Crash (Brazen Bulls MC #1)(48)
Unanswerable questions loomed in Willa’s mind and blocked out the light.
There was a little sock on the ground in the triage center. Just the tiniest sock she’d ever seen, almost as small as a doll’s. White with a touch of lace.
It had been white. Probably that morning, while she’d been straddled over Rad’s lap, or while she’d been holding Helen’s hand and exhorting her to push, a mom or a dad had pulled that little white sock with the touch of lace onto a baby girl’s foot. Getting ready for work, and getting their little girl ready for daycare. Just a normal Wednesday morning.
Now it was soaked with blood and covered in grime.
She snatched it from the ground, meaning to get it out of sight—to throw it in with the biological waste, or even into the rubble. Just away, so she couldn’t see it anymore. Her heart couldn’t take it.
One of the patients with a yellow tag, still waiting for transport to a hospital, began to seize. Willa shoved the sock into the pocket of her scrubs and hurried to help.
oOo
While the body of the patient who had died seizing was carried to the temporary morgue, Willa went to the bio-waste container and yanked off her bloody gloves. Needing a moment to collect herself, she stepped away and had some water and a granola bar at the little stand that had been set up to keep the rescue workers going.
As she swallowed down the water and crumpled up the paper cup, a voice behind her said, “Hey, baby. Got a minute for me?”
She turned and found Rad standing there. He was covered in grey dust—and blood coursed freely down his face, leaving red channels through the grime.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In that unguarded moment before Rad spoke, he saw a weary, sad woman before him. Standing alone near a table that held two big barrel coolers, stacks of paper cups, a bulk carton of granola bars and a picked-over crate of fruit, Willa stared emptily into the air before her and crumpled up the paper cup in her hand.
They’d been at the site for hours; bright noon sun had given way to full dark while they’d been working, and industrial floodlights had been set up around the area. The stark beams of unfiltered white light gave a cast of unreality to the devastating scene. Were it not for the smells and sounds, and for the images careening in Rad’s brain, seeking their place among his memories, it might have seemed like they stood on the set of a science fiction film. Something post-apocalyptic.
They hadn’t found a survivor in the rubble for a couple of hours now—the last had been a young girl, mid-teens, at around dusk. But they continued to find bodies. And parts of bodies. As professional rescue teams came on scene from miles away, civilian volunteers were shifted to less dangerous work, but the site was so big, and the destruction so extreme, that they’d had need of every able body available to move debris and catalogue what was recovered and where.
Rad was sore in every joint and muscle. He was tired. He needed to close his senses down and not see or hear or smell or think for a while. And now his head throbbed angrily. He needed comfort.
“Hey, baby. Got a minute for me?”
Willa turned, her face still carved with the same weariness he felt. When she saw him, relief smoothed the exhaustion from her face for a flash, and then worry took over as she noticed that he was bleeding.
She put her hand to his face; he felt her fingers slide through the blood. Then she grabbed his head in both her hands and urged him to lean down. As she probed in his scalp for the wound, she asked, “What happened?”
“Piece of building landed on my head.”
“You weren’t wearing a hard hat?”
“I was. Got in my way, so I took it off.”
“That was stupid. You could have been killed. A nurse died today from falling debris.”
She found the wound, and he flinched as her fingers pushed at its edges. “I know. I’ve seen the error of my ways. Can you stitch me up?”
“C’mon. A doctor needs to take a look.” She took his hand, but he locked his legs in place.
“Don’t want a doctor. Want you.”
“Rad, there’s a procedure. This isn’t the clubhouse.”
“No, it’s a bombing site. Nothing normal goin’ on. I don’t want some stranger diggin’ in my head.”
With a tilt of her head, Willa gave him her narrow-eyed examination. Then her eyes opened wide, and she smiled. “You’re afraid of doctors.”
“Bullshit. I ain’t afraid of shit. I just hate ‘em gettin’ all up in my space like they do.” Hating wasn’t the same thing as being afraid.
That smile stuck to her face. Though she was mocking him, he was glad to see it; her teasing had erased the ragged dismay he’d seen before she’d known he was there.
“They can’t very well treat you from a distance. With all your scars, I know you’ve had doctors take care of you before. Griffin couldn’t have done all those sutures.”
She’d never mentioned his scars until now. “So? Don’t mean I like it.” He gave her hands a cajoling shake. “C’mon, baby. Sew me up. I only want your hands on me.”
“I can’t, Rad. Not here. There’s a procedure.”
He did not want to get shoved into some procedure just to close up a cut, and he did not want to end up as a statistic in this historical record. “Jesus f*ck. Never mind. Just gimme some gauze or somethin’.”