Page 1 of What Hurts Us

1

LAYLA

The population of Falls Creek, North Carolina, is a collective menace to society.I snorted a laugh and reread the sentence. Hell of an opening line for an orientation packet. This town was barely a blip on the map. Cows outnumbered residents three-to-one, and most of those citizens were north of sixty-five years old.

How much of a menace could they really be?

Oh well. No turning back now.

Day one had arrived. New job. New town. New everything. After years of working my ass off in level-one trauma centers and emergency departments, I’d finally gotten my CFRN specialization and landed a job as a flight nurse.

No more twelve-hour shifts plagued by sniffling noses, weird rashes, and foreign objects shoved up rectums.No, you did not ‘fall’on that bulk-size shampoo bottle in the shower, Jim Bob.

I would be pulling twenty-four hours at a time at the base, but the calls would feed the part of me that craved the rush of a life-or-death case. With nothing keeping me there, I had packed up and left my nursing job on the coast. I had dumped my minimal belongings in my shoebox of an apartment, then took a much-deserved vacation. After a few days of umbrella drinks and R&R, I crisscrossed the country for a week of AirCare orientation and flight training in Colorado, followed by cadaver labs in Florida.

Finally back in Falls Creek, I was ready to seize the hell out of my first day.

“This is your bunk. Make sure you put all your bedding back in your storage bin when you get off shift. Rah-Rah crashes in this one when she’s working.” AB opened the wafer-thin door and flipped on the light. “That’s her stuff over in the corner. If y’all work the same shift, just rock-paper-scissors for who has to move their shit into a new bunk.”

The crew quarters at the Falls Creek AirCare base were functional but bare bones. I grabbed one side of my oversized Rubbermaid bin while AB grabbed the other. Together, we hefted the tote onto the bare twin bed. The metal frame creaked and groaned under the weight. There was a nondescript particle board cubby unit for my helmet and boots. At the top of it was an attached metal bar to hang my flight suit.

AB—short for Annabelle—blew her straight-cut blonde bangs off her forehead and popped her hands onto her hips. Her navy blue AirCare flight suit was halfway on, the arms tied in a knot around her waist. Sweat stained her cotton tank top.

North Carolina humidity had a way of humbling even the most seasoned of locals. I was already missing the cool ocean breezes that helped tame summer swamp ass. But my time in Beaufort was in the past. No sense in looking back.

“You’ve got that deer-in-headlights look on your face,” she said, snapping her gum with a loudpop.“Don’t worry. We’ll scuff up the shine on your boots in no time.”

AB was the base lead. Although we all had years in emergency nursing under our belts—topped off with boring HR drivel about company culture—there was nothing like real-life experience to get you acquainted with a new unit.

Melissa, the nurse preceptor at my last job at Carteret Presbyterian Hospital, and I had gotten along great. I crossed my fingers that AB would be just as helpful.

“Odin’s our pilot on shift today,” she said, turning out of the tight bunk room and motioning for me to follow her.

I raised my eyebrows. “Odin?” No way was that his real name.

We weaved down a narrow hallway, passing showers and a decades-old washing machine and dryer. AB pointed to the dog crate that was wedged between two recliners. “That’s Loki, the pilot’s dog.”

I laughed and squatted to scratch the goodest boy behind his ears. “Loki, son of Odin.”

“Call signs, sweet cheeks,” AB said with a chuckle as she yanked the glass coffee pot out from under the percolator and shoved it under the kitchen faucet. “Annabelle ain’t my real name. The last base lead gave it to me. Said it was because I came off sweet, but I’d cut a throat if a bystander got in my way on scene. Like the creepy-ass doll from that horror movie. Just remember that when we’re all crammed in the bird together.” She slammed the coffee pot back in the maker and piled grounds from a bulk tub into the filter. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head—you’ll get a good one.”

The door to one of the other bunk rooms opened and slammed shut. A white man with a very apparent bald spot sauntered out, dressed in gym shorts and a too-tight undershirt. He wiped sleep from his eyes.

“New girl,” he said. A grunt accompanied his chin tip.

AB glared at him. “You’ve been house-trained, Frodo. Act like it. You’d know her name is Layla if you paid attention during the base meeting last week instead of watching ESPN on your phone.”

The other medic—Frodo, apparently—grunted something unintelligible, removed the coffee pot, and stuck his mug under the coffee maker instead. “Not my fault that you decided to have a staff meeting that could have been an email. I gotta keep up during preseason. Gotta see how Gideon Carmichael is playing so I can stack my fantasy team.” He shrugged. “Welcome to the dysfunctional AirCare family.” When the mug was full, he put the pot back and lumbered away to his bunk.

The door slammed shut, and I turned to AB. “Why do you call him Frodo?”

She snorted. “Let’s just say he did you a solid by wearing socks. The man’s got hobbit feet.”

We both shivered.

“The kitchen’s communal,” AB said, motioning around the cramped L-shaped countertop. “You make a mess; you clean it up. Label anything you put in the fridge. Usually, we’ll do simple stuff for breakfast and lunch, but someone on shift will cook dinner for the crew. There’s a chore wheel for everything else.”

I followed her silently as we walked through the base. The grand tour was significantly more lackluster than an emergency department. The crew quarters were a combination of a smelly EMS station with fart-filled couches and a TV that looked like it was from the seventies, paired with military-style living quarters and an office. After a brief introduction to the charting and filing system, AB led me into the hangar that was attached to the base building.

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