Firefighter With A Frozen Heart. Dianne Drake

two firefighters carrying yet another patient on a stretcher.

      “It’s about time you showed up,” Jess quipped.

      “Well, I’ll be damned. You’re the medic in charge?” Rafe asked.

      “I’m the medic in charge, which means you take the broken leg because …” He looked back at his patient. Didn’t finish his sentence as Randolph O’Neal’s breathing had just gone agonal … into near-death mode. Rafe must have seen the same thing, as he tried stepping between his brother and O’Neal.

      “Look, you don’t need this right now, okay? You take the guy we just brought in and I’ll deal with this.”

      “Because I can’t?” Jess snapped.

      “Because you shouldn’t.” Rafe stepped up, took Jess by the arm, tried to move him. “Jess, his pupils are blown,” Rafe whispered. “He’s not going to make it. Not to a hospital, not anywhere.”

      “I don’t give up on my patients, Rafe,” Jess growled, bending down over the man.

      “Jess,” Julie said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Rafe is right. We can’t … There’s nothing …”

      A hush fell over the cabin as the inevitability became apparent to everybody there, and within seconds the cabin cleared of everybody but Jess, Julie, Rafe, the two patients and James Orser, the young man who was still, dutifully, dousing Randolph O’Neal’s chest with saline, even as O’Neal exhaled his final breath.