Page 79 of Courting Danger

Danger grimaced, because damn, his fucking head hurt. He gave a thumbs up instead of using words, as his vocabulary had already disintegrated to the point that, aside from expletives, no other words came to mind.

“How messed up is the road?” Roan asked.

“Aside from a few limbs, it looked passible.”

“Sure hope that’s true,” a voice chimed in. It sounded like the first man Danger had carried back there. “I’m worried about my Sophia’s blood sugar.”

“We’ve got some cases of juice,” someone said, feet scuffing against the concrete floor, followed by the sound of squeaky wheels again. “Juice boxes too.”

“Anything you have will help,” he insisted.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you.”

The conversation was getting easier to track, even as the butcher moved away, letting the lantern light wash over Danger again. After years of avoiding sirens whenever possible, the most beautiful sound in the world was a barrage of them wailing over the storm. Several people cheered. While the ladder rungs clanged again as someone scaled it, poised to open the doors as soon as help arrived.

“Alright folks,” the butcher said. “Don’t rush the doors. We’ve all come through this in one piece. We don’t want anyone to get hurt in the crush to get out of here.”

No one argued. From the sound of things, everyone stayed exactly where they were until the sirens overwhelmingly drowned out the storm, flashing lights throwing color into the otherwise dim and dingy-looking room.

When Roan shifted away from him, Danger wanted to grab hold of his hand and make him stay, but he knew Roan was only doing it so the EMTs could get to him. As the rolling door rumbled up again, higher this time, a flood of voices filled the room, radios crackling. Someone shined a light in his eyes that made the pain explode like grated glass stabbing through his brain, leaving light spots behind when they moved it away.

His stomach roiled, and if he’d actually had breakfast that morning, something might have come up with how sudden thewave of nausea was; instead, he just lay there feeling miserable as fuck while the EMTs attended to him.

“You hang in there, brother,” the butcher said as firefighters began helping people into a vehicle they’d backed up against the door.

He could see the taillights and Roan’s boots several feet away.

“Sir,” someone said, but who they were talking to, Danger didn’t know, since there were so many others speaking that they were mostly a blend of noise. “You need to get in the back of the transport vehicle.”

“Not a chance in hell,” Roan replied, his voice like steel drowning out all the rest. “I’m with him. Wherever he goes, I go.”

“They’re going to back an ambulance up to the doors just as soon as the other vehicle pulls out.”

“I can wait.”

Nothing more was said. Danger wished he could see if Roan had stared the guy down or just stubbornly set his jaw, crossed his arms, and refused to be moved. Either way, Danger was damned proud of him. It wasn’t long before the taillights disappeared into the deluge that still fell as heavily as it had when it had first started, and he felt someone tugging the jackets away from his body and placing a backboard against his back, the flip that followed leaving him dizzy and disoriented. A blanket was tucked around him, and only a few spatters of rain struck his face as they loaded him in the back of the ambulance. Roan took his hand the moment he joined Danger, and when he glanced over, he saw that Roan was wearing his jacket again.

“N-need him to…to have my phone,” Danger said as they closed the back doors, the straps pinning him to the gurney making it impossible for him to reach into his pocket to retrieve it.

“I’ll get it,” the EMT replied. “Which pocket is it in?”

“Left interior,” Danger explained, before making eye contact with Roan again. “4209 is the code to open it. S-scroll through the contacts. The landline at Pope’s is in there. C-cell service is probably still down, so you’ll have to use one of their land lines to call it. Don’t let them give you any shit about using it either since they took all the pay phones out of the place over a decade ago.”

“I won’t,” Roan said, squeezing his hand. “I’ll fill Pope in on everything.”

The EMT loosened the strap enough to fish in his pocket for the phone, passing it to Roan.

“Good,” Danger muttered. “Tell ‘em…”

Shit, what was it he wanted Roan to tell Pope?

“Fuck, uhh, tell him not to rush his ass down here until it’s safe.”

Roan snorted and shot him an incredulous look.

“Yeah, yeah,” Danger muttered, knowing without Roan saying anything that nothing in the world he said to Pope was likely to keep him away once he learned Danger was in the hospital. He just hoped the rain would ease soon to make it easier on him.