the hospital as well.”
Matt was relieved that her reasons weren’t solely to benefit him, and that she cared about Jolene and her boys as well. She hadn’t abandoned her humanity or compassion. With a nod, he walked around the truck, pausing long enough to help Keiko reposition Bryce so they could close the tailgate. Then he offered her a hand as she climbed into the truck, bracing her thighs for a moment so she could join Bryce.
After that, he moved to the passenger side and slid in. Blood coated the side, and he was worried about David all over again. The kid must’ve lost a significant amount of blood. Was he going to be able to recover from the gunshot wound and the car accident?
Ivy headed out as soon as he closed the door. Matt kept his gun angled against the doorframe. That was easy, since the window had cracked, and he used the butt of his rifle to knock the entire safety panel into the street.
They reached the hospital a bit later without incident, and Ivy got out first so she could help Keiko get Bryce down. She left the engine running and insisted Matt go on in with them while she tried to find parking. He agreed, knowing Keiko was going to have trouble getting Bryce in by herself, and his leg was throbbing. It had soaked through the strip of T-shirt by now, and he was going to need stitches sooner rather than later.
He helped Keiko navigate Bryce through the crowd of people, shocked to see a line stretching out of the hospital. A few people groused at them for trying to push their way through, but some people were kind and let them move through without incident.
They met a harried nurse at the entrance, and she took one look at Bryce and Matt before nodding. “You definitely get a space. There aren’t many chairs left, but you’ll find somewhere to sit down in the waiting room.”
“What’s this line?” asked Matt.
“People who aren’t as serious, and who are deemed able to stand. Go on through.” She was trying to push them through quickly.
“My friend will be coming to join us. She’s not injured, but if you could let her through—she has kind of orange-red hair with purple highlights—”
The nurse nodded but didn’t commit. Matt and Keiko moved on, holding Bryce between them, and he decided that if she didn’t appear in a few minutes, he’d go out and try to find her.
The nurse hadn’t been exaggerating when she said it was crazy. There was one available seat that he saw, and he and Keiko maneuvered Bryce to it. There was still room on the floor near it, so he sat down as Keiko kneeled in front of her fiancé. Matt’s leg was throbbing, and he cautiously removed the makeshift T-shirt bandage, wincing at the amount of blood still flowing freely.
“That looks awful.”
Matt jerked in surprise and looked up to see Ivy standing over him. He grinned at her. “I wasn’t sure the nurse would let you through.”
“She was a bit of a dragon lady, but maybe she recognized me, or maybe she believed me when I said I wasn’t being treated. Either way, she let me through, so here I am.” She looked at his leg closer. “That really does look terrible.” She wasn’t bantering this time.
Matt gulped, realizing it was as bad as he thought it was. “Maybe you should go ahead and get out of Vegas. I’m just going to slow you down at this point.”
She shook her head at him, glaring as though she was offended by his suggestion. “We’re in this together.”
“I don’t want you to be stuck here. It could be hours before someone gets to my leg.”
“It won’t be hours.” With those words, Ivy moved away from him.
Matt tried to keep sight of her in the crowd, and he was glad her hair was so distinctive. He tracked her as she made her way to the reception desk, where the staff was clearly overwhelmed with requests. Ivy waited her turn, and then she spoke with the receptionist. He could tell even from his distance that the conversation was growing increasingly heated, and Ivy finally threw her hands in the air and turned away.
He expected her request to get him expedited had met with failure, and while the selfish part of him was disappointed, another part of him was glad the medical people were treating the more seriously injured first, and that fame couldn’t buy favoritism in this situation.
He expected Ivy to come back to them, but instead, she moved closer to the emergency room doors. It was clearly a locked system, because he was sure other people would’ve crowded in there by now if they’d been able to get through the doors.
He watched as Ivy stood there casually for the next five minutes, just waiting. Finally, the doors opened again, and a security guard came out, baton extended, as another harried nurse called someone’s name. That person stood up and limped slowly toward the emergency room entrance. As he got closer to Ivy, she moved forward and put an arm around his waist, slipping right through the door with him. It closed behind her a moment later.
Matt’s mouth gaped open. What was Ivy planning? She wasn’t likely to get one of the busy people working the emergency room to slip away and take care of his leg when he just needed stitches. There were others far worse off than him.
“Where’s Ivy?” asked Keiko. “She never came back.”
He shrugged, deciding not to mention that she’d just sneaked into the emergency room. “I’ve lost track of her in the crowd.”
“She’s amazing, isn’t she? Is she your girlfriend?”
“Yeah, she’s amazing, but no, she’s not my girlfriend. She’s my best friend in the world though.”
Keiko’s eyes widened, and she suddenly gasped, clapping a hand to her mouth. “Oh. You’re Matt Cromwell. I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize your earlier.” She looked like she was flustered enough to cry.
Matt laughed it off. “I’m just the drummer. Ivy’s our front man, um, woman, so of course it was natural that you’d recognize her. That hair is hard to miss.” He grinned.
“It is so beautiful, though I like her natural shade too. When she first debuted it on your newest tour, I thought about doing that ombre effect, but my office job would have a hissy fit.”
“That, and she listened when I said I didn’t like purple hair.” Bryce winked at her.
> “I’ll do what I want with my hair, Bryce.” She stuck out her tongue at him, removing any heat from her words.
“Your hair is perfect just the way it is, just like you.”
Matt thought their interaction was sweet, but it was almost enough to turn his stomach. Either that, or blood loss was catching up with him. He was close to vomiting.
Ivy appeared then, slipping into the circle of the crowded area where they sat. He blinked. “Where did you come from?” He’d kept an eye on the emergency room door, expecting her to be ejected at any moment.
“There’s another exit that’s not marked, and it comes out farther down the hallway.”
As she sat beside him, she unloaded her arms. There was a bottle of something clear, along with gauze, tape, and what he recognized as suture kits. He wasn’t sure what the rest of the tools were. “What’s all that?”
“I’m going to clean and stitch your leg.”
“The hell you are,” said Matt. He softened his tone a moment later. “Look, I appreciate the effort, but I don’t want you to practice on me. I think stitching is probably a lot different than sewing something.”
“It sure is, but it’s a good thing for you that my crazy dad insisted I learn how to put stitches in. I even know how to use lidocaine.” As she spoke, she lifted a glass vial and a syringe, drawing some of the medicine into the syringe. “Now, don’t be a big baby, Matt.”
He wanted to run away, but he was sort of trapped. Considering all the other knowledge Ivy had displayed this evening, he doubted she was exaggerating her skills when it came to stitching, so he forced himself to stay still as she opened the bottle and poured it on the wound. It burned, and he hissed. “What the heck is that?”
“Just sterile water, you big baby.” She winked at him to take the sting out of the words. “It’s because the wound is deep that it hurts.”
“Why didn’t you give me the lidocaine first?”
“I have to be able to see the wound before I can inject lidocaine, and besides, lidocaine only lasts about ten minutes. You’re going to want it for stitches instead of this. Trust me.”
