Lights to My Siren (28 page)

Not able to look over my shoulder because of my bunker gear, I managed to turn the water flow off with a push of the lever, and set it down.

What I saw when I was clear was enough to chill my blood.

Everything happened quickly after that.

The fire ax that the other firefighter was holding came down quickly.

One second it was above the man’s head, and the next it was buried in my chest. I looked down as if in a haze and saw the axe protruding from my chest. Then I looked back up to see the firefighter leaving. Saw the name on the back of the gear. McRae.

I didn’t feel the agony like I should have.

The only thing I could think was ‘good thing it’s not in my heart.’

Kettle, who’d been on the ground flat on his face, turned over, and removed his helmet.

I would never forget the horror in his eyes when he saw the ax protruding from my chest. Hell, I probably wouldn’t be able to un-see that in the near future, either. That is, if I lived to see the near future.

I didn’t know much of what happened next. Only that my knees gave out. My breathing became a little harder, and eventually I was on the ground watching the smoke billow up from the roof.

My ears started ringing, and the beat of my heart slowed.

Kettle crawled up beside me propping himself up on my elbow and was yelling something, but I couldn’t make it out.

I could only see his lips moving.

I guessed he was yelling based on the amount of time his mouth stayed open.

The last though I had was to tell Baylee how wide Kettle could open his mouth. She’d really appreciate the humor of the situation.

Then my vision dimmed until all I could see resembled a tunnel, and then I was completely out.

Bye Bye. Welcome to la la land.

***

Baylee

“I can’t believe he’s letting you have his recliner. Do you know how much that thing costs?” Tillie sneered at me while I was perched on Silas’ recliner.

I ignored her. She’d been so freaking rude the last hour I’d been in the clubhouse that I was about to go insane.

She’d have yelled at me if Johnny wasn’t currently asleep in my lap.

And the child really could use his sleep. He’d been going 90 to nothing since the party days before. We hadn’t returned the bounce house until just this morning, and he’d been using it for his own personal enjoyment ever since.

At my continued disregard for what she had to say, Tillie stormed off in a huff.

All the women and children were in the clubhouse today. We were left with Normus, Silas and Porter.

Minnie, Porter’s wife, sat beside me knitting a baby blanket for the newest addition to the Dixie Warden family.

A loud boom of thunder shook the room, followed shortly by the power flickering three times before it went out completely.

“God damn son of a bitch.” Normus growled from his position at the bar. “That was the best part of the movie.”

We were watching Phenomenon with John Travolta, and it was at the part where the main character dies.

Oh well, I hated that part anyway.

Movies where the main characters died sucked. I’d read a book a couple of weeks ago where the main character died, and I’d cried for two hours straight. I read to escape reality, not to have reality intrude in my fairytales.

“Turn the radio on for me, Porter.” Silas yelled from the recliner beside me.

“Why can’t we turn on the generator? Wasn’t that the whole reason I came?” I teased.

Silas snorted. “No. The reason you came was so that your old man didn’t have to worry about you while he’s out risking his life to save other people too dumb to get out of this shit and stay the fuck home.”

“Well,” I said trying to contain me laughter. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“What isn’t nice is you teasing me while you’re sitting in an aging man’s chair. I bought that bastard specifically from the furniture store to help me with my aches and pains. And then you freakin’ take it.” Silas condemned.

“Hey, y’all be quiet and listen!” Normus said.

It was something in the tone of Normus’ voice that had everybody shutting up, rather than his words.

Something about the half-hysterical tone had every single person, child included, stopping and listening.

“
...have been battling a blaze at the Town Oak’s Apartment Complex for well over an hour now. There have been multiple victims. Status on those victims have not been released as of yet. So far, there have been three victims of the fire and one firefighter that has been injured. Status on that injured firefighter is unknown, but as soon as we get some more information, we’ll get back to you...
”

I didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was a sixth sense, but I knew that it was Sebastian’s department that went. I knew he was the one injured.

Frantically, I moved the sleeping Johnny off my legs and stood up, and then reached for my cell phone. Sebastian had told me the day of my doctor appointment that the clubhouse didn’t have good service. That was his reason on why he never got any of my calls, since he’d spent so much time here arranging the festivities for the barbeque.

Right now, as I stared at the no service signal, my heart started to pound steadily.

“My cell says no service.”

***

The voicemails finally started coming two hours after we’d arrived at the hospital.

Five hours ago, I, and every other member of the Dixie Warden family arrived at the hospital.

The first call was the Chief of Benton Police, calling to inform us of an accident. The second call was from The Fire Chief telling us that Kettle and Sebastian had both sustained traumatic injuries and for us to come to the medical center ASAP.

The third, and most disturbing, was from Kettle’s sister asking me to please call her and let me know if Kettle made it through all right. Preferably before next week when rent was do.
She’d really appreciate it.

Fuck me.

I had other things to do, and calling that heartless, ungrateful bitch wasn’t one of them.

“Mrs. Mackenzie?” A haggard looking doctor with the Harley Davidson head wrap called.

I came to me feet quickly, rushing forward until I was mere inches away from the poor woman. “Yes?” I asked desperately.

“We’ve stabilized him. The wound he received from the axe to the chest-”

“The what?” Was echoed around the room.

She nodded sagely. “Yes, it was an axe wound. He came in with the axe still imbedded in his chest. We removed it in the OR. However, he sustained quite a bit of bleeding, and our reserves have been severely depleted from the recent influx of injuries due to the storm. On top of that, he’s a rare blood type of AB negative, and we don’t have that on hand right now. We’ve used as much O- as we could, and unfortunately, he still needs more. On a healthy person, he would’ve been fine two pints low, but with how much trauma he’s sustained, it’s just not looking really good right now. I’m really sorry.”

I thought furiously for all of three seconds before I volunteered. “I have O negative blood. We have over thirty people here with me right now; surely one of them has O negative or AB negative.”

“You are not, under no circumstances, donating any blood. That is just not going to happen.” Silas immediately replied.

I knew immediately that he wouldn’t take any arguing from me on this, so I looked desperately throughout the men that were stuffed into the little waiting room with me . Nearly every single one of them shrugged.

Trance came forward. “I have O negative.”

“Me too.” Normus bowled through.

Then a little boy, and seriously, he was a boy, eighteen at most, stepped forward.

He was dressed much the same as the other men of the Dixie Wardens, except for one tiny little difference. He didn’t have the bottom rocker that declared him an actual member of the MC. Sebastian had told me that the ones without the bottom rockers were prospects. They were trying to join the club, and each prospect had a sponsor.

This particular boy was Sterling. He was being sponsored by Sebastian.

Sebastian found Sterling on the streets of Benton eating out of garbage cans and evading the police.

I hadn’t really heard much more about him, but Sebastian had told me everything he knew, which wasn’t much.

But it turned out that the boy was incredibly intelligent, and a good man to have at your back.

He was also offering his own life force to sustain Sebastian, and in my book, that was enough to make him number one for life.

“All right, young men. I’ll take you back to a room and draw some blood. Mrs. Mackenzie, if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to see your husband.” The young doctor said just before she turned strode away, expecting us to follow.

I turned and looked at Johnny, sleeping in Porter’s arms, hesitating before receiving a nod from Porter, as well as Silas. “We got him. Go take care of my boy.”

I left just as the doors to the little room burst open and emitted Sebastian’s siblings, Sam and Shiloh.

I didn’t stop and speak though. I was on a mission to get to my man, and right now, nothing short of an explosion would stop me.

The men were shown to a room just past the locked doors of the fourth floor ICU.

“Wait here. I’ll send a nurse for you shortly.” The doctor ordered.

Trance’s eyes caught mine; he brought his fisted hand up and placed it lightly over his heart.

My eyes welled, but I choked the tears that had been threatening to spill all night, and followed the doctor to the very end of the hallway.

She stopped at the second to last door and indicated with her index finger. “This is your husband’s room. When you go in there, I want you to talk to him. Let him know you’re there. He’s very pale due to the blood loss. His chest wound isn’t covered. He had a collapsed lung that required a tube to be placed...”

The list went on and on.

I could mentally see exactly what was wrong with him before I’d seen him.

I knew enough about medicine to know that the road to recovery would not be an easy one for him. Lucky for him, though, he was in excellent shape, and he had a will to survive. Which would help immensely in the long road to come.

“We’ll have to run some tests on the blood, but as soon as that is taken care of, I’ll be back. Let the nurses up front know if you need anything.” The doctor said as I left.

Even though I could guess what I’d see as I entered the room, the broken shell of a man wasn’t one of them.

Sebastian’s normally golden-bronzed skin was gray and clammy. His eyes had deep purple bruising underneath, and his normally strong persona was missing with him asleep and looking so broken.

He had tubes everywhere.

I wasn’t a newbie to all of this, but I hadn’t had to deal with one of my own in the hospital since my mom was injured when I was younger. Back then, I didn’t understand the logistics of the situation, how hurt my mother had to be to be in the hospital in the first place.

I had no such disillusion now. I knew the wound was an extremely bad one. The axe tore through muscle and bone. The lung that was protected by the muscle and bone, was punctured as well.

I could very much visualize every single piece of the puzzle, regardless of the axe no longer being there.

Walking forward carefully, my hand went to the opposite side of Sebastian’s chest, to the unmarred side that covered his heart.

Jesus, with how hurt he was right this moment, the potential that it could’ve been worse still hung in the air like a thick blanket. He could’ve been hit on the other side, and he would’ve bled out in a matter of moments then.

I didn’t use the word ‘lucky’ since I started my job as a paramedic. I thought in reality. Some of the worse cases I’d seen, where the people were so hurt but still fighting, had a hard road to recovery ahead of them; they weren’t lucky.

Now I realized my error. There was luck involved in any situation where someone is hurt. Their family was lucky to still have them. The patient was lucky to have life left to live at the end of the day. The care provider was lucky that they didn’t have to see their patient die. There was luck surrounding them.

Right now, I felt lucky. I felt lucky that I didn’t lose the love of my life. I felt lucky that the child growing inside of me would have a father. I felt lucky that it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. I was lucky that Johnny didn’t lose his father. I was just lucky.

The wound in his chest was a good seven inches in length. The edges surrounding the wound were red and angry with dark black stitches, fifty in total, spanning the length of it.

I hadn’t realized that I’d stood there staring at his wound for well over an hour. My hand had remained over his heart, feeling it pound strong and steady until a nurse bustled in with two bags of blood.

The nurse was on the older side. Maybe mid forties. She was cute, too. She had brown curly hair that was short and cut off about mid shoulder level. The name badge on her left breast pocket indicated her name as Reba.

“Hi, dear. How’s our patient doing?” Reba asked as she bustled to the other side of the bed.

I watched as she hooked up the line to the first bag of blood after comparing the blood type with his armband. Then she repeated the process with a second bag of blood.

She was quick and efficient, making the process look effortless.

Of course, I only ever did things in a moving vehicle or out in the field. I’d probably make it look that easy if I was in a sedate situation, too.

“He hasn’t woken up?” Reba asked me.

“No,” I shook my head. “He hasn’t even moved.”

The nurse nodded. “He might start moving around more once the blood gets into him. Give him time sweetie. Are you up for one more visitor to come in with you?”

At my nod, she bustled out of the room as fast as she’d come in. She didn’t go far though. She’d stopped right outside the door; spoke softly to someone, and then the door pushed open to reveal Kettle.

“Kettle!” I gasped rushing forward. “What happened to you, are you okay?”

Kettle nodded, and then his face went utterly white for a few precious moments, before walking slowly forward and dropping carefully into a chair in the corner of the room.