Julia

“Holy shit.” Quickly, I kneel beside him. He’s breathing. He doesn’t seem to be in distress; he’s just out cold. I shake him a little, stupidly hoping he’ll come to, but no response.

I remember my CPR training, and I check his pulse. It’s regular, but a little faint. I wonder if he’s diabetic, or maybe he has low blood pressure. Maybe he’s epileptic? My heart pounds faster, anxiety filling me.

A quick glance confirms we’re the only two people on this side of the store. Where the hell did everyone go? I think about running to the customer service desk to alert She-Hulk what’s happened and tell her to call 911, but then remember I have my cellphone in my pocket.

Quickly, I dial 911. When I tell the operator I don’t know Big Sexy’s name—or rather, the name of the man who’s passed out on the floor—she tells me to look for a wallet and identification. Gingerly, I pat him down, fish his wallet out of his pocket, and flip it open.

The first thing I see is his driver’s license stuck in a pocket, his handsome-as-ever face peeking out at me. No hideous DMV pics for him, obviously, which simply adds to my impression that he’s beyond human imperfection. I pull out the license and read his name to the operator: “His name’s Sebastian Rich. He lives at 531 Ruby Road in West Rutherford. He doesn’t have any medical ID tags or anything.”

The operator assures me an ambulance is on its way, and I disconnect the call. I shove the man’s ID back in his wallet, and when I do, the money pocket gapes open, revealing a thick wad of cash. Shit, I can’t let anything happen to this, I think, flipping the wallet closed, then stuffing it into my apron pocket.

Big Sexy—no, Sebastian—groans. His lashes flutter, but he doesn’t regain consciousness. Feeling guilty that he’s lying on the cold, hard floor, I gently lift his head into my lap. For the few minutes it takes for the ambulance to get there, I stare down at him. I stroke his hair away from his face, and I can’t help but notice how he looks anything but confident and powerful now. He looks vulnerable.

And even though I know it’s a solid indication of just how warped I am, I find him even more attractive this way.

I hear the whine of sirens in the distance.

“You’re going to be okay,” I say. “Help is almost here.”

At my words, his eyes—they’re golden, with flecks of green—blink open. He’s disoriented, frowning up at me.

“Hey,” I say, before the ambulance attendants burst into the store through the wide automatic doors. Before I know it, I’m being pushed aside and a crowd is gathered around me. I clutch the wallet in my pocket, intending to give it to the ambulance attendants, when She-Hulk grabs my arm, her perfectly manicured nails biting into my skin.

“What the hell happened?” she asks.

“I don’t know. He passed out. I called 911.”

“Obviously! You should have come and gotten me first.”

“But I—”

“Julia!” Someone else grabs my other arm. It’s Kevin. “What the hell did you do?”

I roll my eyes. “I didn’t club him over the head and try to whisk him away to my cave, if that’s what you think, Kevin.” I pull away from them, wanting to see what’s happening with Sebastian. The ambulance attendants have put him on a gurney and are quickly rolling him out of the store.

What the hell? He’d been awake. I’d expected the paramedics to take his vitals. Give him some water or oxygen or something, not whisk him out of here with such urgency. Automatically, I go after them.

She-Hulk grabs my arm again, and I swear, I almost punch her out of sheer reflex.

“Where are you going?” she asks in a harsh tone.

I squeeze the wallet in my hand, but for some reason, I don’t want She-Hulk or even Kevin to know I have something of Sebastian’s. It’s as if I’ve been entrusted with something precious, something that I can’t let fall into the wrong hands, and I have a duty to make sure it gets back to him as soon as possible.

“I’ll be right back, She-Hul—Sheila,” I say, pulling away again. “I just need to see if he’s okay.”

Quickly, I head outside and curse. I’m just in time to see the ambulance speeding away. At least it doesn’t have its lights or sirens on, which reassures me that Sebastian’s life isn’t actually in danger.

But I want to make sure. I want to know why he passed out and that he’s going to be okay. There are countless hospitals in the city. I don’t know which one they’re taking him to and I don’t want to take any chances that I won’t be able to track him down myself.

And the truth is…

I’m nosey. I’m bored. I’ve been bored for a long time, and the only person who’s even come close to changing that is Sebastian Rich. First by making me hornier than a thorn bush on a scorching summer night. Then by pulling at my heartstrings and making me see him as not just a hunk of prime meat, but a human being with vulnerabilities.

I glance back at the store, knowing the responsible thing to do would be to go back to work and give She-Hulk Sebastian’s wallet.

But fuck being responsible.

I’m in a desperate, lifesaving need of an adventure.

Back in my glory days, the days before I realized big dreams could never overcome the cosmic joke that is reality, I imagined myself a sleuth in the making. Like most millennials, I had seen one too many episodes of the show that you couldn’t pry Mariska Hargitay’s cold, dead hands from. In my wildest fantasies, I would have been the real-life version of her in my own Law & Order. Turns out, that’s something you have to go to college for.

Granted, I’d gone to college, but it hadn’t been for anything as high-brow as criminal justice. No, all I’d wanted to be for the longest time was a composer and performer. Like so many before me, I’d had dreams of fame and fortune, but I’d decided I’d back that dream up with a degree in music education. In other words, I’d gone the safe route to musical stardom.

I’d done everything right up to then. Then I’d thrown it all away in a single night, and I’d been paying the price for years.

I deserve one decent adventure, don’t I?

It’s with all that buzzing in my mind that I decide to give chase.

Except I can’t chase an ambulance on my oh-so-adventurous four-speed bicycle, which I ride to work since I live only a few blocks away.

Two cabs are pulled to the curb at the side of the store. I run up to the first one and command the driver to “follow that ambulance.” It’s stopped at a red light just a block away.

“No, ma’am,” the cab driver says. “We don’t chase cars, let alone ambulances.”

“But it’s an emergency!”

He shrugs.

I can always wait to return Sebastian’s wallet when he gets home, but what if he doesn’t make it home? What if something is seriously wrong with him? I need to know he’s going to be okay. After briefly hesitating, I finally pull a bill from Sebastian’s wallet and wave it in front of the driver’s face. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.” I’ll pay the money back, even though it’s more than a full day’s pay for me.

The taxi driver snatches the bill from my hands with a wide smile and motions for me to get in the backseat. I take no time ripping the door open, and before I’ve even pulled it shut and settled into the worn fabric seats, we’re peeling away.

Less than a minute later, my cabbie slams on the brakes. I brace my hand against his seat just in time to stop my head from slamming into it. Once I’ve recovered, I look ahead to see the reason we braked so quickly: the ambulance is sitting at another red light.

Soon, we’re on the move again and making a sharp right turn. We follow closely behind the ambulance, too close for my comfort. I’m suddenly afraid that Sebastian Rich is sitting up in the back of the cab, looking out the little windows in the back doors, wondering why the hell the sample girl from Cooper’s Market is following him.

“Could you try and keep a one-car distance between us?” I ask the driver as nicely as I can. Not nicely enough for him apparently, as he taps roughly against the brakes. “Do I need to give you another hundred to guarantee my safe delivery?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” he responds.

Forgetting we’re strangers, I slap him on the shoulder. He turns to me with a look of aggravation on his face, and a tinge of guilt tickles my gut until I realize I paid this man a handsome fee. So far, he’s not getting a tip. I peek around the headrest and squint my eyes to get a better look.

We’re approaching a yellow light—the kind of yellow light a line of cars can speed through with ease, but for whatever reason, the ambulance comes to a stop.

An uneasy feeling sinks into my gut—that Sebastian Rich isn’t just aware I’m following him but that he wants to be followed. That everything that has happened thus far has been intentional, from me finding him passed out to the 911 dispatcher telling me to look for his wallet.

My mind races to the most natural conclusion: he and his accomplices, who aren’t really medics at all, are going to lure me to the outskirts of the city. Nobody will be there to hear me scream as he dismembers my body and stuffs each of my limbs in a separate trash bag.

My eyes shift to the cab driver, narrowing in on him with suspicion.

He’s in on it. They’re working together, the most pessimistic part of my mind reasons with me. They’re partners in crime that nobody would ever suspect.

The light turns green, and the ambulance wastes no time accelerating through the intersection. I shrug off my melodramatic and paranoid thoughts and tap my driver on the shoulder several times, pressuring him to give chase.

But the funniest thing happens—I mean, of course it does—because as soon as we begin to accelerate, the cab jerks suddenly and the engine dies. Right in the center of the busiest intersection on this side of town.

The ambulance speeds away, farther and farther down the street until it blends into the tapestry that is the beginning of the mid-afternoon traffic rush.

My cabbie turns the key in the ignition, but the engine won’t turn over. Horns honk from all sides of us. We’re blocking traffic and suddenly I’m no longer worried about being murdered in the middle of nowhere. If I don’t get out of here ASAP, I’m going to be torn apart by an angry mob of city slickers.

With a sigh, I get out of the cab. “Thanks anyway,” I say.

Then, clutching the wallet, I walk to the nearest bus stop to catch a ride back to work, knowing that She-Hulk is going to have a field day with me when I get there.

But no matter. I’ll take her ass-chewing like a good sport, and then once my shift is over, I’ll begin the real work: tracking down Sebastian Rich.