and he wouldn’t be the last. Emergency services personnel couldn’t afford to dwell on disappointments like this; they had to move on quickly. Lauren was good at that. Paramedics and EMTs didn’t do follow-up. Their focus was safe transport, not long-term care.
Despite her vast experience with death, this one wasn’t easy. They were trapped under several layers of freeway, so safe transport was out. She didn’t have the resources or the expertise for ongoing critical care.
Although Garrett had jumped to protect her during the aftershock, he made no attempt to comfort her now. He stayed back and gave her space. She appreciated his reserve; if he’d shown a hint of compassion, she might have fallen apart.
Letting out a slow breath, she covered the dead man with a towel. Her remaining patients were unconscious, but stable.
“Can you come with me to check on the others?” Garrett asked quietly.
“Sure,” she said, rising to her feet.
She donned her hard hat and accompanied Garrett on a final sweep of the cavern. He couldn’t evaluate the wounded as well as she could. Several people were suffering, but as he’d said, they probably wouldn’t survive being moved.
Lauren had never witnessed so much devastation. She prayed for her friends and colleagues, many of whom had families in San Diego. All Lauren’s relatives, including her mother, lived far away.
After six years as a paramedic, she knew how to hold herself at an emotional distance, but she wasn’t made of stone. Her heart ached for the victims. Thankfully, most of them were already dead, not writhing in agony.
She trudged alongside Garrett like an automaton, her eyes dry.
Lauren assumed that the destruction outside was far worse. The freeway sections had collapsed in layers, blocking all sides. During the short interim between the first quake and the initial aftershock, many motorists had been able to escape. Some on foot, perhaps. The massive pileups of cars were beyond the concrete walls, not within them.
“You need something to eat and drink,” Garrett said.
If anyone required sustenance, it was him. He’d been searching through the rubble and lifting heavy objects for hours. She took two bottles of vitamin water out of her pack, giving him one and drinking the other.
“Is there food in the RV?” she asked.
“Yes, but it won’t last more than a few days.”
She didn’t want to consider the implication of those words. Surely they wouldn’t be trapped here long enough to worry about starvation. Humans could survive for weeks without food. If they weren’t rescued within twenty-four hours, however, those with the most critical injuries would pass away.
Water was the larger concern for the survivors. It was hot and dusty inside the cavern. They needed a lot of fluids to stay hydrated. Ten gallons wouldn’t go far.
“We should search the cars.”
“I plan to,” he said.
As they reached the northeast corner of the structure, where she’d first met Garrett, she was struck by grief. The mangled half ambulance lay on its side, contents gutted. Joe’s body was buried beneath the broken wall. He’d been her partner for three years, but she hadn’t paused to mourn him. Guilt and sadness overwhelmed her.
She struggled to control her emotions, but it was a losing battle. After inhaling several ragged breaths, she burst into tears.
Garrett kept his gaze averted and his hands to himself. He didn’t offer her any comfort or tell her not to cry. She knew she wasn’t a dignified weeper. There was nothing pretty about a red face and runny nose.
He offered her a tissue from a box he found in the back of the ambulance. She thanked him in a strangled voice, drying her eyes.
“I’m wasting water,” she said. “The Fremen would be appalled.”
“Good thing we’re not on Dune.”
She smiled through her tears, pleased that he’d understood the literary reference. Joe had been a hardcore sci-fi fan. They’d discussed the Frank Herbert novel, and its classic movie adaptation, to exhaustion.
“My coworker...didn’t make it,” she said.
“I’m sorry.”
Choking back another sob, she searched his face. He’d seemed upset when they’d first met, but anyone would be in this situation. If he was grieving the loss of a loved one, it didn’t show. “Were you with someone you cared about?”
“No,” he said curtly, his expression closed.
His brusque response made her feel foolish. He didn’t want to have a heart-to-heart discussion when there was work to be done.
She shoved the tissue into her pocket and searched the back of the ambulance for any useful supplies. After she gathered a few stray items, they headed back. The acrid stench of cigarette smoke gave her pause.
“Do you smell that?” she asked, frowning.
He froze, placing his hand on her shoulder. The sound of men’s voices carried across the dark cavern.
“Hello?” she called out, turning the beam of the flashlight that direction.
Behind a large pile of rubble, there were two men sitting in the back of a pickup truck. One had a cigarette clenched between his lips. The other was drinking from a silver can. They both waved.
Lauren waved back and started walking toward them. Garrett proceeded with caution, which she found strange, considering how gung ho he’d been earlier. He’d shown more enthusiasm while investigating burning cars.
As they neared the pickup, she saw a third man stretched out in the back of the truck. His eyes were closed, and bruises darkened the sockets underneath, but he was alive. His chest rose and fell with steady breaths.
“How’s it going?” Garrett asked, his voice flat.
She realized that he had good reason to be wary of these men. There was an open case of beer between them. A half dozen empty cans littered the space, and a large bag of chips rested against the wheel well.
While they’d been working hard, doing search and rescue, this pair of jokers had been getting drunk.
“It’s perking up,” the cigarette smoker said, glancing at Lauren. He was about forty, with bad teeth and pewter-colored hair. Tattoos snaked along his forearms, and he had the weathered skin of a drug user.
His friend was younger, in his mid-twenties, a big man with a shaved head. He had a doughy face and small, dark eyes. He studied Lauren also, moistening his fleshy lips. From the way they protruded, she figured he had an overbite.
Both men gave the impression that they were glad to see a woman, not a paramedic. Although she’d met a few guys who’d sought to take her down a peg, ignoring her uniform in favor of ogling her breasts, she hadn’t expected it from trauma survivors.
Then again, everyone reacted to stress in a different way. It didn’t bring out the best in most people.
“I’m Lauren,” she ventured, “and this is Garrett.”
Garrett had positioned himself very close to her, like a bodyguard. Or a boyfriend.
The tattooed man took another drag on his smoke, looking back and forth between them. “Jeb,” he said. “It’s a real pleasure.”
“Mickey,” his companion added. His soft, high-pitched voice made a sharp contrast to Jeb’s raspy southern drawl.
Lauren found it strange that they addressed her, not Garrett. They made no move to stand and shake hands.
“Who’s this?” she asked, gesturing to the prostrate man. He was young, like Mickey, with short blond hair and a thick goatee.
“That’s