“I got her,” a voice pushed through the drumming of my fear, my nightmare, pushed through the panic that filled my mind, my vision.
“Delaney, I got her. She’s breathing. She’s alive. We’re going to wait for the ambulance. Just hold her hand, here. Hold her hand.”
Her hand was in my hand and I was holding it and breathing too hard, and shaking and trying to focus on who was talking to me. My eyes finally registered that I was staring at Jame. That Jame had crouched down beside me and Jean, that he was telling the crowd to stay back in a firm and calm tone, while placing a coat which he seemed to have produced out of nowhere over Jean’s torso.
She was on her back now, and her arm–the one that was bent the wrong way–was tucked up against her stomach. Her eyes were closed and her face was scraped, blood flowing from the rawness on her forehead, her cheek. There was bruising already forming along her cheek and that, seeing the wounds, seeing her chest rise and fall finally snapped me out of my panic.
Sounds came back to me, a lot of voices, someone telling people to move aside so there was room for the ambulance, someone dealing with traffic, clearing the lane we were in the middle of and directing cars around us to the other lanes.
Engines, seagulls, and Jame.
“You’re okay, Jean,” he said. “Hold still. You’re going to be fine.”
And then there was a new sound, a soft groan.
Her eyes fluttered, opened, fluttered again and stayed open, blurry and unfocused. “Shit. What hit me?”
I’d never been so happy to hear her.
“You got clipped by a car,” Jame said, making it sound like an everyday happening. No big deal. Clipped. Just a scratch. You want the Band-Aid with Minions or Godzilla?
“Yeah? Did we get plate?”
“No,” I said. “No plate. Blacked out windows. But we got the make and model. We’ll track them down.”
I hadn’t even called it in yet. Which meant Myra would hear about this from the 911 call instead of straight from me.
Hell.
“You’re okay, honey,” I said, squeezing her hand gently and glancing up at Jame, who nodded. He still looked like he might fall over himself, but his hands were sure as he checked her skull for wounds, and did a quick pass over her body, checking limbs.
She groaned again as he shifted her leg. “Okay hurts.”
“Broken arm,” I said. “Just hang in there a little longer and we’ll get you on the good meds.”
“Yay.” She said. “Morphine me, baby.”
“Coming up,” Jame said.
The siren that had been growing louder let off a few short bursts and then the ambulance was there, the crowd of curious onlookers parted and Mykal, a vampire EMT, and Steven, a human, strode over with the gurney which they expertly positioned beside us and lowered.
“Jame. Shouldn’t you be warming a bed at Samaritan North?” Mykal asked.
Jame grunted. “Left this morning. Hit and run. Sports car, going about thirty. Right arm, right ankle.”
“Concussion?”
“Probably.”
“Whee,” Jean said weakly.
“Just move to the side, Chief,” Mykal said. “We’re going to load her up.”
I moved, but held on to her hand while the emergency technicians outfitted her with a neck brace, a soft brace for her arm and ankle, and did a quick wipe on her face to make sure the bleeding from the scrapes wasn’t anything more serious.
They moved her swiftly and as gently as could be managed onto the gurney. She hissed in pain a lot anyway, and cursed a blue streak.
The cussing was good. The cussing was Jean. Cussing was better than screaming.
