There was a crackling on the other end like he was there, listening, and had chosen to remain silent because there was nothing more to be said. How could I blame him? What I was asking for was too much. Tears streaked across my face as I bent down and kissed RJ’s fever-ravaged forehead. He was unconscious now, the pain, the exertion, the loss of blood all working together to create the perfect storm.
I looked down at the gauze wrapped tight just below his lower calf. His foot was gone, left crushed under all that concrete. I watched him do it, horrified but in awe of his strength, his desire to live. The screams. The blood. They would haunt me to the day I died. But I stayed there by his side, even taking over when the knife fell from his hand. We’d come that far. I had to set him free.
And when it was done, RJ had wrapped his appreciative arms around me once more. His foot was gone, yet his resolve remained. He wanted to live; we both did.
But neither one of us had been prepared for the trek that followed. Using the crutch Bruce had provided and me as support on the other side, RJ and I began the arduous journey across a wasteland of destruction and fallen debris. When it had just been me climbing over crushed cars and mangled rebar, the trip had seemed manageable but RJ, fresh out of self-surgery and with only one foot to navigate on, was quickly beginning to fade.
Yet I kept pushing him past what should be expected of any human body. And when he finally fell, there was no getting him back up. RJ was out cold, his skin so pale it was streaked in shades of light blue. Still, I didn’t give up, calling on whatever reserves I had left inside me to drag him through the debris and over mounds of crumbling concrete until I dropped to the ground in sheer exhaustion with his near lifeless body draped over me. We’d made it to the crater. But that was the farthest the two of us would go because that ladder was my breaking point.
“Parker, if you can hear me… I tried. I really tried. I got RJ to the base of the ladder, but he’s unconscious and too heavy for me to get him out of here. His pulse is so low. I don’t think he has much longer. I’m going to stay with him until the end, and then once he’s gone…” I swallowed back a sob. “I’ll come out.”
I stroked RJ’s handsome face, pressing kisses along the smooth skin and smiling at the memory of shaving him graveside. When he’d been at his most vulnerable, RJ’s spirit had shown. And while he would not be able to make the grand, heroic exit we’d both planned, I would never let anyone forget his name. RJ Contreras would live on as a shining star.
“That’s my last promise to you,” I whispered in his ear.
The walkie-talkie crackled.
Hold on, Gladys. I’m coming.
Parker descended the ladder with a stretcher strapped to his back. But he was not the only hero to climb down those stairs. His captain, Marcel, was already on the ground, checking RJ’s vital signs and calling orders to those who stood above the hole, waiting to hoist him up on the stretcher.
I stood off to the side, watching. In shock. Emotional. RJ was lifted onto the stretcher and strapped in. And as Parker cushioned his leg for the trip out of the parking garage, the firefighter who I knew after this would be my friend for life turned to me.
“It’s time to go.”
Everything was taking place in slow motion. I heard his words but couldn’t reply.
“Dani,” Parker’s voice shook me out of my trance. “You’ve done enough. Let us do the rest. Go.”
I began to cry. Yes, I’d done enough. It was time. Looking up, I saw a firefighter at the top of the ladder, holding a hand out to me. I lifted my foot onto the bottom rung and began the climb.
19
Dani: In the Nick of Time
It wasn’t until RJ had been loaded into the back of an ambulance and whisked away in a swirl of lights and sirens that the weight of the trauma I’d experienced finally hit me. My heart began to race, and my blood-stained hands turned clammy. Then came the weakness and dizziness that brought me to the ground. Before I even knew what was happening, I was on my back, blinking up at the morning sun.
Rapid, weak pulse, I heard them say. Blood pressure’s low.
I wanted to let them know I was fine, not to worry about me, but an oxygen mask was placed over my nose and mouth before I could get the words out, and I was honestly just too exhausted to fight another battle. So, minutes after RJ was taken away, I also found myself on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance being whisked away in a swirl of lights and sirens. I closed my eyes, letting the movement of the vehicle lull me to sleep… until someone stuck a needle into my vein.
“Ouch,” I complained, trying to draw my hand away.
“Don’t pull it out or I’ll have to stick you again.”
My eyes were slow to identify who’d spoken, but when they cleared, I saw Bruce, the opinionated paramedic, staring back at me.
I lifted the oxygen mask off my face. “Hey, I know you.”
“Oh, I know you too. You’ve made today very eventful.”
“Really not my fault. Please blame Mother Nature.”
“I don’t know, Dani. I feel like you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
I managed to form the barest of smiles. “You’re mean. You wanna be my friend?”
“If what you did for RJ is your idea of being a good friend, then yes, I would very much like to be added to that list.”
“Consider it done,” I replied, happy to expand my network for this big teddy bear of a man. “And I think we both know I didn’t keep RJ alive on my own. I had a little help from my friends.”
Bruce caught my eye, knowing exactly what I was talking about.
“That moment when I saw the bag, the crutch…” I drew in a breath to keep from crying. “We couldn’t have done it without you, without Parker. Without the supplies…”
Placing a finger to his lips, Bruce looked around before saying, “How about we keep that part of it to ourselves?”
My eyes rounded. Oh, shit. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to be penalized for helping us bring an end to the nightmare. I mimed zipping my mouth shut only to unzip it a second later to add, “And about that friend request. I feel obligated to disclose that I have one hundred and ten siblings.”
“Of course you do.”
The fact that Bruce didn’t even blink at the news told me he was getting used to my particular brand of crazy.
I tapped the IV in my hand. “Please tell me that’s straight-up vodka going into my bloodstream.”
He smiled, shaking his head. “Oh, so close, but no. Saline. You were showing signs of dehydration, but I haven’t ruled out shock due to infection. I mean, considering that I watched you pull a piece of glass out of your arm with dirty fingers, it’s certainly a plausible scenario.”
“What hospital are you taking me to?”
“The closest one.”
“Is that where they’re taking RJ?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Can you at least tell me if he’s going to be okay?”
“I can’t tell you that either.”
“Seriously, Bruce. It’s me. I thought we were past these formalities.”