Page 15 of What Hurts Us

This was my life now. The most action I got outside of physical therapy was riding a desk. That, and the occasional L-and-A.

Livestock and agriculture.

Fuckin’ Creekers…

Muriel—a hefty lady in her prime—looked at me through thick, curly lashes. I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing the impending migraine to stay away until I could get this bitch back to her man.

“In. The. Car,” I gritted out, pointing her in the direction of my open cruiser. I was pissed that Muriel was getting in the backseat of my shiny new department vehicle. She’d muck it up just like she had my old car.

Muriel let out a hearty oink that was more of awhonk.

I pointed down to my bum leg. “I know you like the chase, sweetheart. But it ain’t happening today.”

She stamped a cloven foot into the soft soil on the shoulder of Pate Chapel Road and let out a blustering breath that smelled a lot like slop.

For a moment, my eyes left the pig who thought she was a house pet and lingered on the black tire marks that streaked across the asphalt.

I tried to swerve, but that kid caught the front corner of my cruiser when he crossed the center line and crushed it like a tin can, pinning me in.

The sickening sound of crumpling metal played in my mind like a horrific soundtrack. The crescendo was the crack of my tibia, snapping like a tree branch.My spine shuddered, the horrific memory rattling my bones as bile lodged in my throat.

Bored with the standoff, Muriel blustered and slowly lumbered toward my car. She squeezed onto the seat and looked at me through those big pig eyes as if reading my mind.Stop thinking about the girl, dumbass.

That woman—the flight nurse.Her eyes staring at me through her flight helmet. Those legs stretched out onto a chair at The Copper Mule. Her lips, her smile. That laugh.

The vision that had been teasing me in my dreams was burst by Muriel’s rip-roaring hog flatulence. I slammed the back door and limped into the driver’s seat. “I’m getting a fucking BLT on the way.”

It was a little too early for a lunch sandwich, but I did hit up a drive-through on my way to return Muriel to Lester O’Malley’s farm. I even turned and looked Muriel dead in the eye when I requested extra bacon on my bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. If she was perturbed by me chowing down on the spoils of one of her ancestors, she didn’t show it. I pulled up to Lester’s farmhouse and popped open the door. Muriel squealed and waddled back inside. I saw Lester grab a treat from a pig-shaped cookie jar and toss it her way as she settled on the top-of-the-line dog bed wedged on his kitchen floor.

He gave me a smile, warped with age, and a grateful wave as I put the cruiser in reverse and backed away from his property.

That was the thing about policing in Falls Creek. It was a lot more serving than protecting. And the protecting we did do was usually protecting the citizens from themselves.Or from livestock that had no business being housepets and were too damn smart for their own good.

I rode back to town with all four windows down, trying to air out the stench of farm animals out of my car. Unfortunately for me, my next assignment was even less appealing than wrangling a wandering pig like it was a rebellious teenager.

I pulled into the lot at Falls Creek Elementary at exactly 9:01 AM. A fire engine and a ladder truck were already parked catty-cornered on the far side of the cordoned-off section of blacktop. A few guys from the crew were pulling on the last of their bunker gear. To their right, Shane Hutchins was opening the back of an ambulance, fully decked out in a gray Falls Creek EMS polo and tactical pants. I pulled in beside the other cruiser from the police department and hopped out, careful to steel my features of any physical discomfort.

The annual elementary school first responder’s day gave the kids of Falls Creek a chance to see emergency vehicles up close and personal. For some, it inspired them to pursue careers in public service. For others, it gave them a chance to see first responders without an emergency in progress.

It let them see the firefighters underneath all the protective layers that kept them safe in a blaze. Whoever drew the short stick and showed up from the police department let the snot-monsters see all the equipment that was packed onto our duty belts.Today, I held the short stick.The EMS team went through basic first aid and let them check out the inside of the ambulance.

It was little things like that that made a real difference in an emergency. If a Falls Creek kid had to be taken to the hospital in the back of an ambulance, chances were, Shane was going to be the one caring for them. It would help them stay calm if they remembered him from the touch-a-truck day at their school. That, and the fact that he memorized songs from Disney movies to sing at the drop of a hat.

Kids from Pre-K to fifth grade stood in straight lines as their teachers held them back from flooding the pavement. In the distance, the lowwhump-whumpof rotors filled the air.

Lauren Mitchell—a whip-smart rookie who crushed the Raleigh police academy—stood beside her training officer, Wyatt Jepson. I gave them both a chin tip as I downed the rest of my fast-food coffee. Apart from the incoming chopper, the parking lot was silent. We would turn the lights and sirens on after the demonstrations. Teachers and assistants were instructed to let the little ones with sensory sensitivities check out the apparatuses and equipment first, then take them back inside before things got loud.

Gasps of delight and awe filled the air as the AirCare 1 helicopter hovered overhead before touching down with a feathery landing right in the middle of the parking lot.

“Fucking flight nurses stealing all the glory,” Elijah, a firefighter, said as he shook his head.

It was true. Kids grew up wanting to be firefighters or police officers, but the moment they saw a flight nurse in action, it all went out the window.

The AirCare team hopped out of the bird, looking like emergency response rockstars in their flight suits and helmets.

Odin—whose actual name was Travis—flew Apaches for the Army in the early years of the war in Afghanistan. As cool as that was, the claim to fame he was most proud of was an appearance in a documentary filmed on a forward operating base while he was deployed. Now, he spent his civilian days chauffeuring the AirCare team from one call to another in rural North Carolina.

The back of the helicopter opened, and AB hopped out, hauling the stretcher out behind her. Gasps of shock and awe rose up from the mass of kids. Right before the propellers slowed to a stop, the side door rolled back. Long legs covered in blue Nomex leaped out. She pulled her helmet off and shook out her long, raven hair.

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