by Sophia Gray
“Yeah, yeah, he always used to get the girls rallying around him,” Jagger murmured, biting down on his bottom lip, lost in thought. “But he was alone in that old house…”
Abby started picking at her fingernails, digging deep into her cuticles until little spots of blood popped up on the sides of her fingers. “I came by a lot, you know? Sometimes even when it wasn’t my shift, I’d come just to check on him,” she explained, hoping that would make Jagger feel a little bit better. She did that with a lot of her patients, especially the older ones without any family. But Robert was her favorite. He was so full of energy, so full of life still despite everything. It lifted her spirits and made her feel less shitty about having to work two jobs to pay off her stupid ex’s debt.
“I never visited him,” Jagger muttered, and she could tell her was beating himself up for it.
“Well, I don’t think he would have wanted you to,” Abby said without thinking, realizing a second later that it probably wasn’t very reassuring to say that to him. She rushed to amend her statement, adding, “I mean, he didn’t want anybody to see him. Anybody at all. He hated being sick. I think it would have embarrassed him.”
Jagger nodded again, but he didn’t look convinced. “Maybe he wouldn’t even recognize me. He never really got to know me, not really,” he said.
Abby felt pinpricks of discomfort climb the back of her neck, shifting up into her scalp until her brain practically tingled with it. It took her a long moment to figure out what she was feeling, but then it hit her: Sympathy. She felt pity for this hunky firefighter-slash-biker with obvious guilt issues. That must have been why he was hanging around so long. “Do you, like, blame yourself for not getting there faster or something?” Abby asked, genuinely curious.
“What?” Jagger responded, turning to look at her again.
She felt a little uncomfortable repeating the question, but she did it anyway. “Like, are you beating yourself up over not taking care of Robert?” The firefighter didn’t say anything. Instead, he wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and stared at her, wordlessly prompting her to continue speaking. “It’s not your fault, you know,” she mumbled, bewildered as to how she managed to stumble into comforting this guy that was annoying the shit out of her mere minutes before.
“It’s my job,” Jagger said, like that explained everything away as though he were responsible for all of the fires in the world.
“And it’s my job to make sure my patients are safe,” Abby argued back. “I should have called 911 faster, but I didn’t. I didn’t notice that anything was wrong. I still have no idea how it happened.”
“I do,” Jagger said. “It…. I could have stopped it before it happened, before you had the chance to make any phone calls.”
Abby had to resist the urge to scoff in disbelief. “How’s that?”
Jagger looked over his shoulder, then over the other one, checking to make sure that others in the waiting room weren’t listening in on their conversation. He leaned in closer to Abby, inches away from her ear. Abby could feel his breath hit her face, warm and soft. “Somebody’s targeting members of Satan’s Blazes,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“What do you mean?” Abby asked, dropping her voice to match Jagger’s tone.
Jagger’s forehead scrunched up as he concentrated to find the right words. “Over the last six months, there have been ten fires. Eleven now, all at the houses or workplaces of Blazes members. Or former members, in Robert’s case.” He cleared his throat and checked over his shoulder again. “About half of the fires were arson. Some are a little bit harder to prove.”
“And what are your bosses doing about it?” Abby asked, feeling her shoulders bunch up uncomfortably around her neck. She felt tense again, wound-up like a children’s toy.
Jagger clicked his teeth and smiled, but it was without humor or lightness. “Fuck all. That’s what they’re doing about it. It’s hard without proof. The cops won’t get involved. They don’t want to fuck up their clearance rates by possibly adding an assignment they might not be able to solve.”
Abby leaned back further in her seat, trying to prop up her strained neck against the back of the chair, but it was no good. The pain in her muscles didn’t fade. If anything, it just seemed to get worse, her pulse pounding in the veins of her neck harder and harder as she contemplated the string of arsons. Maybe he’s crazy, she thought to herself. I don’t know this guy. Why am I even listening to him? Why would he talk to me about this instead of his superiors or colleagues? He’s nuts. She tried to inwardly dismiss the subject from her thoughts, tearing her eyes away from Jagger, but she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Several minutes passed in silence, Abby wondered if Jagger had decided to let the conversation drop before he spoke again. “If you could…if you could say you heard something, saw something…” Jagger trailed off, but he was leaned forward in his chair, as close to Abby as possible without leaping into her seat.
“But I didn’t see anything,” Abby replied, staring back at Jagger’s wide eyes. Realization dawned on her slowly, a cold sensation slinking up her body as she came to understand what he was suggesting. “You want me to lie.”
“Exaggerate the truth,” Jagger said, quickly countering her words. “Listen, I know someone’s behind this. It’s not just random. It can’t be a coincidence, not with eleven different fires, Abby. I just need… I need something to get the fire chief to redirect resources to protect Satan’s Blazes. I’ve been trying for months, but it’s been no good. If you could just say you saw somebody suspicious…”
“I’m not getting involved,” Abby said, making her voice as firm as possible to show that it was non-negotiable. “I’m not lying to fucking law enforcement. Sorry. It’s just not happening.”
“You could help protect people, people like Robert—” Jagger tried to say, but she cut him off, shaking her head furiously.
“Listen, I’m just trying to live my life,” Abby said, standing to walk back over to the wall opposite the line of chairs in the waiting room. “I don’t have time to get involved in this shit.” She sighed as Jagger got up to follow her, plastering his body against the wall beside her. Abby couldn’t help but feel guilt pierce her heart, making her pulse go faster inside her veins. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help. But I can’t.”
Jagger opened his mouth to say something. She knew he was about to fire back with a counterargument, but an older nurse stepped out of one of the doors in the waiting room and gestured for Abby to follow her, interrupting him. “He’s been asking for you,” the nurse said, referring to Robert. Abby immediately complied, following the woman through the door and down the hall toward Robert’s room. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the hallway that she realized Jagger was following close behind her. Jesus. What a persistent little fuck.
Robert was sitting up in bed, hooked up to a machine that monitored his heart rate and breathing. Otherwise, he looked okay. In the ambulance on the ride over, Abby had been terrified when she saw how pale and ashen the old man had become. His regular complexion had returned, and he offered her a smile as she walked in the room. Abby did her best to return it, wanting to be as reassuring and comforting as possible. God knows the old man had been through enough without her worrying him with Jagger’s nonsense.
Abby took the chair nearest to the hospital bed, pulling it up closer so she could get a good look at Robert, examining him without calling attention to what she was doing. He seemed all right, as far as she could tell without invasively poking at him. He probably didn’t need any of that again. The doctors had probably done all of that already. “Are you feeling all right, sir?” she asked him, keeping her tone light and casual. She didn’t want him to know how scared she had been before, how worried she was that she might lose him.
“What did I say about you calling me ‘sir’?” Robert said, his face screwing up in pretend annoyance before melting a second later and smiling at her. “I’m not that old yet, woman.”
Or
dinarily, Abby would have been offended at being referred to in that way, but Robert was just so charming, and so sweet. He had the kind of softness that men only achieve after decades of being too hard. It was clear from his hands, even from the state of his lungs that he’d lived a rough life. But now that was over, and he was just a sweet old man who liked to tease her and make her laugh. “You’re a fighter, you know,” she said softly, smiling as brightly as she could and took Robert’s papery hand into hers.
“Not anymore,” Robert said, and his tone was light and humorous, but there was a hint of sadness in his pale blue eyes that hit Abby right in the chest. At that moment, she would have given anything to give this man his vitality back. He didn’t need this, she thought to herself. He was so close to getting better, and now this happens. He deserved better. She felt anger start to build inside of her, but she swallowed it down as hard as she could. She didn’t want to upset Robert by showing how disturbed she was by this entire ordeal, but inside her mind, a little voice kept whispering, Somebody did this to him. Somebody hurt your patient. Somebody hurt him. She couldn’t shake it out of her mind, so she tried to ignore it instead.
A moment later, Jagger shoved in next to her, getting uncomfortably close as he leaned over to stare down at Robert. “Hey, Bobby. It’s Jagger, from Satan’s Blazes.”
Robert squinted up at him as he did in the ambulance, but this time his eyes widened with recognition. “Ah. Jagger, that’s right. How are you, boy?”
“Been better, Bobby. You see, somebody’s been going around...”
Abby cut him off, elbowing Jagger in his side hard enough that he emitted a little grumble of pain in response. “I don’t think now is the best time for that kind of talk,” she muttered as quickly and casually as she could to avoid alarming Robert.
She looked up at Jagger, seeing him roll his eyes. She felt a flash of irritation heat up her face, but she forced a smile anyway, refocusing her attention on Robert. “Did they say when you might be able to go home?” she asked.
Robert gave a little shrug. “A few days, probably. They got to watch me, you know,” he said before falling into a fit of coughs, pulling his hand away from Abby’s to clutch at his chest. Abby rubbed the back of his head, smoothing over his tangled grey hair to calm him back down. Before she could say anything else, Jagger shoved a little bit closer to the bed and captured Robert’s gaze.
“Bobby, do you know how the fire started? Did you see anything?” Jagger asked. Abby felt anxiety knock into her stomach, acid swimming around frantically, but she told herself to breathe deeply to avoid another embarrassing public panic attack. Besides, it was an innocent enough question. It wasn’t like Jagger was announcing that there was a conspiracy to kill his MC members. Well, not so far, anyway, Abby thought.
Robert’s eyebrows furrowed, meeting in the middle of his forehead. “What do you mean, son?”
“Before or after the fire started, was there anything… off? Anything different that you noticed?” Jagger asked. Abby decided to let the line of questioning continue, if Jagger didn’t push too hard.
Robert coughed a little more and cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice was still gravelly and rough. “I think… I think somebody was coming to the front door, selling magazines. This man was dressed up, in a real nice suit, heading toward my place, but then he skipped my house for some reason. Didn’t even knock. Maybe he smelled the smoke or something before me and Abby did,” he said.
Jagger nodded slowly, staring off into the distance, focusing on something that Abby couldn’t see. “A suit…” he mumbled to himself, searching for something inside his mind.
A beeping noise loudly chirped in the quiet room, causing Abby to jump a little before she saw Jagger pull a pager out of his pocket. She groaned inwardly and pressed her hand against her sweaty forehead to get herself to calm down, but she was distracted by the layer of grime on her skin leftover from the fire. She needed to get home and shower. She felt disgusting, but she wanted Robert’s unspoken permission that he felt safe enough in the other nurses’ care before she left him.
“The station is calling me back,” Jagger murmured, staring down at his pager as he typed out a response.
“Don’t you have a cell phone?” Abby said, her tone a little nasty.
“Not for fire business,” Jagger said without missing a beat. “I got to go, Bobby. I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” Robert said, his eyes sliding shut and mouth going slack. It was evident that he was incredibly tired, which made sense given the intensity of the day he had.
Jagger started to walk out of the room, but halfway to the door he froze and walked back over to Abby. “Listen, if you change your mind about what we discussed earlier, you know, about that thing you saw—” Abby wanted to interrupt him and remind him that she didn’t see anything, but Jagger put one hand in the air to silence her. “Just let me know, okay?”
All Abby could do was shrug halfheartedly. She knew she wouldn’t change her mind, even if she did feel guilty and somewhat sympathetic toward the firefighter. She didn’t consider herself to be a particularly good person, but lying to the cops just wasn’t something she was prepared to do. She still wanted to sleep well at night if she was going to keep up with her two jobs.
“Can I have your phone number? I just want to check in with you later, to see if maybe you might come around to my way of thinking about this,” he said softly. Abby debated it, weighing the pros and cons in her head. What if he was just trying to hit on her? Abby was in no way prepared for a relationship right now— or ever again, for that matter. Dating wasn't at the top of her list of priorities. There was no way she was going to let herself be vulnerable and allow yet another man to hurt her. Maybe if he was just interested in hooking up, that could work out and benefit both of them, without any commitment necessary. After a long pause, Abby finally nodded and rattled off her digits to Jagger, who typed them into his phone before giving her a small smile and retreating quietly from the room.
A moment later a nurse entered the room, holding a clipboard. “Excuse me. I need to see the patient alone.”
“He has a name, you know,” Abby said in an blatantly annoyed tone of voice. “It’s Robert.”
“Of course,” the nurse said without looking up from the papers in her hand. “I need you to leave the room, miss. You can come back tomorrow.” Abby bit her tongue to keep from shooting back a rude retort. She knew what it was like working in a hospital and dealing with over emotional family members and friends, so she held herself back from snapping at the nurse any more than she already had.
“Fine,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Robert, I’m going to see you soon, okay? I promise.” But Robert had already slipped off into sleep, his breathing going deep and regular. That was a good sign, right? He sounded better than he had even a week before when she had visited him at his house like usual to check on his breathing and make sure he was taking all his medication.
In any case, she got up from her seat and walked out into the hallway and back into the waiting room, seeing Jagger’s back disappear out the front doors of the hospital. She was tempted to run after him, or say something, apologize for being so nasty and unhelpful. But she was tired. Her bones ached like someone had been chipping away at them with a sharp knife all day. She needed to relax and unwind if she was going to make her shift at the hospital tomorrow. It wasn’t like she had any other choice.
A half-hour later, Abby walked into her tiny apartment and straight into the bathroom, shucking off her dirty clothes and running the water in the bathtub as high as it could go. Abby got into her tub, sighing as she sunk into its warmth. Her phone was still on the side of the tub, totally charged and prepared in case she got from the hospital.
Abby inwardly coached herself to breathe in and out as deeply as she could, trying to get her lungs to stop burning. She leaned back against the edge of the tub and threw a damp washcloth over her eyes, t
rying to get the tension between her eyebrows to fade. Her muscles hurt like she’d run a marathon. She was stuck in a moment of stress and effort, but as the minutes ticked by, she felt a little bit of the pain abandon her body. It left her feeling limp as she allowed the water to take the layer of dust and soot and ash off of her body.
She trailed her fingers up and down her arms, partly cleaning herself off but mostly just trying to give herself a little massage to relax, her mind wandered back to Jagger. He did seem like a nice guy who genuinely cared about Robert’s safety, as well as that of the rest of the motorcycle club, even if he had questionable ethics. Maybe that was why she kept thinking about him. At the hospital, she met hot guys all the time, most of them cute young nurses that stuttered and faltered when they attempted to ask her out. There was something different about Jagger, something that made her want to see him again, if only for a roll in the sack.
It’s those arms, she told herself. Jagger’s got muscles that could do things to me that have never done before. A man like that could wear me out, make me feel good. But in her mind, another voice insisted that it wasn’t just that. She was worried about the fires. If Jagger was right and there was a conspiracy targeting members of Satan’s Blazes, that meant that Robert might still be in danger, and he was important to Abby. As weird as that was, as inappropriate as it felt to be so attached to one of her patients, she still felt grateful that he was alive and well. And it had to do with Jagger, not her. If anything, Abby had failed Robert. She couldn’t lift him out of the house, no matter how hard she had tried. And for that matter, she should have called the fire department sooner, as soon as she smelled smoke. Instead, she had been an idiot, endangering her charge’s life by waiting until she saw flames split the building in two.
