"Give the cops your information, and we'll make sure you're notified of anything you may have been exposed to. You probably saved his life, though. You did good."
She nodded, her hands crossed loosely before her, touching as little as she could. "Prognosis?"
"Critical, but good," he said. "He's stable. You know his name?"
Riley just shook her head. "No, I was just the person closest."
"Yeah. Where'd you learn?"
She laughed a bit. "Veterinary medicine, mostly. It's all the same thing, and I have horses. They try to commit suicide on a regular basis."
The man chuckled as if he understood. Then, "If he asks, should I tell him your name?" From the look on his face, she knew that the answer was often a no.
"Tell him QQ. That will mean more to him."
"QQ?"
"My game name. We all play shooters. That's what the convention next door is for. He'll know who QQ is."
The paramedic smiled a bit at that. "Yeah. Kinda explains a bit. Ok, talk to the officer, and he'll get all of your information. You really did good, ma'am. May have saved his life."
He patted her on the shoulder, smiled at her again, then went back to help the others load the poor kid onto a stretcher. He'd only taken a few steps away when a police officer made it to her side.
"Hi, I'm Officer Hernandez. You're the one who gave first aid?"
Riley nodded. "Yeah."
"You know the victim?"
Riley just shook her head. "Never seen him before in my life. I can't tell you if I know him online or not, since I don't know his name." When the cop looked at her funny, she explained again. "This is a gamer convention. FPS, uhm, first person shooters. I know a lot of these guys on the other side of a computer, but only by their game names, and I don't have a clue what most of them look like."
"Ah, ok." He seemed like he was about to speak again when she interrupted him.
"Is there a second ambulance out there?" Riley asked.
"Yeah, there's five. Are you injured?"
She shook her head. "No, but my sister is probably having a panic attack. She was right next to me, and I'd kinda like to make sure she's ok?"
He nodded before speaking into the radio on his shoulder. "Where is she?"
Riley turned and pointed, finding Knock and Kitty easily. Without thinking, she called out. "Knock!" He turned and started to stand when she waved him down. "Have a medic check her?"
Knock just gave her a thumbs-up and nodded. The officer gestured at him while looking at someone by the door. In the background, people were moving everywhere. Riley wasn't sure at what point the music had stopped and the lights came on, but it no longer looked like the inside of a club. This looked like a crime scene.
"How are you doing?" the officer asked, looking at her carefully.
"So far, so good," Riley said with a shrug. "I'll lose it later. This is just how I am."
"Did you want to sit?" he offered. "These questions might get a bit harder as we go on."
Riley nodded at him, and he walked with her to a quiet table. He took the chair across from her and pulled out a small notebook, laying it before him.
"You really need to modernize," she teased.
"I know," he said with a grin. "So, tell me what you saw, as you remember it. We'll probably need to go back over a few points."
Riley swallowed once, then started. She told him everything she could remember, except for Cyn's easy understanding of first aid. When she reached that point, she simply said that he'd checked for a pulse and talked to the guy. When the cop asked if she knew the assailant, she just shrugged and repeated to him about how she didn't know his face, but couldn't be sure if she'd met him in-game. Then she told him about the internet group that had been targeting women who played games. He took it all in stride.
She'd been speaking with him for nearly an hour before someone realized she was still covered in the poor kid's blood. It was Logan. He walked to the table with a damp bar rag in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. As he got closer, the cop looked up.
"If you would give us just a moment longer?" he asked politely.
"First," Logan said with a smile, "I'm her attorney. Second, she needs these."
"She's not under arrest," he assured Logan.
He just nodded. "I understand. I'm still bound by privilege. I've also already been interviewed. How you holding up, Q?"
"I'm fine," she assured him. "He's also my boyfriend," she told the cop. "He leaves that part out when he's worried, because being my attorney works better."
Officer Hernandez chuckled. "Gotcha. You need a break, Ms. Andrews?"
"I'm good," she promised. "We can keep going, unless Logan's a problem?"
"Just clean your hands, babe, and drink something," Logan said, kissing the top of her head. "Kitty's fine. They gave her something but didn't take her to the hospital. Knock didn't know, so he's being overprotective now."
"Then go save her," Riley told him. "I'll find you or text you. I think this is going to take a bit."
He nodded but didn't hurry to leave. "Ok. Yell if you need me, ok?"
"Promise."
He finally walked away, and the cop waited a moment before speaking again. "Your boyfriend is your attorney?"
"My attorney is my boyfriend," she corrected. "I'm a professional video game player. That means I get paid to play shooters, sir. I also run a horse farm that does some stuff like they did for the movie Avatar. All the computer animation of real-life stuff. Logan is the representative of the organization hosting this event, and he can get you all of the member information and such that you'll need."
"So pretty well-connected?" he asked with a laugh.
"Kinda," Riley admitted, having never thought about it like that before. "He is. The rest of my family are just like video game celebrities."
"Gotcha. Now, what was the name of the guy helping you with first aid?"
"Cynister. That's all I got. He's weird as can be, but a good guy. I don't know anything else about him except that he plays Eternal Combat, has a 5.4 K/D, and was at the Denver convention, which was where I met him in person. Well, and he's in Logan's outfit. That's like a guild, but for shooters. He keeps to himself."
"So, he was in your group?"
Riley just shook her head. "Nope. Didn't even know he was here until he started helping."
"Is that unusual?"
"No," Riley said. "It's check-in night. We all set up our computers, try them out, then head to the party to find our friends. I only ran into Murder, the one I was dancing with, before the club because he set up next to me in the hotel convention hall. I can point out a handful of others I can see, but haven't even said hi to yet."
The cop nodded again, and made another note. He asked her for her contact information one more time, and double-checked to be sure she didn't need any medical assistance, then was finally done. He patted her kindly on the shoulder as he left her alone. Riley immediately went to find her friends.