“How critical are the injured?”
“I’d say two. Three are serious and one seems to have suffered the same fate as Ophelia; got a knock on the head from falling debris. The cut didn’t look deep, and I gave them a bandage, told them to keep pressure on the wound and help would be there soon.” Even with his limited medical knowledge, the patients he thought were critical may not be as bad as they seemed. And the one with the minor injury could be the one who was hurt the worst.
“Right. Okay,” she said, but Isaac wasn’t sure she was aware of what she was saying as she seemed to bementally cataloguing what he’d told her. “Thanks.” She touched his arm briefly before going back to Ophelia and the other man, talking earnestly to them.
Her cool demeanor under the immense pressure of dealing with a building crumbling around them, impressed the hell out of Isaac. He’d seen seasoned agents puke at the merest sight of blood and then be hopeless in helping people who’d been injured.
“Samuel!” Marie’s voice pulled him from his thoughts.
How long had she been calling his name? He’d been using the name Samuel for months now. He was used to answering to it whenever he came to town and spoke to the locals.
“Sorry, I was just thinking about the storeroom on this floor and how much I should get from there for you.” As far as excuses went, it was a valid and reasonable one.
“Ophelia will handle that. She’s also going to go check out the patients on this floor.” She paused, swallowing as if what she was about to say next was going to be hard. Harder than anything she’d already seen. He moved toward her. If she needed him he would be there for her. “Will you come with me to check the next floor?”
“Of course, anything you need, all you have to do is ask.” His response was immediate and truthful. Hemay have only met her but she called to him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. His last long-term relationship was over a decade ago. Before he’d taken on a role that left him tainted and with more blood on his hands than his job as a DEA agent should ever have had.
“Thank you. There are eight patients on the third floor. The first floor is where we see anyone who comes in to seek treatment. Fortunately, Ophelia had seen the last patient about fifteen minutes before the earthquake hit. I was the only one there getting ready to meet my colleagues on the second floor for rounds.”
Isaac let Marie ramble on as they made their way up the stairs. He had no idea what they were going to be greeted with when they mounted the last step. The top floor could still be in good shape, or it could be worse with the roof having collapsed on everyone.
He wasn’t a person who normally prayed, but he sent a short one upwards so the damage and injuries were minimal. Marie’s gasp told him his thoughts were a little late.
“Oh no!” Her cry reached into his soul, and he took the last two steps in one stride so that he was beside her.
The scene set out in front of them was something out of a Hollywood disaster movie. Part of the roof had collapsed, causing the walls to cave in. As bad asthe floor below had been, at least they’d been able to see the general layout. This floor was a mass of rubble and roof beams.
If anyone survived up here it would be a total miracle. But stranger things had happened. As bad as it looked right this second, there could be little pockets of spaces amongst the rubble where people survived.
Beside him Marie shook off her shock and despair and faced him, a determined glint shining in her blue eyes. “You ready?”
“Always.” And for her he would be. He vowed for the rest of the time he would be in Guatemala, he’d make sure he spent it with her—if she let him.
But you’re not Samuel, local townsperson, and you don’t know how long you’ll be here.
Mentally Isaac cursed his conscience, because it was right. He may want to get to know Marie better, but danger still hung around him, and until it was safe for him to return to his home—wherever that was–he couldn’t start something with this strong woman in front of him. No matter how much he may want to.
Chapter Three
Exhaustion wasMarie’s constant companion. She had no idea what time it was, all she knew was that she needed to keep going. Needed to keep busy, so that she wouldn’t remember the devastation of the third floor of the hospital and the lives lost. Wouldn’t remember Mr. Ricco’s lifeless, battered body on the collapsed hospital bed. Wouldn’t remember how he’d told her she’d made his hospital stay so much brighter.
Pain, short and sharp, stabbed her in the chest. The tears she’d kept at bay for the last few hours threatened to erupt out of her. She blinked quickly, she couldn’t fall apart. Not now. Not when there were still injured people to attend to.
With the help of the hospital staff and Samuel, they’d moved the injured out of the unstable hospital into acouple of empty stores that had withstood Mother Nature’s force. The people of the small town had rallied together and helped each other where they could.
“You need to fix my son, now!”
She jolted at the man’s demands and grabbed her stethoscope as he dumped a small boy on the empty table in front of her. “What’s his name?” she asked, placing the small disc on the boy’s chest above a bloody wound, where a faint pulse beat sounded. A rhythm that was going to, sadly, stop very soon.
“Tito.” The man leaned close to her, and she took a step back, the malevolence in his eyes reaching out to her. “If he doesn’t live, you will be sorry.”
“Please step away from me.” Marie wasn’t going to be intimidated by this man, regardless of the look in his eye. Nor the way she saw the volunteers flinch away from him.
In her life, she’d seen plenty of overbearing men. Had been married to one for five years too long. Not to mention she was a foreigner in this town and there’d been many people who side-eyed her and tried to scare her away. She doubted this guy would be the last one to try it.
Yet he seemed…different. More dangerous. More sinister. As though he didn’t care who he stepped on to get what he wanted.
“Why?” After a long, and traumatic day, the last thing she wanted to do was fight with this man, particularly as his son was bleeding out from the injury to his chest. An injury that wasn’t caused by the earthquake but looked very much like a gun had been responsible for it.
