Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(69)

Kellan flew into motion, starting CPR. One and two and three and four… Christ, she felt so small and frail, his hands spanning more than half of her chest. “Come on, Angel. Breathe. You need to breathe.”

Copeland’s white-blond brows winged up, her hands hitching over the leads to the portable monitor at the foot of the gurney. “Do you know this woman?”

A thread of warning uncurled in Kellan’s chest despite all the go-go-go flooding through his bloodstream. Even a small admission would risk outing Isabella’s off-the-books recon. “I…I’ve seen her before. She’s an informant for the RPD. Or she’s supposed to be.”

“Well, you and I are going to do everything we can to help her.”

Blocking everything from his brain that wasn’t part of the trauma response, Kellan completed a few rounds of compressions before rotating with Quinn to monitor Angel’s vitals. He registered his surroundings in clips of awareness—the radio byplay between Gamble and Slater as they moved through the house with the primary water line, the acrid scent of smoke tightening the back of his throat, the crease that deepened between Copeland’s brows with every check of Angel’s nonexistent vitals.

Jesus. How had this even happened? Angel was supposed to be with Isabella. She was supposed to be safe.

Instead, she was fighting for her life.

Kellan and Quinn completed a five-minute cycle of compressions, then another. His muscles burned to the point of cramping, and he whipped his coat from the frame of his shoulders to keep himself from overheating. His body processed the cool blast of air even though his brain refused to let him enjoy the relief, and come on—come on—for fuck’s sake, why wasn’t Angel responding?

“Command to Copeland, Command to Drake.” Captain Bridges’ voice cut a path into Kellan’s awareness from the radio slung over the shoulder of Copeland’s uniform. “Ambulance Twelve is on-scene.”

“Thank God,” Copeland murmured, sliding a gaze toward the flat red line moving over the screen of the portable monitor. A few seconds later, a dark-haired paramedic appeared at her side, and God damn it, Kellan hated every last bit of Quinn’s expression as she greeted the guy.

“Unresponsive female pulled from the scene,” she said, giving the paramedic the bullet in low, serious tones. “No breath sounds, no pulse. Began compressions fourteen minutes ago. No response.”

“Fourteen minutes down is a long time.” The paramedic looked from Copeland to Angel, then back again before adding, “You want to take her to Remington Hospital so the docs can call it?”

“No.” Kellan heard the protest only after it had catapulted from his mouth. But they had to do something here. He had to do something. “Can’t you intubate her? Or shock her with the defibrillator? Maybe she just needs a jolt to get her heart going.”

Quinn’s hand curled around his forearm. “Walker, we can’t. Intubating her won’t make her breathe on her own, and we can’t shock her if she never had a heart rhythm to begin with. We’ll continue CPR on the way to the hospital, but I’m sorry. She’s gone.”

Anger cranked Kellan’s jaw hard enough to make his molars beg for forgiveness. Ripping his gloves from his hands, he grated out a harsh curse as Copeland and the paramedic from Twelve loaded the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Kellan swung his gaze over the scene, taking in the ruined, now-smoldering house and Parker’s grim expression from where he knelt over a man about forty feet away.

…Drake’s guy is critical too…Drake’s guy…

Kellan strode across the pavement, his heart locked in his windpipe. Drake’s eyes were on the monitor propped beside the crumbling curb, the other paramedic from Station Twelve doing CPR across from him. Kellan lasered in on the victim’s face, shock and fear combining to punch him right in the throat.

The second victim was Danny Marcus.

Parker looked up as Kellan came to a clumsy stop a few feet away. “Hey, man. You okay?”

“I…” Kellan shook off the question, because answering it with a yes would make him an epic fucking liar. “How is he?”

Although the other paramedic didn’t slow her compressions, Drake gave up a tight shake of his head. “No vitals. Gates found him in a hall closet. Looks like they were cooking meth in the kitchen, and somehow the chemicals ignited. He must’ve been trying to hide from the fire until you guys showed up. I did all I could, but that smoke is pretty toxic. Once you breathe enough of it in…”

“Yeah,” Kellan said, already in motion. “Thanks, Drake.”

No emotions. Just what’s in front of you. Go.

Pushing past the adrenaline-fueled shake of his legs, he cut a straight path to Engine Seventeen. The details were far too tidy to be accidental, the victims too connected to him and Isabella and last night’s party to be a coincidence. Angel and Danny Marcus were both dead.

Which meant Isabella was in danger of being next.

Although it took all of his waning strength, he crammed the thought down long enough to haul himself into the back of the engine and grab his cell phone from the storage compartment behind the operator’s seat. His fingers jerked in broken motions over the screen, but somehow, he managed to pull up Moreno’s number and hit “send.”

Come on, sweetheart. Kellan’s pulse slammed against his eardrums. Answer the phone. Be okay. Answer the—