First Responder On Call. Melinda Di Lorenzo

too heavy for subtlety. And the gait had an odd, shuffling cadence, too. One that struck a familiar cord. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

       Not good.

      The two-word thought was hardly strong enough to match the abrupt increase in her heartbeat, which thrummed so hard against her rib cage that she was surprised it didn’t drown out the rain, the buzz and the footsteps. But maybe the man attached to the boots—she wasn’t sure why she was so certain about what he wore, but she was—did hear her heart. Because his movement stopped. And a gruff question, spoken from a few feet away, carried to her ears.

      “Where is he?”

      Both the query and the voice itself sent a thick slap of fear across her whole body. She couldn’t answer. She didn’t want to answer.

      The man repeated himself, a little louder, biting off the words. “Where. Is. He?”

      She tried to shake her head, but of course met with the same resistance she had before. The boots hit the ground once again. She still refused to look. She knew he was close enough to be leaning over her, because his body blocked out some of the rain. It should’ve been a relief. It wasn’t. Nor was the rush of air that came as he reached down and lifted off whatever it was that held her down. Because she still couldn’t move. And now she was exposed.

      “I know you’re awake,” he said. “You might think I don’t remember what you look like when you’re sleeping, but you’re wrong. I remember everything.”

      It struck her as unfair that he could claim perfect recall, while she had nothing but bits and pieces.

       But maybe listening to him will help you. Maybe it will give you a clue. Maybe he’ll even say your name.

      She forced her attention to his chilling ramble.

      “The way you smell,” he was saying. “The way you always thought you could hide. How you believed you could get away with it. With him.”

      Finally, she did move, albeit without conscious effort. She shivered. And he saw it. She knew because he laughed, a low, dark chuckle that was harsher than the weather. He followed the eerie sound with touch. Just a small one—fingers to shoulder. But it was enough to send her mind reeling. She could feel the man’s hands on her everywhere. Sometimes balled into fists, sometimes stroking her with a tenderness that made her skin crawl.

      Why would the accident leave me with those memories, but take away my identity? Her stomach swirled into a tight ball of nausea.

      “If you don’t tell me where he is, baby, things are going to be much worse for both of you,” the man warned.

      Baby. It was the endearment that brought another name—not her own, and not the man’s, either—to the surface. Xavier.

      She clamped her lips tightly to keep from crying it aloud. Somehow, she was sure that even if she could say nothing else, the name would come out.

      “You’re awake,” said the man above her. “And now you’re thinking about him. Tell me. You want to. You hate lying and you hate secrets.”

      The cajoling tone was just as frightening as the threatening one. It made her want to cry. She suspected that once upon a time, she might’ve given in to the tactic. And she hated the thought that she could be manipulated so easily. Especially by the man who had his hand on her now.

      As if he could sense her internal suffering and wanted to make the outside match, he began to squeeze. Or maybe he just wanted to hurt her, plain and simple. His fingers tightened, and his thumb drove into her collarbone. If she could’ve gasped, she would’ve. Instead, silent, unshed tears built up behind her sealed eyelids, then stayed there, burning with an inability to fall freely.

      If I tell him what he wants to know, he’s going to kill me, she thought. And maybe even if I don’t.

      But then it stopped. Just like that. His hand was gone. He cursed under his breath, and his footfalls hit the ground hard and fast—fading away at not quite a run. It took only a moment to figure out why. Tires squealed on pavement. A door slammed. And a second set of feet hit the ground.

       Thank you.

      She didn’t care who they belonged to. All that mattered was that whoever it was had driven away the angry man with the rough hands.

      “Holy hell.”

      In spite of the fact that the voice was gruff, and the two words a curse, relief washed over her. Something in her gut told her this man harbored her no ill will. The feeling increased as he dropped to the ground and placed a hand directly on the spot that the first man had squeezed so relentlessly. His touch was warm and gentle and imbued with concern.

      “Miss, are you with me? Blink if you can hear me.”

      She fluttered her lids. A set of dark-lashed, bright blue eyes stared down at her from behind a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. His gaze filled with relief.

      “Thank God.” He ran a hand over his damp jaw and breathed out.

      From under her lashes, she watched as he leaned back on his heels and yanked a phone from his pocket. He dialed without looking, then spoke in a low voice. Was he doing it for her benefit? Maybe to keep her from worrying? She thought maybe he was.

      After a few moments, he dropped the phone from his mouth and said to her, “Sit tight for one second, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

      He stood up and strode away. Panic threatened, but she fought it. She could still hear his feet sloshing over the wet ground, and only a heartbeat passed before he came back into view, dangling a white, mostly shredded purse from his fingers. He spoke into the phone again, this time loudly enough for her to hear.

      “She’s got a bag here. Just gonna make sure she knows I’m opening it.” He held out the purse, and she blinked her assent.

      “Okay,” he said. “No medical card and no driver’s license. But I’ve got a Port Moody Public Library card. Name on the card is Celia Poller. That’ll have to do.” There was a pause. “Okay. Yeah. I have to. See you as soon as you can get here.”

      He hung up, then crouched down beside her again, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. “Miss Poller? Celia?”

      She turned the name over in her head. Was it familiar? She honestly wasn’t sure, but she had a feeling she should lay claim to it. She blinked again.

      “Okay, Celia. If you had to get into a car accident right here, right now, then I’d call you about as lucky as can be under the circumstance. My name is Remo DeLuca, and I’m a paramedic with BC Ambulance Services.” He paused and met her eyes before he went on. “What I’d like to do is keep you very still. Unfortunately, I can’t do that right now. There’s a downed power line just over there, and with the way the puddles are growing, we’re right in range for a solid electrocution. So, Celia...I need your consent to go outside of normal protocol.”

      As if to punctuate his statement, a flash of lightning and an accompanying boom ruptured the air.

      And she blinked as hard as she could.

      * * *

      Ten minutes earlier, Remo would’ve said the storm overhead suited his mood perfectly. A twelve-hour shift on a Friday night was pretty much his least favorite thing. He didn’t know if he’d ever been so thoroughly glad to have a workday over with. A recent new article in the Vancity Gazette claimed that EMT service wasn’t what it should be. As a result, rowdy drunk calls and calls about broken washing machines and calls about heart attacks all got an equal amount of attention. The former two both got in the way of the latter—the ones for people who actually needed his help.

      Now, though, his sour thoughts had pushed themselves to the far corners of his mind. The immobile woman on the side of the road commanded his full attention. He could tell she was near shock. Unaware of her surroundings and oblivious