Page 112 of What We Break
"Secured," Blake calls out. "It'll hold. Go."
Reid and I move as one.
The driver is a woman in her forties, mascara streaked down her face, hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. She's got a cut on her forehead that's bleeding freely, but head wounds always look worse than they are.
"Ma'am, I'm Reid, I'm a Paramedic. This is Laine, she's a nurse. We're going to help you, okay?"
She doesn't move. "My daughter—please—she won't talk to me?—"
"We're going to check on her right now." Reid's hand is on the door handle. "I need you to unlock the doors for me. Can you do that?"
A click. The locks disengage.
Reid eases the driver's door open, and I circle to the rear passenger side. The car rocks slightly, and I hear the rope creak, but it holds.
I pull open the back door.
A girl, maybe eight or nine, is slumped against the window. Her seatbelt is still fastened. There's a jagged cut on the temple, and a goose egg forming underneath it. The blood is everywhere.
My training kicks in like a switch flipping. Everything else falls away—the cold, the fear, the precarious angle of the car. There's only the patient. Only what needs to be done.
"Pediatric head trauma," I call to Reid. "Unresponsive but breathing. Pulse is strong."
Reid is helping the mother out of the front seat, one arm around her waist. "Spinal?"
I'm already running my hands along the girl's neck, feeling for deformity, swelling. "No obvious injury. But we should immobilize just in case."
"Agreed." He gets the mother clear of the vehicle and guides her to sit on the guardrail, far from the edge. "Ma'am, I need you to stay right here. Don't move. We're going to take care of your daughter."
The woman is sobbing, but she nods.
Reid jogs back to me.
"What do you need?" he asks.
23
BLAKE
The girl can't be more than eight.
She's small, too small, too still, and there's blood everywhere. Head wounds bleed like a motherfucker, I know that, but it's turning my stomach to see her hurt.
I should be doing something. I need to be doing something.
The trauma kit. Reid made me buy the damn thing two years ago, insisted I keep it stocked. "You never know, man. You're always driving through the middle of nowhere." I thought he was being paranoid. Now I'm grateful.
I grab it from behind the seat and bring it over, setting it down next to Reid. He doesn't look up, just reaches in and grabs what he needs. Gauze, tape, a penlight. His hands are steady. His voice is calm.
"Hey, sweetheart, can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes for me. Can you do that?"
The girl's eyelids flutter. She moans, tries to turn her head.
"No, no, keep still for me, okay? You bumped your head. We're going to take care of you."
Laine's got two fingers on the girl's wrist, counting. Her other hand is pressing gauze to the wound, applying pressure without being told.She and Reid aren't even talking, but they're moving together like they've done this a thousand times.
That's stupid. Of course they have. They're pros.
