I looked up just in time to see the tall man, Apollo, take a few steps toward Jessa. He held his hand out and she placed hers in it like it was the most natural thing in the world, then seemed to immediately forget how words worked.
"Apollo," he said. "And you?"
"Jessa," she finally managed, then pulled her hand back slowly.
He held her gaze and smiled. I had never in my life seen Jessa at a loss for her own boldness. This man had knocked her completely off her square.
Juelz came back over with Aubree close behind him, and the moment felt easy and full and exactly like what I had been needing.
Then a kid came sprinting through the crowd, heading straight for Duke, barely able to catch his breath.
"Duke! My mom isn't breathing. She isn't breathing. Please, help me!"
Solana stoodfrom my lap and I was on my feet right behind her. Apollo snapped his attention to Vinny immediately. Every instinct in the room shifted at once.
"Where is your mom?" Apollo asked.
Vinny pointed down the street toward a house a few buildings down, screen door hanging wide open. Apollo didn't wait. He took off in that direction and I was right behind him.
I turned back to Solana before I ran. "Call 911 and get them here now."
She already had her phone out before I finished the sentence.
I told Juelz to stay behind with the women. Then I ran to catch up with Vinny and Apollo as they took the porch steps two at a time and pushed through the front door.
The television was on inside. The house was tidy, taken care of. You could tell his mother did her best with what she had. But the row of open cans on the kitchen counter told a differentstory, the kind that too many families in the Parks knew without having to say it out loud. Food was stretched thin. It was one of the reasons we ran the backpack giveaway every year. A way to get people what they needed without making them feel like they had to ask for it.
I moved through the kitchen and down the hallway, Apollo's voice pulling me before I even saw him.
"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine."
He was on his knees beside her, hands locked at the center of her chest, shoulders stacked directly over his arms, driving each compression down with the kind of controlled force that came from years of doing this under pressure. Thirty. He tilted her head back, lifted her chin, sealed his mouth over hers, and delivered two slow rescue breaths before locking back in and starting the count again.
Vinny stood a few feet away, frozen, tears running down his face.
I hated that he was seeing this.
I stepped over and pulled him into my chest, turning him away from the scene. My hand came up to the back of his head as I held him and rubbed his back, trying to give him something solid to hold onto even though my own chest was tight.
"It's going to be alright," I said quietly, even as I kept my eyes on Apollo.
He didn't stop. Didn't pause. His breathing was controlled but the urgency was there in every compression.
"Come on. Come on."
Then he stopped the count.
"I've got a pulse."
The words had barely landed before the paramedics pushed through the door with their gear, taking over the space with the kind of practiced efficiency that left no room for anything else. One immediately fitted a non-rebreather oxygen mask over herface and checked her breathing while the other assessed her responsiveness and called out vitals. Within minutes they had her stable enough to move, lifting her carefully onto the gurney and rolling her toward the door.
The room cleared out just as fast as they had filled it.
I kept my arm around Vinny and looked over at Apollo. He had sat back on his heels, one hand dragging down his face, the sharp exhale of someone coming down from a place most people never had to go.
"You did everything right," I told him.
He nodded slowly, but I could see him replaying it behind his eyes, running back through every step the way people like him always did whether it went well or not.
