“You’re out to torture me, aren’t you?” he mumbled under his breath, but she heard it because she was opening her mouth to say something when the ambulance beside the one they were heading for lit up, sirens blaring.
“Yo, shake a leg. There’s a pile-up on Highway 401,” someone shouted over the din.
“Come on, newbie.” Samantha jogged toward the ambulance. “Time to see what you’re made of.”
George swallowed the anxious lump in his throat and followed Samantha into the front of the ambulance. When the doors were shut she started the engine and they headed out of the garage at breakneck speed.
“Flip that switch for me,” she said, pointing to a red switch on the dash.
George flipped it up and the lights and sirens came on.
It was pretty awesome. His plane didn’t have a siren or lights.
“You okay, Atavik?” Samantha asked again, shouting over the sirens.
“Fine.”
Which was a lie.
He’d totally zoned out. He wasn’t sure if it was the rocking motion of the ambulance as they raced along the road to the crash scene or if it was the fact he was a bit nervous about what a pile-up would bring.
He’d never been in the thick of it. There weren’t large traffic accidents in Nunavut.
When he’d first come south the four hundred series of highways had been intimidating to him. In fact, London on the whole was a bit scary, though Charlotte’s husband Quinn had got him situated and settled when he’d arrived.
George knew how to drive. He just preferred back roads. Although Quinn had eased him into city life and driving regularly, highways were still sketchy.
The blare of the siren made his ears hurt. He wasn’t used to the sound. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to the sounds of the city. Especially riding in the front of an ambulance racing through city streets.
His plane had been silent.
Until it hadn’t been.
Don’t think about it.
George gave his best grin to Samantha and swiped the back of his arm across his forehead to mop up the sweat.
“Are you really okay?” she asked. “I don’t want you to get sick on your first day.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Hopefully not my driving?”
Yes, you’re a menace, he wanted to say. To tease her. But he restrained himself.
“I’m fine,” he snapped, and then immediately regretted sniping at her.
“Arrival on scene in five minutes. Pretty big pile-up on the 401.”
George took a calming breath.
You’ve done this before. Countless times. Even if not on a grand scale like this.
Still, the idea of being a paramedic in a big city made him nervous. But he couldn’t go back to Cape Recluse. After the crash the army had opened a base there, thus setting up a permanent air ambulance flight through Health Air.
His job was redundant.
Was he stupid to come down to southern Ontario and try something as alien to him as being a paramedic in heavy city traffic? Could he really still cling to his dream of saving lives if he couldn’t fly?
He was older than the other students.
He was thirty-three.
What am I doing?
He was hoping that receiving this training would help him find the passion for saving lives again. That rush he used to feel before his accident.
Now he just went through the motions. It was an act that he did well, but he longed for that rush again.
The ambulance slowed and George craned his neck as they came slowly down the off-ramp onto the highway.
He could see the smoke rising from the wreckage. There were police cars with their lights flashing and firefighters already on the scene, and when George looked behind them he could see other ambulances barreling down the off-ramp and more coming off further down the highway.
“You ready, Atavik?” She reached over and touched his knee, giving it a squeeze and also sending a jolt of pure electricity through him. He liked her touching him, and he didn’t like that. He wanted to like it, but it was wrong.
“Ready.”
Samantha pulled the ambulance over. “Show time!”
She gave him an encouraging smile as she got out of the ambulance.
George leapt down from the passenger side and surveyed the damage. His adrenaline was pumping as he looked up and down the highway, which was a main artery through Ontario. Traffic was backed up for kilometers and there were more than five cars in the mangled wreck as well as a tanker truck, lying on its side across four lanes of the highway.
It was amazing to be in the thick of this. To do his job, but other than nerves he felt nothing and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was a bit dead inside.
“WE NEED TO get this area clear—that tanker is unstable.” The fire chief motioned to the tanker.
Samantha nodded. “We almost have all the injured cleared out of the area.”
“And we have the traffic both ways being diverted off the highway,” the chief of police said.
Samantha looked around at all the carnage. Accidents bothered her. She’d teased George about being sick, but most of the time when they were on their way to large traffic accidents like this she felt a bit queasy too.
Cameron had crashed his ambulance, a mistake that made no sense. So the physicians had investigated why he’d reversed into an empty building and it was then they’d found the tumor. Car accidents made her think back to that awful moment when their lives had changed forever.
While the rest of the team talked about what to do next, Samantha’s gaze rested on George through the chaos. She focused on him. He was calm, dealing with victims in an expeditious manner. It was like the rest of the noise, smoke and shouts were drowned out as she watched him. He worked like he was a machine.
They’d worked together at first, but where a new paramedic would have needed guidance, George had known exactly what he was doing.
So she’d let him work on his own. In all her years of mentoring and teaching she knew when to step in and when to step back, and this was one of those moments.
He was down on one knee, patching up a head wound. It was probably an uncomfortable position with one knee on the pavement, but the older lady looked the worse for wear. He was talking to her and she was smiling, even though she was injured.
Even from this distance Samantha could see he was keeping the patient calm. The lady even smiled at him and that made Samantha grin.
Atavik had the touch. He may have been a bit stand-offish and serious with her, but he was good with the patients.
He was meant to be a paramedic.
It was a damn shame he wouldn’t move to Critical Care and get back in an aircraft. Though maybe by the end of the course they’d head up to Thunder Bay and perhaps he’d change his tune. She still planned to convince him that it was better in the air.
When you flew planes for as long as Atavik had, it got into your blood. You were born to fly.
George waved at her to signal