Page 130 of Tasting Fire
By the way her right forearm was swelling, Cash had done some damage there already, so although her professional promise was to do no harm, Emmy shifted her hold and squeezed the swollen flesh.
Mrs. Southerland screamed and bucked. Flopped and gasped for a pain-free breath.
While the woman was still squirming and cussing, spewing rambling sentences of nonsense, Emmy forced her onto her stomach. She used her stethoscope to bind the woman’s hands and Cash caught hold of her ankles and secured them with a utility strap.
Emmy didn’t even have the energy to lift herself off the woman; she just rested there, trying to catch her breath while the SWAT team swarmed around them.
Strong hands grasped her under the arms and lifted. Although her legs were like rubber urinary catheters, Emmy locked her knees to remain on her feet.
Where she was lying, Mrs. Southerland whacked her head against the ground with such force that Emmy actually winced. “Maybe we should get her up and—”
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“What is she doing?” Cash said. “Oh, fuck. She’s laying on an old muffler. She’s trying to hurt herself.” He pushed Emmy out of the way and tried to haul Mrs. Southerland to her feet. But she struggled and eluded his grasp, falling face-first on the rusted auto part.
Emmy rushed in to help pull her off the hunk of jagged metal. Mrs. Southerland was deadweight in their hands, and something warm gushed onto Emmy’s shoes. “She cut herself.” Somehow, she and Cash flipped the woman onto her back only to discover the sharp metal had obviously made contact with her neck. Blood was pumping out of the slash with every heartbeat. “It hit her carotid.” Immediately applying pressure, Emmy said, “Hang on. Just a few damn minutes.”
“Let me help,” Cash said.
“I can’t release pressure. She’ll bleed out.”
But regardless of Emmy’s efforts, the blood seeped through her fingers, much like it had when David Hernandez was brought into the ER. And in the hands of death, evil blood didn’t differ from innocent.
It all ran warm, no matter how cold the heart.
Karen Southerland coughed, causing more blood to escape the wound. “You… don’t deserve to…” The awareness and life in the woman’s eyes drained away before she could finish her sentence.
Emmy didn’t deserve what? To be a doctor? To love Cash? To have him love her back?
“I’m sorry, Cash. She’s gone.”
He yanked Emmy to her feet and wrapped her in his arms like she was the one in danger of bleeding out. “But you’re not, and that’s what matters.”
Unable to believe the woman he’d regarded as a second mom for most of his life had just cut her throat—on purpose?—right in front of him, Cash stared over Emmy’s shoulder at the prone body on the ground. Her neck twisted to one side, blood still oozed from the cut and dripped to the ground.
“Cash.” From a faraway place, he felt Emmy’s warm hands—wet hands—on his back. “Let me double -check.”
“I got it.” Reluctant to let Emmy go, he forced himself to hunker down and check Mrs. Southerland’s pulse. He came away with two fingers smeared with blood and nothing else.
Jackson immediately arrowed in on Cash and Emmy. Pointing to a bench seat that had been parted from its car many years ago, he said, “Sit down so I can check you both out.” As he looked them over, he faced Emmy. “Dr. McKay, I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole to you. I just… My wife walked out on me not long ago and I… I’ve been taking it out on any woman around me.”
“Thanks for the apology, Jackson,” she said. “Let’s see if we can’t get past this, okay?”
Trying to spare Jackson, Cash asked, “How is the kid in 165?”
“Got him loaded up and to the hospital. I think he’s gonna be okay. As shitty as this whole thing was, it was a miracle she only killed one person.”
“She was here, in this school, with those kids, this whole time. And she was fucking nuts,” Cash said, miserable that he’d played any part in it. “And it was because of me.”
“You know that’s a crock of bullshit.” Emmy grabbed his hand and tugged, forcing him to look at her. Realizing she still had blood on her hands, she tried to release him, but Cash hung on. He needed her. Needed to know she was alive. “She was trying to put the blame on you and on me—hell, on your mother—for life circumstances she couldn’t handle. That’s not your fault in any way.”
“But something inside her broke when I didn’t—”
“She was like a bridge without all its supports. At some point, it was going to collapse. But there wasn’t any rhyme or reason as to which car was going to be the one that made it cave.”
“I was one of her favorites.”
“That doesn’t make you responsible for what happened to her or what she did,” Emmy said.
