My Luck (Twisted Luck Book 1)

by Mel Todd

  "Male, approximate age mid-thirties, collapsed walking out of the supermarket. Manager is waiting. Male is breathing but unresponsive. What's your ETA?" The dispatcher was talking so fast I could barely keep up. I glanced at Sally.

  "Under three minutes," she responded, not looking at me but the traffic.

  I repeated the information into the radio. There wasn't anything else for me to do. "How do you know where you're going?"

  "There's a GPS there," she nodded at a part of the dashboard I hadn't paid much attention to. "But Jeff and I spend a lot of time memorizing maps. We make a game of it, blocking streets and providing addresses and we have to get there without looking at a map. Granted Rockway is pretty small, but in the big cities it's even more important. You need to know the roads if you're the driver. Freeways can be shut down and in bad weather roads might be closed. Always take time to study maps. You never know when it might be important. GPS isn't always there."

  The vehicle slowed as she turned into the parking lot of a Food Depot. "Follow my lead. I would have preferred to go through this a few times, but I have faith."

  I kept my self-doubts to myself, instead I jumped out after her once the bus stopped. Getting the gurney out of the back proved to be more complicated than I thought, but Sally didn't seem upset as we got it out. I would absolutely be practicing that. It looked like it might eat my fingers if I wasn't careful.

  She grabbed a bag and threw it on the gurney then headed over. Three people were standing around the man lying on the ground.

  "Cori, go start basic assessment." She handed me a stethoscope, flashlight, and blood pressure monitor.

  I nodded, grabbing what she handed me, and knelt by the man's other side as she started asking questions and taking notes.

  I listened to his chest, the heartbeat steady. His blood pressure was a bit high at 132/85, but nothing alarming. I peeled back his right eyelid. A blue iris appeared. The pupil contracted as I shone the light into it. I then peeled back the second one. The wide pupil told me what was wrong before I even flashed the light across his eye.

  "Sally?" She paused in what she was doing to look at me. "Breathing steady, BPM is 132/85, but his left pupil is blown and unresponsive."

  "Pain stimulus?" she snapped out, but I was already doing it. A sharp hard knuckle to the sternum usually roused response from even unconscious people.

  "Negative."

  I didn't hear her curse as much as sense it. She jotted something down quickly and stood up. "We need to get him to the hospital asap." It took a bit—we needed to practice moving unresponsive people onto the gurney, especially when neither of us weighed more than a hundred fifty pounds.

  But we got him strapped in and in the bus. "Stay back here, hook him up to the monitors. I'm going in hot."

  I gave her a look—if I was right about what had happened, he was already dead. But I said nothing, instead hooking up pulse-ox , blood pressure monitor, and EKG. There wasn't anything to give him, so I kept him comfortable as Sally tore through town. I'd had the week-long class to get my driver license notation for ambulances and paramedic trucks scheduled for two weeks after graduation. Something else I'd stressed about before finding out I'd make some money plus the money my parents gave me. I almost felt rich. Or at least I knew I could afford it without going into debt.

  Sally could hear me in the front of the bus, and I wished she was in back with the patient. "Can't you help him?" My voice didn't shake, but I knew mages could do incredible things. Which meant Sally should be able to do something.

  She did me the honor of not pretending to misunderstand me, but she asked me questions first. "What is your diagnosis?"

  "Brain aneurysm." My response was immediate and blunt. It sucked, but everything pointed to that, though I could be wrong. I didn't think I was. The fact that his EKG was starting to wind down supported my hypothesis. Without thinking twice, I put him on oxygen. It would help keep him alive longer or preserve the organs for transplant.

  "I suspect that too. If I knew exactly where the blown vessels were and what areas of his brain had been damaged, I might be able to do something, but in reality, a merlin couldn't save him. That's why many of the best doctors who are mages are surgeons. You need to see something to be able to affect it. There are very few aspects of magic that allow you to work blind. And few people who can work with what they can't see. One of the reasons they push education so much."

  That was the second time someone had told me that and I filed it away, wondering what Jo would be able to do with even more knowledge than she already had about mechanics. Scott had said that was a skill of his, and Sloan admitted he couldn't do it. So, not just power but innate abilities. I'd have to remember not everything on TV was true.

  We didn't have any more time to talk as she pulled into the emergency room bay and nurses ran out to meet us. "I'll take it this time, you listen and learn." She snapped out the words as she threw open the doors in the back and then started to pull the gurney out.

  In fast concise words, she laid out the situation. A doctor grabbed him, peering into his eyes as we walked through the ER to one of the rooms.

  "Let's get an EEG on him."

  The machine to read brain activity wasn't one that I had seen in the ambulance. I'd need to ask if that was something I had missed or if they just didn't carry it.

  It took the experienced nurses less than two minutes to have him hooked up, even as another nurse took his wallet and personal effects from me. I had recorded his name, age, and address on the forms. He had a phone on him, and I'd verified there was emergency contact information on it, but that wasn't my job to do. That fell to others.

  "EEG active," someone said, and I turned to look. The brain waves showed exactly what I had expected, low level basic readings and they were fading. There was no higher brain wave activity. For all intents and purposes he was already dead, his body just hadn't caught up with that knowledge.

  "Donor?" a doctor asked, her voice neutral.

  "According to the license, yes."

  "Good. Hook him up to life support and get his family notified and in here. They have choices to make. There is nothing I can do for him." Her voice wasn't cruel, just matter of fact and I watched her walk away.

  I couldn't take my eyes off the dead man, standing there with my hand still on his ankle. Things I had never seen, created from my imagination, flashed across my mind. My parents coming in only to be told their son was dead.

  "Cori?" Sally's voice broke apart the images that I'd never seen. Instead, it was the man, looking at me. His eyes wide and surprised, blinking at me, then staring at his body. He looked around wildly, then at the body again—already nurses worked on keeping it alive though the man, the person he had been, was dead.

  "Cori? You okay?" Sally's voice again, right in my ear. I jumped and the man faded away, leaving me with the body a man who'd never laugh again.

  A hand touched my shoulder and I turned to look at her. There must have been something on my face because she frowned. "I know you've seen dead bodies before. Something wrong?"

  I shook my head, chasing the strange images—all of them must have come from my imagination. I shrugged and forced a smile that I'm sure looked as fake as it felt.

  "I've never come with them to the hospital before. It just hit me, I guess. Made me think about things I've never thought of before. Kicked my imagination into overdrive I guess."

  The last thing I needed was to tell her I thought I'd seen the dead man looking at his body. That wasn't any more real than my parents standing by Stevie's body and crying, begging the doctor that it couldn't be true.

  "The first few ones that die on you are hard. In some ways this one was easy."

  I wasn't shocked by her words, not exactly, but I did give her a look.

  "He was dead before we even got the call. You don't need to ask yourself if you did the right thing. Would he still be alive if you had moved faster, been smarter, done something else? I'm sorry yo
u got this as your first call, but at the same time it could have been worse."

  My mind flashed back to laying in the car, my hand on the boy's face as he died. Yes, it could have been much, much worse.

  "So now what?" Though I suspected I knew. Paperwork, then back to the station to repack and clean the rig.

  "File the reports and get back. We need to go over your bag so it's useful, and then, since you have your EMT cert you know the law?" she asked as we headed over to the admin portion of the ER.

  "Yeah, but since I don't have a car and I can't carry it with me, I haven't worried about it."

  "Point. Create a mini bag with things you can use to do what you can. Then get a decent one once you get a car. You'll hopefully never need it. But if you do, you'll thank all the stars in the skies."

  Once again, I found myself smothered by paperwork, but soon enough we were back at the station. The rig didn't take long to clean or set back to rights, then she went over the bag with me.

  "As I was saying, the point was for you to have a couple weeks with the bag, organize it, figure out what works for you. Every medic is different on how they like it organized." She handed me the voucher. "This is to be filled out so you get reimbursed by our department, as you'll leave the bag here. Normally techs only buy the bag and the department or agency provides the supplies. But to be good at this job you need to know everything in this bag intimately. Know what you prefer, how to use it, and most importantly how to know when you need to restock."

  With that, Sally launched into reviewing the bag and everything in it. Needles, gauzes, pressure bandages— all the things I would have sworn I knew how to use. Turned out I barely had a clue.

  The rest of the day was spent on two more calls, the first a diabetic who had slipped into a diabetic coma, the second a kid who'd managed to trip and break his arm. By the time the day was done, my brain thought it might explode with the new knowledge.

  I caught the bus home in a daze of information overload and worry that I'd made a huge mistake.

  Chapter 37

  While almost all governments have signed legislation and other affirmations that there is no preference for mages in their country, mages still tend to be mostly upper middle class and higher. Even most hedgemages tend to be in better jobs and better paid than the equivalent non-magic users. ~ Magic Explained

  All I want is a night of solid sleep. I'm starting to understand the attraction of drugs. If I could get eight hours of dream-free sleep it would be wonderful.

  Nightmares followed me through that first week. Jumbled up things that weren't possible mixed with images that might have been memories of Stevie's death, or just my subconscious deciding to torture me.

  By Friday I begged off seeing Jo and just collapsed into bed, trying to convince myself I'd make it through work tomorrow. Jo had accepted that, but only after I promised to go out Monday night. She was determined to celebrate my birthday. Part of me had a hard time realizing it was April already. I'd graduate next month.

  Then the Paramedic test. I needed to refresh the meds section again but working with Sally and admitting that was my weakest area had already helped me leaps and bounds. I felt like by the end of May I'd be ready to take that exam.

  By some miracle I got six hours of sleep Friday night. Which meant I dragged myself into the Grind Down almost functional. Kadia popped in the back door minutes after I unlocked, making me suspect she'd been waiting for me.

  "You're back!" she squealed, wrapping me in a hug so tight I felt faint by the time she let me go.

  "I take it that you missed me?" I said when I could draw in enough air to speak.

  "You have no idea, though I ran the back room, so it isn't a complete disaster. Walking with a brace is a pain in the ass." She gestured at the brace on her jeans. "But I'm still better off than Carl. I have no idea what Molly is going to do, but she needs to replace you and me soon. She is worse than the other two combined. I get she wants to make more money, but seriously, I start my own classes soon. I can't take her social awkwardness." Kadia's familiar babble made me smile and soon we were in our groove, the shop clean, customers satisfied, and lists of what stock was getting low created.

  But for the first time I felt discontented doing it. Getting caffeine didn't really make a difference in someone's life. It might make their day better, but it didn't change anything. I wanted to be back in that bus, making a difference in people's lives.

  But could I do it? Would I ever be as good as Sally or Jeff? Oh, I hadn't made any horrible mistakes in the last week, but looking back, I could see things I should have done better, or faster, or known.

  Stop it. You're doing it. Sally would tell me if I shouldn't do this.

  The self-pep talk broke off as three men walked in. They didn't fit my normal Saturday crowd, as all three wore suits and had self-important attitudes. My skin crawled as they came in. Only one of the three was a mage, a Spirit mage, but I treated them the same as everyone.

  "Morning. What can I get you?" Long experience let me project humor and friendliness, even though my body wanted to back up and run away.

  "Are you Corisande Munroe?" the mage asked.

  "Yes," I answered, though I really wanted to play dumb.

  He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thick manila envelope. "You've been served." He handed me the envelope and I took the envelope with numb fingers. Before I had a chance to even look at the envelope, much less figure out what this was about, he continued. "And this is a restraint order preventing all communication via yourself or other parties with Estella, Rafael, or Kristos Munroe." That piece of paper was added to the pile. He then smirked at me. "Have a great day."

  I looked at the papers as if they were written in Russian, unable to even figure out what this meant. Before I could open the folder and pull out the papers one of the other two men spoke.

  "Corisande Munroe, you've been accused of cheating in the EMT certification exam, as well as the cognitive test. There is also an investigation about your relationship with Bruce Marxin and possible unethical interaction." He handed me another sheaf of papers. Glaring out from the top page was the crest of the school, proclaiming its authenticity.

  "What?" squeaked out of my throat. My hands went icy cold as I took the additional papers.

  "Read them. The charges are listed out in the attached documentation. There is a hearing this Monday morning to address these charges. Please note if these claims are upheld, your ability to work as an emergency technician in the state of Georgia will be rescinded, you will be expelled and blacklisted from retaking the test for five years. Failure to appear will be seen as an admission of guilt." He rattled this all off as if the words weren't causing my life to crumble into pieces at my feet. "Have an excellent day." He and the other man traded a half laugh, as if they were performers nailing a show.

  The added smirk of contempt with the swirl of coats as they headed out the door slammed another icicle into my soul. In two hands I held papers that felt like they weighed tons.

  "Cori? Cori? Can you hear me? You've gone really pale. Here, sit."

  A huge commotion arose outside, yells, and shouts, but I couldn't focus as Kadia led me to a chair. I sank into it.

  "Oh, by Merlin," Kadia gasped. "The entire traffic light pole came down, took out the cars of the guys that were in here. What is going on?" She shifted her focus back to me, but I could only stare at the papers, not knowing which one to open first. Indecision gripped me and the ringing of my cell phone came as a relief. Something, anything else to focus on than this. Besides, from the ring I knew it was Jo. She'd make it better. Just hearing her voice would make it better.

  "Hey Jo-Jo. What's up?" I knew my voice shook, but I clung to the solid person that she was. When her voice came over the phone, that thin control shattered.

  "Cori? Sanchez was hurt. They're rushing him to the hospital now. A jack snapped and the car dropped on his leg. It's bad. The bone broke really bad. I-" Her voice broke
and everything else pushed away.

  "Where are you?" I headed to the door as I spoke.

  "Going to the Healthstar Hospital in Rome. Cori, if he loses his leg…" Her voice trailed off and she fought back a sob. No magic would be able to grow him a new leg. It meant prosthetics and a long hard road ahead of him.

  "He won't. I'll meet you there. Jo, I will be there." My voice hard and sure.

  "Thanks. I need you," she admitted and hung up.

  "Kadia, I've got to go." I pulled up the ride share app as I spoke. "Jo's brother was hurt. I'm going to the hospital to meet her there. Sorry, you're on your own. Call Molly."

  "Cori, here." She shoved all the paperwork at me, with a binder clip holding them together. "Call the school while you go there and find out what this is about. I'm sure he'll be okay. I've got this."

  "Thanks, and sorry." I grabbed everything, shoving it into my bag. I'd look at it later.

  I managed to schedule a ride, and they'd pick me up at the corner in a minute. "Thanks," I said over my shoulder heading out. The commotion outside surprised me as I looked at the huge light pole that had fallen, pulled by wires and guidelines across the two cars parked in front of Grind Down. The men who had come in and tried to shatter my world were yelling and gesturing at a police officer that stood there. Utility crews had already shown up and were dealing with the snarl of traffic and people.

  On any other day I might have stood and looked at it, trying to figure out what had happened. Today that didn't matter. Jo was first. Then school, then when I had time, I'd look at the stuff from the Munroes. I refused to even call them my parents anymore.

  Maybe I should legally change my name?

  The idle thought kept me distracted as I turned the corner and walked away from the chaos. A car pulled up and I matched the info, sliding in. "Healthstar Rome, emergency room."

  The young man scanned me with a startled look. "You aren't hurt, are you?"

  "Huh? No, meeting a friend there. Her brother was taken in."