Chapter 5

I like the way you taste. It makes me want a hamburger.

-Ember’s secret thoughts 

Gabe

“I think we can use this kid.  He doesn’t want to be in this situation, and if we help get the brother out, he won’t have a reason to be entering the gang anymore.”

 

I was in the down room with Sam, Max and Jack.  Elliott was at home with Blaine, who was perilously close to dropping her kid out on the pavement at any moment. Cheyenne and Ember decided to help Blaine around the house.  James was delivering a bird to her new cage in South Louisiana. The bird in question is one of our women that we relocate. Usually they are from an abusive situation and we help them start over with a new life.

 

“What does Luke think?”  Sam asked.

 

I turned my head and looked Sam in the eyes.  He had his feet propped up on the edge of the desk, while grease covered him from head to toe, and a Heineken dangled from his fingers.

 

“He isn’t sure what to think. He tried to make contact, but the kid’s like a ghost.  Knows his shit.  I’ve only been able to tail him twice in the past two days.  Once to school, and the other on his way home from school.  He gave me the slip though, because when I knocked on the door the grandma said he wasn’t home, and she didn’t look like the type to take any shit.  I haven’t seen any Skulls near him at all.”  I answered him.

 

Sam nodded and seemed to lose himself in thought.  Max was staring at me with scrutinizing eyes.  He’d been doing this ever since Ember started staying with me.  He knew that I was sleeping with his sister and didn’t seem too happy about it.  He could go fuck himself.

 

My phone rang, interrupting the quiet.  Ember’s bright idea of putting “The Bad In Me” by Jake Owen, shifted the mood from serious and somber to playful.  Sam chuckled, and Max faced cracked into a semblance of a smile.  Apparently, he understood his sister’s sense of humor.  I would have sworn he’d kick my ass when he heard the part about having nothin’ on.

 

For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how she found this song, let alone how she managed to get the shit on the phone.  I haven’t changed it yet.  It’s something she would do to me, calling me at work when she knew I couldn’t come to her.  Teasing me, and making me want her for the rest of the day.

 

Ember’s name and picture of her foot flashed across the screen, and I smiled wide as I picked it up.

 

“Yeah?”  I asked.

 

“Can you take Blaine, Cheyenne, and me to Baby’s R Us?  Elliott needs to go check on his mom, and Cheyenne’s mom has the twins.  We need to get her the rest of the shit she needs before the baby gets here.  She’s being induced in a week.”

 

Oh didn’t this just sound like a shit load of fun.  It was nice that she at least asked me to go with her, instead of just going, as I knew she wanted to do.

 

“Yeah, I’ll be there in about ten minutes.  Is that enough time?”  I asked.

 

“Perfect.  We’ll be waiting outside Blaine’s.” she stated before hanging up.

 

Sighing loudly, I touched the end button and shoved the phone back into my pocket.  Walking over to the desk, I grabbed my spare Colt out of the desk drawer, pulled the slide back to check the chamber, and then shoved it into the back of my jeans.  Normally I only carried my Glock on my ankle, but today I felt the need for some extra firepower just in case I needed to shoot myself in the middle of the baby food aisle.  Just kidding.  Maybe.

 

“Gotta go take the girls to a fuckin’ baby store.”  I grumbled.  “Let me know what Jack can pull up, I’m sure I could use some distraction while going to baby land.”

 

Sam and Max chuckled.

 

“Better you than me, my man.”  Sam said.

 

“It’ll be you again in a couple months.”  I shot back as I walked out of the room.

 

Sam’s cell started ringing just as I made it through the bay door.  I bypassed my bike and decided to walk since I wouldn’t be using it.  Turning to the side of the garage, I saw Ember with her arm around Blaine’s waist.  She was whispering in Blaine’s ear, but her eyes locked on me.  It was obvious they were talking about me.  The giggling cut off once I was close enough to distinguish clear sounds. 

 

Ember was in a pair of tight white jean shorts and a Ranger’s shirt.  Blaine was wearing her usual long dress that brushed the top of her feet, stomach bulging out from her tiny frame.  She looked like she would pop at any moment; not that I would dare tell her that.  She was a little fire cracker, and I’ll be damned if I lit her fuse.

 

Both women wore blinding smiles, which, if I was being truthful, made me a tad nervous.  I always found that when women wore smiles like that, things didn’t end well for me.

 

“Where’s Cheyenne?”  I asked.

 

“She and Sam are going to have a little alone time since her mom has the twins for the night.”

 

I nodded.  Must have been the call he got as I was leaving.

 

“Y’all ready to go?”  I drawled. 

 

I loved teasing Ember about her accent.  ‘Y’all’ was never in my vocabulary before I moved here.  Ember decided to broaden my horizons, and started teaching me a few slang terms.  I still couldn’t figure out how they worked ‘might could’ into a sentence.  That one might never stick.  ‘Fixin’ to’ was definitely easier to accommodate her with.

 

“Sure am.  Blaine, here, is gonna need a lift into that monster truck of yours.”  She said.

 

I rolled my eyes.  It wasn’t that big.  I just had thirty-five inch tires, and a four-inch lift put onto my Chevy the day before.  Cheyenne and Ember absolutely adored it, or so they said; not like I cared what the girls thought.  This was the dream truck I wanted since I was a little kid.  When my dad always used to talk about the kind of vehicle he would get if he could afford it; this was the one.  I got it for him.

 

“Let’s roll.”  I said, while walking to my truck.

 

I hoisted Blaine into the front seat, and did the same for Ember in the back.

 

Pulling out of Free, I hooked a left and started down Main Street.  Just as I was about to turn onto Grand, a blue Impala zipped around me and cut me off.  I’d clocked him as soon as I pulled out of Free, but I wasn’t sure he belonged to the Skulls.  Now I was.  These kids in the front seat were wearing their signature blue bandanas and sitting low in their seats, practically laying down.  They hit the brakes suddenly, but I expecting it and adjusted accordingly.

 

“Call your brother.”  I said, while breaking and putting some distance in between their car and my truck.

 

The little pricks were trying their hardest to get me to hit their vehicle, but this was nothing.  I dodged IEDs in Afghanistan while driving an armored Humvee.  Avoiding these shit heads was a piece of cake.

 

They weren’t very skilled.  They looked to be around fifteen or so, with just enough balls to think they could handle playing with the big boys. They most likely didn’t have a learner’s permit yet.

 

Ember was speaking quietly with Max, while Blaine sat tensely in the passenger seat, chewing her thumbnail.  Flashing lights appeared in my rear view mirror, and the Impala took off.  Two police cruisers passed us with a roar.  The air that came off their car when they passed shook the truck, rocking it from side to side.  Ember hung up with Max, and Blaine took a deep breath.

 

“Okay?”  I asked them both.

 

“Okay.”  They replied.

 

Letting my grip loosen on the wheel slightly, I headed into the direction of the store.  Ten silent minutes later, we arrived.  Crisis averted.

 

“You have to park in the expectant mother’s spot so Blaine doesn’t have to hoof it too far.”  Ember said.

 

Blaine silently agreed with a nod of her head.  Fuck me.  Giving up the fight I knew was inevitable, I swung the truck into the spot that had a stork carrying a baby on the sign.  Feeling like a dolt, I got out and rounded the car.  Ember was sliding out of truck, while I went to the front door and helped Blaine down. 

 

“Jesus Christ.  My vagina bone is fucking killing me.  I swear it feels like this kid is sitting in my vagina and pushing my pelvic bone to impossible proportions.”  Blaine said to Ember.

 

Ember made accommodating noises while I ignored them.  Over the past year, I’ve gotten really good at tuning out their chatter.  After listening to them talk about their periods, I concluded that it would be easier to ignore them.  That wasn’t something I liked to hear about, and Blaine’s vagina bone was completely off limits.

 

The store itself was worse than I thought.  It looked like a baby factory puked up its contents and arranged them in order.  Bottles, beds, torture devices disguised as breast pumps, and clothes were scattered everywhere.  There was even a second floor of more crap that I’m sure a baby would never use.  We spent an hour on the bottom level of the store.  In that time, a bitch of a storm rolled in and shook the building with the intensity of its thunder.  Blaine also used the john no less than four times. 

 

They decided that it was time to tackle the second floor, so we took our cart full of baby crap and made our way onto the elevator.  The doors closed with a whoosh.  The lights flickered once, and I had a horrifying thought that we shouldn’t have taken the elevator, when the lights went out completely and we were stranded in between the floors.  Cursing silently, I made my way towards the numbers panel when the emergency lights came on.  I pressed the big red emergency button, and a disembodied voice said that they were aware of the problem, and would get us out as soon as possible.

 

I hung my head and groaned.  “Well doesn’t that just fucking figure?”

 

“Blaine?”  Ember cried shrilly.

 

Whirling around, I took in the figure of Blaine, hunched down over her big stomach.  She was slightly panting, and her coloring was as white as a sheet.

 

Years’ worth of medical training kicked in and I went to Blaine’s stooped figure.  My boots slipped slightly in a puddle on the floor and I knew, without asking, what it was; Blaine’s water broke, in a stranded fucking elevator … with the fucking lights out.  Panic came over me, but I shoved it down where it belonged.  Panic had no place here right now.  Just because I’ve never dealt with anything of this caliber before, didn’t mean I couldn’t handle it.  Blaine probably wouldn’t be in danger of having her baby before the lights were fixed anyway; first babies always took hours and hours to deliver.  We were good.

 

Boy was I wrong.

***

Ah hour and a half later.

 

“Goddamn you, Elliott.  You’re never getting near my lady lumps again.  No more hiding the salami.  You had better cherish this baby, because never will you get another one.  I really want to chop your dick off right now for doing this to me!  Why’d you have to go and see your mother anyway?  You should have been here with me.  How could you do this to me?”  Blaine was wailing to Elliott, who was on speakerphone.  He was outside the elevator with medical crews standing by. 

 

A tractor-trailer had hydroplaned and took out a whole city block of power poles before it came to a stop.  The Swepco electrical crews were working frantically to get the power back on, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough.  Ember had Blaine’s head in her lap, wiping sweat off her forehead with one of the baby washcloths from the buggy.  I was in prime view of the newest Master barreling its way into the world.

 

I’d taken my paramedic classes, and finished my degree.  Only once have I seen a baby born, because in the ten years that I have been a medic, never once was one born on the front lines of Afghanistan where I was stationed.  The only birth I’d seen was in the video they’d shown in class during the week we covered birthing.  My knowledge was true though, and my instincts took over.  The baby’s head was now crowning.

 

Looking into her pain-filled eyes, I said, “Okay Blaine, this is how it’s going to go.  When I tell you to, I want you to grab your legs and push with all you have.  When I tell you to stop, you stop.  Understand?”

 

She nodded, and I glanced at Ember, letting her know, silently, that she could do it.  She must have known I was scared, because she nodded and reassured me with a smile.  

 

Going back to the task at hand, I directed Blaine to push on her next contraction. 

 

Twenty minutes of pushing later, baby boy Masters was born kicking and screaming.

 

“It’s a boy!”  I exclaimed loudly so Elliott could hear.

 

A loud whoop sounded from the doors behind me, and followed closely by the loud whoop over the phone line.

 

While I was working, the doors were finally propped open a mere four inches.  A metal pipe was wedged into the space to hold the doors open.  Elliott stuck his arm inside and slapped me on the back, giving me a thankful squeeze.  I could hear Sam and Max clearly now, giving orders to the fire fighters who were on scene.  A medical kit was squeezed through the opening, and dropped onto the floor at our feet.  Ember set Blaine’s head down gently and reached for the kit.

 

“I need the nose bulb, two clamps, and the scissors.”  I said to her.

 

Blaine was smiling, sleepily, at the baby I placed on her chest.  Reaching over Ember’s head, I grabbed the baby blanket they’d picked out only hours before, and ripped the tags off, tossing them down beside me.  Unfolding it, I covered the baby.  Ember handed me the bulb, and I sucked the baby’s nose and mouth out quickly.  Once done, I went to clamping the cord, and then cutting it.  I started an IV on Blaine and hung the bag off the cart’s handle.

 

The placenta was delivered a short time later, and I tossed it unceremoniously into the corner away from us.  We were a fucking mess of blood and other things I didn’t care to think about.  I was just about to reach for the towels Elliott was handing me from above, when I noticed blood starting to pour from Blaine.

 

“Take the baby, and place him to Blaine’s breast.  Get him to feed.  She’s hemorrhaging.”  I said to Ember.

 

Blaine was quickly losing consciousness though.  She put up no fight when Ember took the baby from her.  Ember started feeding the baby, while I started massaging Blaine’s uterus.  Blood was still pouring out of her at an alarming rate.

 

“I need some Pitocin, now!”  I boomed to the paramedics that were waiting for instructions.  I could hear Elliott calling to Blaine, but tuned it out to focus on what I was doing.  A syringe and small vial of Pitocin dropped down to me, and I quickly administered a dose straight into the line of her IV.  I continued massaging her uterus for the next minute, and slowly the bleeding came to a stop.  Thank fuck.

 

“It’s stopped.  We’re going to need a pint of O negative.  She’s lost a lot of blood, but it’s stopped for now.”  I explained to the medic who was peeking in through the cracks in the door.  He nodded his head and disappeared. 

 

Ember was still holding the baby to Blaine’s breast, but he wasn’t sucking anymore.  He’d finished, and was dozing contentedly, unaware that he nearly lost his mother.  Ember was rubbing his cheeks to try to get him to continue, but he was out.  I turned and eyed the opening of the door again.  We were in between the first and second floor.  The bar that was holding the doors open looked solid and I came to a decision.

 

“Elliott!”  I called.

 

Elliott appeared at the opening seconds later.  I moved into his line of sight so he couldn’t make out the huge mess of blood that covered the floor. 

 

“I’m going to need to pass the baby to you.  He’ll fit easily through the gap.  He’s tiny.”  I informed him.

 

A smile graced his face, and he looked so eager, yet sad at the same time.

 

“Is Blaine okay?” he asked.

 

“The bleeding’s stopped.  She’s still unconscious though.  I think it’ll be best to hand the baby out to you because I need Ember to help me get Blaine situated.  She’s going to need some blood.”  I said back.

 

He nodded, and held out his hand.  I clasped it with mine, and then turned to take the baby gently from Ember’s arms.  She was smiling down at the baby, and gave me a huge smile when she saw how my large hands engulfed the tiny little baby.

 

“What’s his name, Elliott?”  I asked while turning back to him.

 

Elliott’s eyes trained on his son.  Bright, with unshed tears. 

 

“Justin Douglas Masters.”  Elliott whispered.

 

My throat clogged up a little bit, and my eyes started to sting.  Must have been from sweat dripping into my eyes or something. 

 

“Welcome to the world, Justin Douglas.”  I said to him.

 

Carefully maneuvering towards the doors, I held the tiny infant up to the crack in the door, and handed him off to his father’s capable hands with no problem.  I could see Max, Cheyenne, and Sam crowd around the bundled infant, and head off towards the waiting paramedics.  Another paramedic arrived with a bag of blood and handed it off to me.  Turning back around to my other patient, I now saw that she was making her way back to consciousness.  Starting another IV in her opposite arm, I hooked the blood bag up, and started transfusing.

 

“Where’s the baby?”  Blaine asked groggily.

 

I leaned down and cradled Blaine’s face in the palm of my hand.  “His over the moon daddy has him.  He’s off spouting his mouth about how he made a boy to Sam and Cheyenne.” 

 

“Sounds exactly like him.”  She laughed weakly.

 

I was in the process of cleaning Blaine up the best I could on one side, while Ember kept her company on the other, when the lights turned on.  The elevator lights blinded us as they came back on.  The floor beneath us jolted, and hummed as the elevator made its way up to the second floor, only an hour and a half too late.

 

Elliott met us at the door with his new son bundled in his arms.  I picked up Blaine, while Ember grabbed the IV and blood bags.  I placed Blaine on a stretcher, gently, and backed off as the paramedics made sure I didn’t fuck anything up.

 

Ember curled into my side; I dropped and buried my head in the crook of her neck.  I let out a breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding.  Blaine, Elliott and little Justin were carted off downstairs to the ambulance.  The storm was still booming overhead, but it was the first time I’d heard it in nearly an hour. 

 

Grabbing Ember’s hand, I made my way down the stairs and didn’t look back.  This was one experience I didn’t wish to have again.  It really shook me to see someone I cared about nearly die.  Never again would be too soon.

 

Little did I know that I would be experiencing it twice more in the coming months.  Moreover, it wouldn’t just strike someone I cared about; it would strike someone that was my reason for breathing.