Valen closed his eyes and felt as if the ground were tilting under him, but in ways that had nothing to do with the earthquake he and Ari had inflicted on this city. He knew what was coming.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
“Auntie,” I called, “stay awake. Stay with me.”
Those words are so clich é. You hear them in every movie or TV show where someone is shot or concussed. It sounds like a kind of ego, telling someone to stay awake so they can stay alive. As if any of us have that power.
Because I was a cop and a soldier and now a special operator, I have first-aid training that’s a few cuts above the ordinary. I can set a bone, stitch a wound, deliver a baby, treat for shock, immobilize a broken neck, can take vitals and give injections. All of which is great if you have even a basic medical kit. Which I did not. I had a dying woman, a dog, and a cell phone. My car was four blocks away and my back was injured. At the very least I had a muscle tear, but it felt worse than that. I didn’t want to kill her by dropping her. Calling 9-1-1 was definitely going to be a waste of time because there was no chance at all they weren’t swamped.
Instead I called the Hangar. Weak, confused, or inexperienced people will react with shock when you tell them this kind of news. They will waste precious seconds reacting rather than responding. The DMS doesn’t hire those kinds of people. I told Bug what happened and what I needed and he said help was on its way. I believed him.
I told Doc Holliday about Auntie, and she talked me through the steps that might help until EMTs arrived.
“Ask her to smile,” ordered Doc. I did. And it stabbed me through the fucking heart. Only part of one half of her face moved. I will never forget the ghastly grimace and the horrified realization in Auntie’s eyes. She knew.
Then Doc had me ask Auntie to raise both arms. One moved. One twitched.
“Can she say anything?” asked Doc. “See if you can get her to talk.”
I asked Auntie to tell me how she was feeling. She made a lot of sounds but none of them were words in any language I could understand. And then one single word came through — broken, half-formed, melting, but coherent.
“…scared…”
I swear to God I would rather have taken a bullet than have Aunt Sallie tell me how scared she was.
“Listen to me, Ledger,” said Doc, speaking slowly and clearly in order to ground me. “She’s had a stroke. She’s aphasic, which means she can’t talk. Keep her awake. That’s crucial, because it sounds like a bad one. You cannot let her go to sleep. Don’t try to give her anything. No food or water or anything. Not even her meds. Nothing. She won’t be able to swallow and would choke. We can’t yet tell if this is a hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke. If it’s ischemic, aspirin could kill her. The reports about D.C. are coming in and it’s bad, Cowboy. It’s really bad. We can’t give you a reliable ETA on when someone’s going to get to you. Maybe there’s not even enough time. I pray so, but… you need to be there for her. Make her as comfortable as you can. Keep talking to her. Reassure her. Lie to her, if you have to. Tell her that help is coming. Tell her everything is going to be fine. Make her believe it.”
I swallowed something that felt like a rock. “Yes,” I said. “Roger that.”
“Emergency services are going to be slow arriving, but do not move her. You don’t want to make it worse.”
I wanted to ask how this could be worse. Just like I wanted to ask how long I could risk staying there. Luckily, Doc Holliday is sharp as a knife.
“Bug is working on a timetable for soonest possibility of help to your location. The sooner she gets treatment, the better her chances and the less you need to take the risk of moving her. That said, Cowboy, if it looks like we can’t get an ambulance to you, then you may have to get her out yourself. What condition are you in?”
“Back,” I said. One word, trusting again that she was quick.
“Pain or serious damage?”
“Both.”
“Scale of one to ten, ten being you’re totally unable to try.”
“Seven.”
“Shit. Is there anyone around who can help?”
There were people around me. They weren’t fighting anymore, but they weren’t going to be of much help. Some were kneeling over people more visibly injured, doing what they could to stanch bleeding and provide help. Others wandered in shock, their eyes filled with a more recognizable kind of vacuity than before. Victims whose injuries were inflicted on their psyches. I’ve seen that before, after terrorist bombings or natural disasters. Some were awake and alert but overwhelmed by how many people screamed for help and how few resources they had to work with. Behind me, the main entrance to the Capitol Building was blocked by rubble, so the cops, Secret Service, politicians, and reporters who’d crowded the chamber must either be still inside — alive or dead — or they had exited through another route.
“No,” I said. “Just me.”
“Let me talk to Bug,” Doc said. “We’ll figure something out.”
Then Mr. Church came on the line. He didn’t ask for details, so I assumed he’d been listening. He did not ask to speak to Auntie.
“I’m talking to you because she’d be embarrassed to speak with me,” Church said, and there was so much awareness and pain in his voice that it hurt me to hear it. “She will see this as some kind of failure on her part to be the same young, strong, effective field operator she pretends to be. I understand that, as much as it hurts to admit it. Do you understand, Captain?”
“Yes,” I said, and it felt like my throat was filled with glass splinters.
“Be strong for her and with her,” said Church. “If it is within your power, then keep her here. Keep her with us.”
“Yes.”
“Captain… do you have any idea why people began attacking one another? Is this a disease?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It started right before the first tremor and stopped when the ground stopped shaking. Does that make any kind of sense?”
He didn’t reply to that, but instead said, “Help is coming.”
I looked around at the ruined city. At slack bodies and blood-streaked faces, at the ruptured streets and broken buildings. At the fires and the smoke that reached like the arms of dying giants to the uncaring gray sky. Then I looked down at Aunt Sallie. There was so little of her left.
“Help is coming,” I said, repeating Church’s words so Aunt Sallie could hear.
Her hand, the one that wasn’t already dead, squeezed two of my fingers. Telling me that she believed what I said. Trusting. I wanted to bow my head and weep as first responder sirens filled the air. Too few and too far away. Aunt Sallie smiled up at me with a quarter of a mouth and gave my fingers another squeeze.
Reassuring me, for fuck’s sake.
The world was mad and it was broken. This wasn’t a fight and I was the wrong damn man for the job of offering comfort. I held her close and talked to her. Sometimes she talked back. As best she could. We waited.
As best we could.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Church looked at Doc Holliday, at Bug, at the staff in the Hangar who were all scrambling to put the right machinery into action. No one in the world was better suited to the job.
Beside him, Brick Anderson touched Church on the shoulder. “She’ll be okay.”