Page 5 of What Hurts Us

Callum’s head lolled to the side as I checked his vitals. His eyes were heavy. Morphine always hit people differently. For Officer Fletcher, it made him as loopy as a hippie at Woodstock. On the upside, he was a lot less cranky.

“Who are you?” he said in a half-slur as Odin began his descent.

I cracked a smile. “Layla.” I pushed the visor on my helmet back and pulled the microphone away so he could see my face a little more.

His eyes drifted shut again. “Are you … an alien? Am I being…” His voice faded and he closed his eyes before eventually coming to again. “Am I being abducted by aliens?”

Flight suits and helmets in an aircraft—mix in a little head trauma and some low-dose morphine, and it wasn’t a far leap.

AB let out a hearty laugh as she charted—likely adding ‘patient thinks he was being abducted by aliens’to her notes. Through the radio headset, I could hear Odin and John cackling up front.

Callum pried his eyes open and looked at me once more before closing them again. “Prettiest alien I’ve ever seen.”

* * *

The hospital staffwhisked Callum into surgery the moment we touched down on the blue-and-white helipad. The four of us hung out in the hospital’s EMS lounge, grabbing a bite to eat from the vending machines while we finished entering our reports.

We left Durham and cruised in silence back to the base. I could see the remnants of the accident. The wrecked cars were gone, the glass had been swept away, and the ornery cow was happily grazing in its pasture. But the black tire tracks streaking across the asphalt would be there as a constant reminder of the close call.

The rest of my twenty-four hours on shift was much of the same. I got acquainted with the base, took a nap, and ate the Salisbury steak John whipped up for dinner. In between, we transported a patient from Martinsville to a hospital in Raleigh, then responded to another car accident. The critical pediatric patient had my nerves on a hair trigger.

By the time the sun rose again and the clock struck seven, I was dead on my feet and emotionally drained.

In the ER, nurses have so many responsibilities that you compartmentalize the emotions and human connections. It’s about treating injuries or illnesses or moving the patient to a different level of care. Rarely did I know all the details of how they got to the ER. Instead, I focused on the task at hand. Flight nursing was a different beast altogether. Seeing the gore of car crashes. The extractions. Bystanders watching in horror. Parents screaming in agony for you to save their kid.

Compartmentalization in a hospital setting was far easier. Flight nursing offered the autonomy I craved as a medical professional, but the emotional toll was higher.

So, I did what I had done ever since taking my first nursing job. I slapped on a smile.

“You coming, Rookie?” John called over his shoulder as we filtered out of the base into the bright morning sun. The next shift had come in a few minutes before seven. After packing up my pillow and comforter, giving our reports on the previous shift, and making sure that the helicopter was stocked and good to go, we clocked out.

“Yeah,” I said, shouldering my bag. I had changed out of the heavy boots we all wore and slid my socked feet into a pair of black-and-white athletic sandals. “Just a sec.” I slapped the velcro straps across the top of my feet and hopped up.

AB was waiting in the parking lot next to a Harley. She had traded her flight helmet for a bike helmet. “Ya did good today, kid.”

“Thanks.” I tossed my gear into the back of my car. “Felt good to get at it, not just training. You know?”

John leaned on the side of his minivan and scrolled through his phone. “Wanna grab a bite before we call it? Hutch said they’re heading over to the tavern after shift change.”

AB swung her leg over her hog and cranked it up. “I’m down.”

John, AB, and I caravanned back to Falls Creek. The drive was peaceful—quiet farmland, grazing livestock, and a warm breeze. It would be blistering in less than an hour, but for now, I let my fingers hang out the car window and surf the wind.

Downtown Falls Creek consisted of a single road sandwiched between a strip of brick businesses. The only reason the town hadn’t died off was that drivers had to pass through on their way to get onto one of two major highways.

I swung into a parallel space when I saw John and ABpark, and dutifully followed them across the street.

The Copper Mule was a quaint eatery with an outdoor patio. Red canvas umbrellas shaded the growing crowd from the brutal July heat. I wished I had changed out of my flight suit at the base, but I didn’t exactly want all my new peers to see the ratty cotton shorts I had on underneath.

Nomex was great for battling flames, but North Carolina summers were the equivalent of an inferno. High temperatures made the fibers of the suit constrict to keep fire from eating at my skin in the event of a helo crash. That also meant it sealed all my body heatin. I relegated to tying the arms around my waist to battle the sweltering temperatures.

“Ay!” Shane Hutchins was seated at a patio table and raised a cup of coffee our way. “She survived!” A menagerie of first responders filled the rest of the patio, waiting patiently as a chipper waitress with dark brown skin and long braids pulled back in a ponytail bounced around, taking orders.

Officer Mitchell was among the post-shift party. “Hey, Lauren,” I said, latching on to one of the few people I’d met. There was something to say about the first responder community. It was a tight-knit bunch.

Lauren took one look at my tank top and grinned. “Wonder Woman. I like it.”

“You here for breakfast?” I asked.

---