They’re estimating up to twenty thousand were inside when it came down.”
Zach Ashley stared at his crew leader, Troy. “Twenty thousand?”
Troy nodded grimly. “If a ceiling in an exhibit hall is going to collapse, it’s gonna collapse during Comic Con, right?”
Zach scrubbed a hand over his face. It was going to be a long day.
The ambulance screeched to a halt outside the Seaport World Trade Center, and Zach bailed out of the back, yanking his bag up onto his shoulder. His crew members were right on his heels as they started toward the front doors. But the going was slow through the throngs of people. And Zach was trying not to simply stand and stare. Creatures and characters in all shapes, sizes, and colors had been evacuated from the convention center and now covered the sidewalks and streets. It was a sight to behold.
“This way!” A member of the Boston PD waved them forward, clearing a path through the crowd.
They made it inside a moment later, and Zach had no idea what he was looking at. The general panic and confusion that went along with any catastrophe were multiplied by the thousands. A big crowd was always a difficult scene to work, but this was insanity. The convention boasted an attendance of nearly fifty thousand each year, so Zach knew it could have been worse. But twenty thousand potential victims inside a 115,000-square-foot exhibit hall where a sixth of the ceiling had come crashing to the floor? That was holy-shit-chaotic stuff.
“Worst of it’s in the center,” Troy called to them, holding his radio to his ear. “There are three crews already on-site treating vics as they dig them out. Start out here and triage as you work to the middle.”
Fortunately, most of the building had been evacuated. Besides the rows and rows of booths that sold everything from comic books to jewelry to tech gadgets, the huge exhibit hall was empty of all attendees able to walk out on their own and not bleed along the way. The only people remaining inside were the emergency workers and the injured con goers.
Zach and the other guys spread out, stopping and examining anyone they came across.
“You’re good to go,” Zach told a woman and her son a few minutes later after checking out a wrist sprain and a few scrapes and cuts. “Ice, rest, and call your doctor if anything worsens.”
He moved on to a guy who was limping toward the front doors. A few minutes later, he applied an ankle splint and told the guy to head to the ER. And so it continued over the next half hour. One injury at a time. One person at a time. That was what he needed to focus on. Even though everything in him itched to storm toward the center of the hall to help dig through the debris himself.
The people on the periphery were hurt too. They needed to be checked over too. Zach’s job was to treat and help those he came into contact with. But the need was greatest in the middle. His crew should have been first on the scene. He should be in there with the worst of the worst. He should be doing everything he could, including search and rescue, instead of applying Band-Aids and ACE wraps. But they hadn’t been dispatched first. They hadn’t been the closest. It had taken them longer to get there than squads two, six, and seven.
Still, Zach hated being on the periphery of anything.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to remove your…scales.” Zach was proud of himself for hesitating only slightly as he addressed the man he was kneeling next to.
Of course the man, who was dressed as what Zach could best describe as something half man, half alligator, didn’t look impressed.
“They’re not scales. They’re body plates,” the man said.
“Is there a difference?” Why had he asked that? He didn’t care one way or the other.
“You’re born with scales; you apply body plates.”
Right. “Well, I’m going to need you to remove them so I can get your blood pressure,” Zach told him.
The alligator man exposed a spot on his arm for the blood pressure cuff, and Zach worked on focusing on one thing at a time. Regardless of how the victims were dressed, they all had actual human blood, bones, and organs inside that needed attention. But the injured here presented a challenge Zach hadn’t encountered on any of the crazy calls he’d been on in his five years as an EMT in Boston. It was hard to tell which red streaks were blood and which were stripes of paint, which protruding appendages were broken or dislocated bones and which were horns or dorsal fins or extra arms or legs. It was even hard to tell if victims were male or female, if they were young or old, and how tall some of them were—he’d just assisted a guy who had been on stilts underneath his long black wizard’s cape. Or had he been a warlock? Hell if Zach knew.
“Hey, need more hands on deck in the middle. How are things out here?”
Zach looked up to find Troy at his side. “Good. We’ve cleared a bunch out.”
“Great. Let’s go.”
He was more than ready to get into the thick of things. “Blood pressure is good.” Zach released the alligator man’s arm. “You’re not bleeding anywhere. You don’t have any tenderness except on that rib. I’m guessing you have a crack. You need to get to the doctor to be sure.”
“You’re not taking me?”
Zach glanced around and then gave the man a look to say, Are you kidding me? “There are going to be a lot of people not able to get themselves there. You should be grateful you’re not one of them.” Zach shouldered his bag and turned to Troy. “Ready.”
As they started toward the center of the convention hall, three figures went running past, almost tripping Zach. They were short and wore identical wigs of shaggy brown hair and had capes flapping out behind them.
“Munchkins?” he asked. He’d seen that movie. Probably.
“Hobbits,” Troy said.
“Ah.” He’d heard of them. He was pretty sure.
“You have to know hobbits,” Troy said with a laugh.
“Some kind of dwarves, right?”
“Jesus, don’t let any of them hear you say that,” Troy said. Then he gave Zach another grin. “And go to the movies sometime.”
“I go to movies.” Well, at one point he’d gone to movies. But yeah, it had been a while. Sitting still for two hours straight was not his thing.
“Go to a movie without a sports theme,” Troy said.
“You saw the hobbit movie?” Zach asked.
“All six of them.”
Zach glanced over at his friend, his mouth open to reply, but his gaze landed just beyond Troy’s left shoulder. Words deserted him, and every thought evaporated but one—I could be a Trekkie for one night.
Because the woman who could make him care about all of this was standing one hundred feet away.
She was on her feet—and her own two feet without the help of stilts or platforms—but she was yanking on the skirt of her dress, trying to pull the bottom from under a pile of debris. Her attention, however, was on two women talking with other EMTs. One woman, dressed in purple from head to toe, was sitting on the ground, wincing as one of the EMTs pressed fingers into her side. The other was in white, with streaks of blood red. Literal blood red from the gash on her head.
Zach immediately started in the direction of the woman who had first caught his attention.
“Zach, hey!”
He glanced back at Troy. “Got somebody.” He gestured toward the woman.
Troy looked over. “Looks like Steve and Reed have this.”
Zach shook his head. “She needs me.”
As he approached, Zach’s gaze worked from her feet up. Well, the one foot he could see, since he could see only her right side. She wore a flat gold slipper on a tiny foot that connected to a delicate ankle that connected to a smooth calf that led to a toned thigh. Her leg wasn’t long, but the inches of smooth skin he could see still made his heart thump. They peeked from the slit in the skirt of an emerald-green dress that flared below her hips but hugged her waist and breasts. Her shoulders were bare, and she had a gold necklace around her throat that connected to the light-green cape draped down her back. Her long brown hair was held away from her face by a circle of gold adorned with green gems that caught the sunlight as she moved. She had small ears and a small nose, but large round eyes.
She was cute. That was the best word.
And most of all, she sparkled.
Literally.
From her cute forehead to the sweet breasts behind the bodice of the dress to the top of her petite foot, every inch of skin he could see was gold. Not golden. Gold. Shiny, gold-coin gold. Like the coins in the leprechaun’s pot at the end of a rainbow or a pirate’s treasure chest.
Clearly it was some kind of body paint, but the fact that it had him thinking about leprechauns and pirates made Zach wonder if it wasn’t a little magical too. Because he really wasn’t a leprechaun or pirate kind of guy.
He was the kind of guy to wonder just how committed she was to that body paint, though. Had she painted only the skin that would show, or had she gone all in and painted everything?
Just then she looked around, and her gaze connected with his.
And Zach suddenly couldn’t remember how to breathe.
Those big eyes in that cute gold face were outlined with thick black lines, surrounded by elaborate, sparkling green, white, and black swirls almost like a half mask, and her lashes were twice the length of normal lashes. But in spite of all of that, Zach could focus only on the huge black pupils surrounded by a deep French roast–coffee brown…and the fact that they were filled with worry.
Sparkly gold breasts might get his heart pumping, but that look in her eyes sent a streak of protectiveness through him that was stronger than any feeling of lust.
She straightened quickly. “Oh my God, can you help me get free? I have to get to my friends.” She yanked on the skirt of her dress.
“Definitely.” He was prepared to do whatever this woman needed.
“We were together, but I hung back at this booth and then the ceiling came down and things went flying and they were hurt and I don’t know what’s going on.” She was talking fast, her cheeks pink with adrenaline.
Out of instinct, Zach stepped close and took her upper arms in his hands, making her focus on him in an attempt to calm her. “Are those your friends?” he asked, gesturing toward the women in purple and white.
She nodded. “Maya and Sophie.”
“Which one is in purple?” he asked.
“Maya.” Her voice shook as she answered.
Zach bent his knees so he could look into her eyes, realizing as he did it that she was nearly a foot shorter than his six foot three. “Hey,” he said firmly and evenly. “I’m going to help.”
He had a lot of experience dealing with accident scene anxiety. He understood the pounding of the adrenaline that yanked oxygen from lungs and obliterated rational thought. Too well. But because of his own past experiences, he was the best victim communicator in Boston. It wasn’t as big a deal as being a hostage negotiator or something, but the jobs involved a lot of the same skills. Being firm and thinking fast, but staying calm and reasonable at the same time.
The woman’s gaze clung to his with something he was very used to seeing at scenes—a combination of gratitude and hope. But that usually happened with little kids. The ones who looked at him as if he were one of the superheroes who had brought people here today.
She started to nod her head. “Okay. I’m good. Just get me loose.”
“Alright,” he said calmly. “Are you hurt?”
He’d looked her over pretty thoroughly. Not necessarily with a professional eye, but he would have seen any major wounds or blood.
She shook her head. “No. I don’t think so.”
“You didn’t get hit in the head or anything?”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay. Hang tight.”
He crouched beside her, proud that his gaze danced over her sparkly bare leg for only a moment before examining how her dress was caught. The bottom of it was sandwiched between the floor and a huge piece of metal. A huge piece of metal that had missed cracking her in the head by only inches. Zach felt a shudder go through him before he focused again. It didn’t do a damned bit of good to examine a scene with an eye to all the things that could have happened. He needed to deal with what had happened.
He pushed against the metal beam, but quickly confirmed that he wasn’t moving the thing by himself. If it had been on someone’s leg or something, he would have recruited help, but this was a skirt. He withdrew his pocketknife and slashed the bottom of the skirt, parting the material and freeing her within seconds. If she was upset about her dress…
The woman took off at a run the moment she was loose.
“Hey!” Zach followed.
She ran toward the two women being treated. “Maya! Sophie!”
His buddy Reed was the EMT working on one of the woman’s friends. Zach strode forward. Reed saw him coming.
“Check her out? For something?” Reed gestured toward the golden goddess.
She was fussing over the woman in purple. She was readjusting the ice pack Reed had put on the woman’s shoulder and was kneeling directly next to the woman’s injured arm. In Reed’s way. The look he gave Zach said, “Just get her out of here.”
“I can check her out,” Zach offered, pointing to Maya.
That was ridiculous, of course. Reed had already assessed her and had been cleaning a large gash on her forearm. Still, for some reason Zach wanted to give Maya his attention instead.
The woman was dressed in tight purple leather and was beautiful. And she didn’t stir him a bit. That was ridiculous. What guy wouldn’t respond to a beautiful woman in tight leather? But no, the woman who made his body hum was the one in green velvet and gold body paint.
“I’m good here,” Reed said. “She needs to be assessed.”
He gave a pointed look at the princess, who suddenly popped up and rushed to kneel next to the woman in white. Sophie. She was lying on her back and had a laceration above one eyebrow and a goose egg already starting to show.
The princess was talking to her friend rapidly and trying to blot at the cut while Steve, another paramedic, moved around them, trying to determine if there were other injuries. The least Zach could do was help his fellow EMTs. With a sigh, Zach went over and took the princess by the arm. He tugged her to her feet.
“Hey!” She pushed against his hand. “Stop it.”
“I need to see if you’re okay.” When he started walking away from her friend, she dug her feet in, but Zach was twice her size. And not overcome with emotion.
Curiosity and attraction weren’t really emotions, were they? And he couldn’t really be attracted to her anyway. He didn’t even actually know what she looked like because of her face paint and makeup.
“I’m fine.” She struggled against his hold.
She continued to try to peel his fingers off her arm until he got a few feet away and turned so her back was against the side of a still-intact vendor booth. He pressed her against it and got right in her face, somehow ignoring the gold breasts that were now rising and falling rapidly only a few inches below his chin. And mouth.
Holy shit. Who knew that he had a thing for the color gold? Because that had to be it. He did not have a thing for girls who wore capes or for girls who went to Comic Cons. It had to be the shiny gold. Maybe he’d been a pirate in a past life and he had a centuries-long desire for sparkly treasure. Because pillaging and plundering suddenly sounded good.
He itched to run his hands all over her. Not to mention the tingling in his tongue. And even if they hadn’t been in the middle of a trauma situation that needed his attention on things other than how gold-painted skin might taste, she was a victim. He couldn’t mess around with a victim. That was Emergency Management 101.
But then he caught a whiff of her scent, and the sweet smell only intensified the desire to taste. She smelled like candy flowers.
Jesus. Candy flowers? Really?
“You need to stay out of the way and let the guys do their jobs,” he told her firmly. “You’re not helping anyone right now.”
Her gaze flickered to her friends. Her mouth tightened.
“Breathe,” he told her. He ran his hands up and down her arms once, then immediately stopped because dammit, that gold skin felt really good.
Her eyes locked on his. She nodded. And breathed.
“Zach, what is—” Troy came up behind them. “Oh.”
“We have a little situation. No big deal,” Zach said calmly, not taking his eyes off the woman.
“I see.” Troy sounded surprised. Maybe even amused.
Zach didn’t care. “Surprised and amused” was better than what he was feeling. Considering he was feeling aroused and protective and confused and worried all at once about a woman he’d just met. Who wore a cape. “While the guys are checking your friends over and treating their injuries, I’m going to make sure you’re okay,” he told the woman.
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
Just because she wasn’t feeling any pain at the moment didn’t mean she wasn’t injured, though. Adrenaline did crazy things.
“Good. But we still need to be sure. How about we start with your name?”
She swallowed and licked her lips, and Zach figured he deserved a freaking medal for not watching the motion of the tip of her tongue. For more than two seconds.
“Kiera,” she finally told him.
“Is that your—” He let his gaze move up and down over her costume. “Elven name?”
Kiera lifted an eyebrow. “Elven?”
Okay, not an elf. “Your enchantress name?”
Her other eyebrow went up. “Strike two.”
It was a limb, for sure, but his chance of getting this right was a billion to one anyway. “Your hobbit name?”
She snorted at that. Actually snorted. And it was the cutest thing he’d ever heard.
“You think I’m a hobbit?”
“Nope, pretty sure you’re not. But I don’t know what you are.”
“Kirenda. Warrior princess of Leokin.” The corner of her mouth curled slightly. Also very cute.
But the word Leokin made him want to groan. He knew World of Leokin. It was the new worldwide online gaming phenomenon that had sucked his sister in and turned her into an antisocial near zombie over the past few months. Zach hated that game more than anything.
Of course the first woman he’d been attracted to in far too long was into WOL and dressing up for Comic Con. That was exactly how his luck had been going lately.
He swallowed his bitterness and focused on her. She was a victim, and he needed to assess her status. “And while you’re…dressed up…do I call you Kiera, or is it strictly Your Majesty?”
She narrowed her eyes.
Apparently he’d miscalculated his charm on that one. He’d messed up somehow, but he wasn’t sure if it was the dressed up part or the Your Majesty part. “What’d I say wrong?”
Just then an ambulance came bumping down the main aisle of the convention center.
“Who needs transport?” someone called.
“Over here!” Reed yelled to them.
Zach felt Kiera stiffen under his hands at the words. Clearly one of her friends was getting a ride to the hospital.
“Kiera!”
At the sound of a woman calling to her, Kiera slipped around him and ran back to her friends.
Dammit. Zach followed, wanting to be there when they told her about her friends’ injuries. It had nothing to do with her gold breasts. But it might have had something to do with her big brown eyes.
He caught up with her as she rounded the back end of the ambulance.
“Is she okay?” Kiera asked Reed.
“She’s got a nasty gash on her arm,” Reed said. “And I’m concerned about her side there.”
He pointed to her right side, and Zach knew he was worried about her spleen or a kidney.
“They’ll want to do X-rays and tests, and I’m sure they’ll keep her at least one night for monitoring,” Reed summarized.
Zach leaned so he could see Kiera’s face. “You okay?”
She looked up at him. The worry in her eyes made him want to pull her into his arms.
Whoa. What was that? He’d been in a lot of emergency situations, and that was definitely a first.
But she nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Need another hand!” Zach heard someone call. He immediately ducked around a pile of metal and plastic. They were getting ready to roll Kiera’s other friend onto a backboard.
An EMT was kneeling with the board while another stabilized the woman’s neck. Zach got into position, knowing exactly what they needed. One of the EMTs made sure her spine didn’t move while Zach knelt and slid his forearms under her hips, and they slowly shifted her onto the board.
Once she was secured, Zach stood back as the others picked the board up.
“Her neck hurts,” the EMT at her head filled Zach in. “But she can move all of her extremities and feels touch and pain.”
It wasn’t a bad report. Neck trauma was never good, but the fact that she could move and feel things was positive.
“Oh my God!”
Zach’s attention snapped to Kiera, who had followed him.
“We’ve got her, Kiera,” he said in a firm, soothing voice. “We’re going to take care of her.” He stepped in front of her, willing her to look at him instead.
As the EMTs started for the ambulance with Sophie, she said Kiera’s name.
“She can’t turn her head to look at you,” Zach said. “You can get close so she can see and talk to you.”
Kiera swallowed hard and moved beside her friend. She took the woman’s hand. “Soph, I’m right here.”
“I have a guy coming to check the lighting at the theater on Monday.”
Kiera frowned and squeezed her hand. “You’ll be okay by Monday.”
She glanced up at Zach, and he felt her clear desire for reassurance like a punch to the gut.
He swallowed and nodded. “I’m sure you’ll be feeling a lot better by then.” But he had no idea if she’d be out of the hospital or back to work.
“Just promise you’ll remember to go down there for me if I can’t,” Sophie said.
“Yes, of course I promise.”
“You swear you’ll remember? It’s at two p.m.”
Even from where Zach stood, he could see the dubious look Sophie was giving Kiera.
“I will absolutely try my very hardest to remember,” Kiera said.
“I’ll call you to remind you,” Sophie told her.
Kiera sighed and looked at Steve. “Her ability to nag is a good sign, right?”
Steve chuckled. “It is.”
They loaded Sophie into the ambulance, and then Maya walked over with Reed’s support.
“Are you okay?” Kiera asked, the worried expression immediately back.
“This is just precautionary,” Maya said. “Or so I’m told.” She winced as she climbed up into the back of the rig with Reed’s help. “Reed here doesn’t get that margaritas can fix anything, and that free margaritas are the best kind.”
“Where were we going to get free margaritas?” Kiera asked.
“Well, they’d be free for me. You totally owe me for dragging me down here for this.”
Kiera flinched, and Zach felt the stupid desire to come to her defense. But that was ridiculous.
“This is what you get for making me leave the house,” Kiera said.
Her tone wasn’t totally lighthearted, but Zach saw the smile Maya gave her.
“Touché,” Maya said with a nod.
They started to slam the back door.
“Hey!” Maya stopped the door with a hand on the window. “You,” she said, pointing at Zach.
He stepped closer. “Yeah?”
“Take care of her.” She pointed at Kiera.
Zach turned to the warrior princess. “You got it,” he promised Maya.
“Can’t I…,” Kiera said, watching them shut the back door of the ambulance and start weaving the vehicle back out of the hall.
“No room, Princess,” Zach said gently. “Nonvictims don’t get to ride in the cool trucks with the sirens.”
She was still watching the ambulance, and she nodded absently. “Okay.”
He moved in front of her and crouched to get on eye level. “You can go right over and see them at the hospital. Mass General. If you’re not family, they might not be able to tell you much, but if you can get in touch with their families, they can come and sit with you, right?”
She nodded again, but Zach wasn’t sure she’d heard him. He really wanted to know that someone was going to be there with her. Shock in survivors wasn’t uncommon. The that-could’ve-been-me thing could kick in at any moment if it hadn’t already. But there was nothing like seeing someone you cared about hurt.
He put his hands on her arms again, this time rubbing up and down and just ignoring how good her skin felt against his rough palms. Mostly. He needed to comfort her more than he needed to worry about how she made him feel.
“Do you know where Mass General is?” He didn’t love the idea of her driving herself over there. She was clearly overwhelmed.
Kiera nodded. “Yes.”
“You can get there?” he asked.
She nodded again.
Okay. So…
“Zach! Let’s go!”
Zach glanced over at Reed. His coworkers needed help, so he was going to be here for a while. He couldn’t be messing around, obsessing about a woman who liked to play dress-up. “Kiera, I need to go, but…”
“Yeah, of course.” She shook her head and looked around. “You go.”
“But…” But nothing. She was fine, and he was needed by people who weren’t fine. “Okay.”
He had the fleeting thought that he wanted to kiss her good-bye. But that was crazy. They’d just met. In the middle of an emergency. No way should he kiss her.
Finally he let go of her and stepped back. But not touching her didn’t do a thing to make him not want to touch her. He forced himself to turn away and head toward Reed, trying to clear his mind of green and gold sweet-smelling flowers as he went. But when he got about twenty feet from her, he glanced back.
And she was still standing there. Hugging herself. Looking lost.
Fuck.
“I’ll be right there,” he told Reed.
Reed glanced back. “Dude…”
“I know.” And he did. He needed to not be distracted. But the only way that was going to happen was if he knew for sure that Kiera was taken care of.
He jogged back to her side. “Hey, Princess, what’s up?”
She looked at him, and her look of confusion cleared. That made him feel stupidly good.
“I don’t have a way…”
She trailed off, and Zach frowned. “You don’t feel up to driving?”
“We brought Sophie’s car, and her fob thingy is with her.”
Ah. A little issue. “You have someone you can call?”
“I didn’t bring my phone.”
“You can use mine.”
“No one’s home. I live with Maya and Sophie,” she said. “Obviously they’re not…there.”
Her voice wobbled, and Zach worked on not grabbing her and hugging her.
They’d just fucking met. Hugging and kissing wasn’t appropriate. Dammit.
“How about a cab?”
“I don’t have any money.”
He looked her over again, revisiting the curves he realized he’d already memorized. He could give her money for a cab, of course. He could get her home. But she’d be home alone. He could get her to the hospital, but they wouldn’t talk to her and she’d be stuck in the waiting room for God knew how long. Alone.
And leaving her alone was simply something he could not do.
“You need to come with me.” He reached out and snagged her hand before he could tell himself that holding her hand was a bad idea.
Because it was. Her hand felt good in his, and the way she curled her fingers around his tightly and followed him without question felt good. And the idea that he was going to get to spend more time with her felt good. And all of that was bad. And yet he pulled her along with him through the convention hall and into the heart of the chaos.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“I need to go help with some more injured. And I need you to stick with me.”
“Me? Why?”
He looked over at her. Her cape floated behind her, and for the first time, he noticed the golden sword swinging at her left hip. Damn. That was kind of hot. “Because you’re a gorgeous kick-ass warrior princess, and the people in here are gonna need some gorgeous kick-ass stuff.”
She looked at him with surprise, but as he held her gaze, he saw something that turned him on even more than her smelling like candy—a spark of determination. She pulled up straighter as she walked, and he felt her hand tighten on his.
“Kick-ass. Right. I can do that.”
He smiled. “And I could use some help from an interpreter.”
“An interpreter? I speak some Spanish, but that’s about it.”
“You don’t speak geek?” He hoped he wasn’t committing a faux pas in calling her, and all of this, geeky.
But she actually gave him a half smile. “Oh, geek. Yes, I’m fluent.”