Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) (13 page)

Tai snorted and stiffened when the tones dropped over the loud speaker.

“Shit,” Tai growled. “Fuck me.”

My brow rose. “What?”

He grinned and pointed at me. “You’re lead.”

Then proceeded to tell me what the hell I was about to get myself into.

I walked into the house warily.

It was a hoarder’s house; I hated hoarder houses.

The sheer amount of crap left too many hiding spots for people to use as cover.

I’d never know they were there until I was right on top of them, and for a soldier, that was detrimental. I could practically feel the sweat start pouring out of my pores.

“What the fuck is that?” I asked Tai.

Tai looked at the bottle I was pointing at and grimaced.

“That’s my period blood. I’ve been saving it for ten years now because the man said I had to,” a woman’s voice interrupted my question.

I blinked, confused.

“Um, what?” I asked, turning to the voice.

She was young. Maybe twenty-five or so, with long blonde hair that was twisted into dreadlocks.

Her eyes were hazy, and I could smell the faint hint of marijuana wafting off her.

She nodded. “You heard right. Period blood. I’ve saved it because the man said I needed to. He said it would protect me from any unseen forces that try to kill me.”

My mouth dropped open, not knowing what to say to that.

“Is this similar to that alien show where the little girl saved up all the glasses of water because it had the amoebas in it?” PD tossed out from behind me.

I wanted to vomit.

“Are you the one that called 911?” I swallowed, my voice surprisingly normal despite the fact that I was very close to freaking out.

I was a paramedic, and had seen some pretty fucked up things. However, jarred period blood had never been something that even crossed my lists.

And it was quite disturbing.

She nodded her head. “Yes, I am,” she confirmed.

“Were you calling about yourself or someone else?” I continued patiently.

“Myself,” she said, holding up the side of her shirt.

My eyes bulged when I got a look at her stomach.

“You… you’ve been shot,” my eyes widened.

Or she had been anyway, at some point.

It was healing…and infected.

Very
infected.

“Yes,” she confirmed, poking at the spot on her belly right above her left hip.

I moved forward while I heard Tai step back to call the PD in.

Whenever there was a gunshot wound, it was routine department procedure to notify the police.

I’d just prodded the outsides of the wound when I saw the gleam of silver out of the corner of my eye.

I reacted instinctively, rearing back and rolling backwards so the blade in the woman’s hand passed harmlessly over my side.

She screamed in outrage at having missed, and I finished my roll and came to my feet, ready to defend myself.

I didn’t have to, though.

Tai had watched the whole thing go down and had swung the oxygen tank he’d brought in with him.

The tank connected with the woman’s hand and she fell, the knife skittering away.

And in horror, I watched as the bottles of disgusting fluids started to teeter off the shelves and ledges like dominos.

“Oh fuck,” I gasped, raising my arm to cover my mouth with the crook of my elbow.

A few of the men behind me started to gag and leave the room, making Tai and I the only ones left to take care of the now irate patient.

“Grab her shoulders,” I insisted, walking to her feet.

I stepped over a broken glass jar, trying very hard not to look at the jar’s contents, and scooped the woman’s thrashing legs up.

Tai did the same with her arms, and we then attached her to the stretcher with restraints.

She was covered head to toe in the jar’s contents, and I was reluctant to even get close to her again.

But I did my job, passed her care over to the hospital staff eight minutes and thirty-five seconds later, and promptly drove back to the station and scrubbed myself raw before we caught another call ten minutes after I got out of the shower.

Tai took the lead this time, and I was grateful.

The previous call would be on my mind for a very long time to come, and I’d be lucky if I wasn’t traumatized by it.

“So, my woman just called me and was bitchin’ about you,” Tai said, looking over at me from the driver’s seat.

I turned to him, raising a brow.

“Why?” I asked.

I mean, I hadn’t done anything to Mia,
lately
, to warrant her being pissed at me, so it would have to have something to do with Masen.

“Apparently, you haven’t called Masen, and she’s worried about you. And she’s trying to make it sound like she’s not, but Mia knows she is. And Mia heard me talking about your call, and started ranting about stupid man children who didn’t care about anyone but themselves,” Tai explained.

I blinked, brows furrowing.

“I called her as soon as I was done,” I said. “It was less than an hour after I’d left her, but I called,” I was confused.

Then I realized what I’d done.

I had called her parents. When I’d heard she wasn’t there anymore, I’d intended to call her cell. But I’d gotten distracted.

Instead I’d gone to the hospital to check on Aaron.

“Fuck,” I said, causing Tai to laugh.

“That’s just about the gist of it,” Tai agreed with laughter tinting his voice.

I shot him the finger, and spent the next six hours swamped, never getting a chance to call Masen until I had only an hour left in my shift.

If you don’t swear while driving, then you’re doing it wrong.

-Masen’s secret thoughts

Masen

I glared at my phone and the message that was displayed on my screen.

Boo (2100): Don’t be mad at me. I thought you knew I was okay. Aaron had a bad night.

Of course he would have a good excuse.

Dammit.

I looked at my parent’s mailbox again, shaking my head as I dropped the phone into the front pocket of my scrubs and glared at the ground where the shattered remains of my parent’s mailbox remained.

What the hell?

I picked up the mail from the ground, sorting out my mail from theirs.

I don’t know why I still had my mail sent there.

It was out of convenience, I guess.

And partially out of hope.

I thought maybe if I registered myself on my driver’s license and had my mail routed to my new place, that maybe Booth wouldn’t find me if he ever decided to get back to me.

And he had.

But not because I’d never rerouted my mail.

More like he’d known where I was going even before I did and didn’t need DMV records to know it.

My phone chirped again with another text message, and I ignored it as I grabbed the mangled piece of plastic off the ground and took it up to my parent’s trash can.

Then my eyes caught sight of the camera that’d been mounted on the trellis pointed directly toward the mailbox.

I contemplated looking at it, but chose to leave it alone. I didn’t know a damn thing about the camera, and I didn’t want to risk breaking it in case there was anything good on it.

When had that gotten there?

Once I’d finished putting the mailbox in the trash I hurried back to my car, not liking that the streetlight across the road from my parents’ house was out for the millionth time as well.

“Hi, Masen!” A disgustingly familiar voice called, sending shocked shivers down my spine.

I kept walking to my car, but this time I looked up the road to the closest house across the street and waved reluctantly at Dash.

“Hi, Dash,” I tried not to grimace.

Dash grinned and pointed at where the mailbox used to be.

“My mom said she saw whoever hit the mailbox today. Said it was someone in a black truck,” he smiled. So, what could be creepier than Dash living across the street from me? Having Dash’s parents across from my parents’ house.

I refrained from saying that Dash drove a black truck, because, honestly, he may be creepy, but I didn’t think he was a bad guy.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll pass that information on to my mother and father.”

I was at my Jeep’s door now and sliding in when he started walking across the street.

Luckily, my phone started ringing and I could legitimately ignore him.

Searching frantically for my phone, I put it up to my ear seconds after pressing the green answer button.

“Hello?” I asked breathlessly.

“You’re not home,” Booth observed.

My eyebrows rose.

“I’m not home,
yet
,” I said, putting emphasis on the last word.

“You’re
going
to be here?” He asked.

I started to back up, waving at Dash where he’d stopped, with a frown on his face, halfway between his parents’ house and mine.

He waved back, and I sped past him.

“Later,” I replied evasively.

“Later when?” He asked persistently.

“Later when I feel like it,” I shot at him.

Really I was just going to work, but he didn’t need to know that.

I’d left my wallet in my locker, and I couldn’t get any food without it.

So, even though I’d just left work, I had to go back.

“That’s not very funny,” he growled, sounding annoyed with me now.

“I’m not trying to be,” I said, navigating the roads that would lead me out of my parents’ subdivision.

Headlights in my rearview mirror had me looking backwards instead of forwards.

Which meant I didn’t see the huge fucking deer that ran out in front of me until it was sitting in the front seat with me.

The crash was deafening as the animal was catapulted into my windshield.

Glass shattered, spraying my face.

My hands felt like they hit brick walls, and my broken finger, which was the most insignificant of things at that moment in time, cried out in protest as I tightened my fingers on the wheel in sheer panic.

I slammed on the brakes, but it did me no good seeing as I could no longer see due to the deer carcass in my lap.

My head snapped back when my Jeep’s front end met the light pole on the end of the street that led out of my parents’ neighborhood.

Ironically, I turned my head out the side window and saw the stupid yellow sign that was posted all over Texas.

Deer
fucking
crossing.

Fucking awesome.

I got to ride in an ambulance.

With a deer’s antler sticking out of my guts.

Well, not my guts, exactly.

More like my fat.

One antler had hooked in the fat of my stomach, lodged there from the accident.

They (the sexy firefighters that’d responded) had sawed the deer’s antler off, making no attempt to hide the fact that they were disappointed to do it.

Apparently, the deer that it’d been attached to had been a twelve point, not that I gave a shit.

“Can you please shut up?” I
snapped, poking at the protruding antler with disgust. “This is going to leave a scar. I don’t need you telling me that it is. I’m a mother fucking nurse.”

The man smiled, grinning at me.

“So you’re Booth’s?” He questioned.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“How do you know that?” I shot back.

He pointed out the back window and I saw the motorcycle that’d been following us for a couple of miles now.

He’d gotten to the scene in less than five minutes.

He’d also been the one to call 911.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “He’s mine.”

“He’s pretty crazy, I hear. Doesn’t talk,” the firefighter made conversation.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“What’s your name?” I asked, squinting at him.

He tapped his name tag.

“Jester,” he said.

“Well,
Jester
,” I drawled, putting emphasis on his name. “I don’t know how well you know my Booth, but he’s not someone you can just talk about behind his back and expect me not to respond negatively.”

The man grinned. “I didn’t say it in a negative way. Semper Fi,” he pointed at his shoulder.

My eyes went to the Marine Corps tattoo on his shoulder, one that just barely poked out from underneath the blue uniform top he was wearing, and rolled my eyes.

“He is what he is,” I shrugged. “Leave him alone and don’t talk about him.”

The man crossed his heart. “I won’t.”

I poked at the antler one last time, grimacing in pain, and then turned my eyes forward as the ambulance pulled through the ambulance bay and stopped.

Booth pulled his bike right up onto the concrete behind the ambulance and got off, walking towards the back doors.

He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt…both snug and hugging his body like a second skin.

He had on gold Ray Ban aviator glasses, despite the near darkness, and stared at me as the doors opened to reveal me.

He didn’t show a hint of discomfort at the huge antler that was sticking out of my body, only pulling me out without the help of either man on the ambulance with me.

“I’m not sure you’re supposed to do their job,” I told him dryly as his body got close enough to hear me.

“Don’t give a fuck what they think,” he said. “Only care that I can keep an eye on you.”

I sighed.

“Do you think my Jeep’s totaled?” I broached the subject.

“Totaled,” Booth agreed.

“What about the deer?” I asked.

“What about him?” Booth countered.

“Did you take him to the dump or something?” I asked.

Booth shook his head.

“The game warden will come and take him,” he expounded. “They like to keep a tally on the number of deer that get hit by automobiles.”

That surprised me.

I hadn’t realized that was what they did.

“What do they do with the deer, then?” I asked.

“They give it to the less fortunate,” he said. “Someone who needs it.”

That was nice, I guess.

A particularly bad bump in the concrete had me grimacing as I was pulled inside, and I gritted my teeth as Booth input a code into the panel beside the door.

Booth said something under his breath, and suddenly I was inside under the harsh lights of the ER.