The rain whips viciously against the windshield.
Cochran’s voice fills my head. “Goddammit, Malone. It’s too dangerous to fly in this storm.”
The thwack, thwack, thwack of the blades overhead is like a metronome to the sights and sounds.
Ignoring Cochran, I turn to my crew. “Who’s with me? You don’t have to fly, but I can’t leave them out there to die.” The concerned looks on the faces of my crew as I give them the option while dispatch frantically sounds off in the background.
Drunk driver in head-on collision. Four patients in serious condition. One more a trauma alert.
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
“Bullshit. They need us. I’ll fly on my own if I have to.”
The ambulance’s lights cut through the darkness of the night. Red flashes over and over as precious seconds tick down, each one another moment less to save the patient we’re about to transport.
“ETA Spiderman to Sunnyville General?” Dispatch’s voice crackles in my ear as I watch the ambulance doors open and my lone flight nurse help pull the stretcher out of the bus. A medic is straddling the patient, hands occupied somehow trying to save the life as they move across the grassy field. Their progress is hindered by the mud, but they push on. The rain is thick, the air is cold, and it’s frigid as fuck.
“We should be airborne in about five minutes.”
“Be careful, Malone. There’s an aircraft advisory.”
“I’m aware.” I squint to see through the rain.
“You shouldn’t be fly—”
“Our ETA is roughly thirty minutes out.”
“Ten-four. Keep us apprised. Staff will be on standby.”
“Will do.”
The doors open on the chopper and a burst of cold wind whips inside as the crew yells codes to each other above the roar of the rotors. I look back to Alyssa, my flight nurse, who looks wary as she glances at the weather whipping around us before looking at the patient that she’s helping to load. She meets my eyes briefly, and the subtle shake of her head tells me that the patient is worse than she thought. The medic from the ambulance doesn’t move from astride the patient as the stretcher is secured, and I overhear something about fingers holding the femoral artery.
The doors close as more codes fly between the crew in a symphony of chaos we all understand.
I look back, and for a split second, the crew parts, revealing the face of our patient. Fucking Christ. Blood covers every part of her except for a small section of her face, a face I know. Her petrified eyes are wide open and unresponsive.
Reese Dillinger.
I clench my jaw and turn forward, my hands gripped on the cyclic stick so I can take off as soon as everyone is clear.
Precious seconds tick by as I jog my knee and wait. This hits way too goddamn close to home.
Holy shit.
C’mon.
Tick.
C’mon.
Tick.
C’mon.
Tick.
I get the all clear, and with a deep breath, lift the bird up into the swirling wind. We’re jolted violently to the left by a pocket of air when we clear the trees, and Alyssa yelps in reflex, but there’s fear in her tone.
“Hold on,” I murmur to myself, with a quiet will to make this flight as quick and safe as possible to give Reese the biggest chance of survival.
I think to our interaction over the years. Elementary school with her hair in pigtails. Middle school with braces on her teeth. High school when she was suspended for helping steal our rival’s mascot. Hanging out at the mall. Birthday parties. She was a part of my memories growing up, even if she wasn’t front and center. A child of privilege and little responsibility but good, nonetheless.
The sounds of vitals and the determination of my flight crew sound off in my headset, spiking my adrenaline so high my hands start to shake.
She doesn’t have time.
Reese and her date, part of my circle of friends in the limo on the way to prom.
The ride is rough. We’re pitched every which way as my copilot and I battle for an equilibrium of sorts.
Reese strutting her stuff in her cheer uniform during a pep rally.
We pass over the highway. We skirt around a small aircraft that has even less business being out in this weather than we do.
Reese showing up to see if she could do anything to help me after Claire up and left. My pushing her the hell away because I didn’t need anything or anyone. I was too scared. Too angry. Too everything.
“She’s coding. Christ. Levi, grab it tighter!” I hear from the back, and I can only assume Levi is the paramedic whose fingers are currently somewhere in Reese’s leg, pinching her artery closed.
She’s just a patient. A faceless patient.
But she isn’t. She’s Reese.
I’m too damn close.
“She needs Melville,” I hear one of them shout to the other, referring to the only Level-I trauma unit in our area.
“Heads-up, Malone.” I look over at Charles, my copilot, and then track to where he’s pointing to the transponder and then back up to something I can barely make out through the storm. It looks like another small aircraft is directly in our flight path and near Sunnyville General.
“C’mon, Reese. Stay with us,” my flight nurse urges her.
“She needs MT,” I murmur to myself as I eye the small aircraft again and know that’s going to delay us when we have no time to waste.
“Dispatch, this is Spiderman in Mercy 445.”
“Mercy 445 this is dispatch, go ahead.”
“Change of plans. We’re headed to Melville.”
“Mercy 445, Sunnyville General is waiting for you.”
“No go. She needs a trauma unit.”
“Understood, but General is closer.”
“By ten minutes. Ten minutes where they’ll decide she should have gone to Melville because they don’t have the equipment to handle her injuries.”
“Mercy 445, dispatch is in disagreement.”
The radio crackles. The squelch squawks.
“Malone, this is Cochran. Your route is for Sunnyville General. Do not deviate from the plan. I need that bird and my crew on the ground ASAP. That is a direct order.”
I glance over to Charles, but he keeps his eyes straight ahead without saying a word. The muscle in his jaw pulses. I check the transponder and see the blip representing the small aircraft is no longer there, giving us a clear shot to Sunnyville.
I clear my throat. “Dispatch, there is a small aircraft in the flight pattern. It’s preventing us from having a swift delivery to General. We’re rerouting to Melville Trauma. Please inform them of our impending arrival.”
“Goddammit, Malone! Land that chopper.”
In my periphery, I see Charles do a double take my way, but I give him the same response he gave me. The less I acknowledge or involve him the better.
She needs the trauma unit.
That’s her only chance.
“Daddy.” Charles is tapping my shoulder.
“That’s an order, Malone!” It’s Cochran barking at me again.
“Daddy.” Another tap I choose to ignore. “Daddy.”
I startle awake.
The moon lightens the room—clear sky, not rain, and I’m in my bed, not in the cockpit.
“Luke? You okay, buddy?”
I scrub a hand over my face and try to clear the dream from my mind as he rubs his eyes and nods.
“I had a bad dream.” His voice is soft, almost embarrassed that he’s in here when he’s a whole eight years old.
I pull back the covers and pat beside me. “C’mon in. I was having one, too. Thank you for waking me up from it.” Too bad I can’t wake up from the reality of its aftereffects.
It takes him a second to climb onto the mattress beside me. He takes his time setting himself up in his favorite sleeping position—head atop of my bicep so my arm can curl around him with my hand on his belly and both of his feet propped up on my thigh.
“You good?” I murmur and press a kiss to the top of his head. Somehow, he can push away everything that bugs me, just like that. “Wanna tell me about your dream?”
He gives a soft shake of his head. “Too scary.” His voice is drugged with sleep.
“Okay, then think of the one thing that would make you the happiest in the world and focus on that.”
“If all the superheroes in the world could bring me a new mommy . . .”
Cue a knife going straight into my heart and twisting. Over. And over.
I pull him in tighter and press another kiss to the top of his head. “I know, buddy. You do have a mommy who loves you.” I perpetuate the lie I’ve always told him. “She just . . .” She was just too selfish to want to stay.
His soft snores fill the room, saving me from having to finish the sentence.
First my dream.
And then his wish.
Christ. Can I do anything right these days?