Sliding one hand under Eloise’s lower back and the other under her knees, Ozzi supported her head and shoulders with one arm and held her upper back with the other. “One, two, up.”
I didn’t have to count out loud, but it was a habit. We moved in unison to place Eloise gently on the gurney. Immediately we covered her with the sheet and buckled her in before raising the stretcher.
As a pack, we moved as one unit. It was the only reason the hospital let two Alphas pair up as a team. Ozzi was my brother from another mother, and I couldn’t imagine doing this job with anyone else.
“We’re going to take Eloise out to the ambulance and put her on oxygen. If you want to ride with us, please get your stuff and lock up behind you.” Ozzi’s gaze lingered on Lyla for a few seconds before he signaled to me to hold open the kitchen door.
A flash of possessiveness had me gritting my teeth and wanting to put myself between him and Lyla. I slapped that Alpha instinct down. It would only cause me trouble.
“Okay.” Lyla nodded and looked around the kitchen as if searching for something. Her skin was clammy and pale. The girl was in shock and there was no one here to take care of her. She seemed to be lost and fuck if I couldn’t help myself.
“Lyla,” I said her name as a command, a little harder than I meant to. “Turn off the oven and the music. Get your coat, purse, and boots.”
I opened the door and pulled the gurney forward before she could reply. Ozzi shot me questioning looks the whole way to the ambulance. We lifted Eloise into the back and locked the gurney down so it wouldn’t move. Ozzi sat and affixed the oxygen mask to her face, switching it on.
“What was that?” He glanced at me as he began to hook up the rest of the monitoring equipment. “You know that girl?”
“I’ve never met Lyla before.” So many times I’d thought about coming up to her at her booth at a craft fair or whenever I saw her at one of the bakeries and introducing myself, but I’d always stop myself. I was trouble, and she didn’t need my shadow looming over her. I handed him the blood pressure cuff. “I follow her online and saw her around town a few times. I know Eloise.” I motioned to our patient. “Everyone in town knows her. She does a lot of work with Omegas and kids.”
Ozzi nodded. “You drive. See if you can do anything to calm the girl.”
I hopped out the back of the ambulance and closed the doors. Ozzi was more than capable of handling things. He’d thought about becoming a doctor and had a few years of medical school under his belt, but when he realized what a fucking bureaucratic nightmare it was to be a doctor these days, he joined me in school to become an emergency medical technician,EMT. We excelled in high stress situations, and no two calls were ever the same. The job kept us on our toes and we liked it that way.
Lyla darted out the front door of Primrose House and locked it behind her. She’d thrown on a white puffy coat and chunky boots and carried a purse that was shaped like a Christmas tree.
I opened the passenger side door of the ambulance. “You can ride up here, Lyla. My partner needs room to work in the back.”
She stepped up into the vehicle and sat, buckling herself up. Her movements were choppy and her breaths were still coming fast.
I closed the door and jogged around to the driver’s side. Getting in, I buckled up, turned on the engine, and picked up the radio. “Team two, coming in. Patient secured. Senior female, stroke. Stopped breathing, but we got her breathing on her own again. Over.”
The response came almost immediately. “Loud and clear, team two. We’ll be waiting for Eloise when you bring her in. Over.”
Turning on the sirens, I backed out onto the road and started to the hospital. “How are you holding up, Lyla?” When she shook her head, I gave her a sympathetic look. “Talk to me. It will help.”
She fiddled with the beads on her purse and hesitated a minute before finally getting some words out. “The sirens aren’t as loud in here as I thought they’d be.”
“In the older models, they’d be very loud, but with new ambulances, the sound is pushed up and outward. That way we aren’t blowing out our ears all the time, and it allows us to communicate better with one another.” It was mundane talk, but it would help ease her out of her shock.
Lyla dipped her head with a nod and studied me out of the corner of her eyes. “How did you know my name?”
There was no way I was going to admit that I followed her online. She’d freak if she knew I liked watching her videos. Not that fashion was my thing, but her passion about it was what entranced me. She had such a love of life and didn’t hold back, while I was constantly reining myself in.
Yet I didn’t know what else to say. “You used to do those reels about Fond du Lac. You’d go to different spots and explore, talk about the history, and stuff.”
“You watched those?” There was a little light back in her eyes and a faint rosy flush in her cheeks. “I didn’t think anyone but my friends and family watched them.”
I darted around cars that pulled over as I zoomed onto the main street. “Yeah, it was great to see someone looking at everything with new eyes. I’ve lived here all my life and love it. There were so many spots I wanted you to go see, but you stopped doing them.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t getting the response from them like I’d hoped, but people really liked my fashion and food reels.” Lyla gripped her seatbelt as we zipped through a red light. “I would love to explore Fond du Lac more. It’s so pretty here. I grew up in the south. My dads are in the army, and we moved a lot. We lived mostly in hot places where they didn’t have winter like they do here. I can’t imagine not having snow for Christmas now.”
“Christmas without snow is sacrilege.” I agreed and turned down the street that would lead us to the hospital.
As our destination appeared ahead, Lyla twisted in her seat and looked through the window into the back where Ozzi was tending to Eloise. She put her hand on the window and nipped at her lower lip. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“Eloise is going to be fine.” I sped into the hospital parking lot and headed to the emergency entrance. “With astroke, the longer they are without oxygen, the worse it will be. She wasn’t breathing for maybe a minute or two at the most?” Lyla nodded. “That’s excellent. Even better that she’s now breathing on her own. They’ll take very good care of her here.”
I pulled to a stop out front and jumped out of the ambulance. Fuck, I didn’t want our conversation to come to an end. Lyla was already getting some vibrancy back in her, but being inside would zap that again. There would be a ton of tests and so much waiting on her part.
