Keep Me Safe (Slow Burn 1)

He followed the sound of her voice, crawling on hands and knees until finally he fell on her as he nearly mowed right over her. Rage overtook him when he saw that a burning piece of wood had hit her square in the middle of her back. He wrenched it away from her and then rolled her frantically over.

“Ramie, thank God. Are you all right? Damn it, I can’t see anything!”

“I’m okay,” she said faintly. “Or at least I think so. I can’t really feel anything right now.”

The woozy note to her voice worried him. He waved the smoke from his vision and then placed a hand over her forehead, lowering his head so he could better see her.

“Don’t move,” he said urgently. “We don’t know the extent of your injuries.”

Damn it, he shouldn’t have been so rough when he rolled her over, but he’d been desperate to make sure she was breathing, that she was alive.

As the smoke began to clear, Caleb got a better picture of the area and he stared in horror at the leveled space of land where the trailer used to stand. One of the vehicles that had been parked too close to the home had been blown over on its side. Men were sprawled in every direction. It looked like a military zone that had just been air raided.

Trees were on fire. The long grass around the trailer had been flattened by the force of the explosion. Windows were busted out of the remaining vehicles and a tree had been knocked over, T-boning another SUV.

“I need help over here!” Eliza yelled. “Man down!”

“You help her!” Caleb hollered at Dane. “I’ll take care of Ramie!”

Where the hell was everyone else? With bodies scattered everywhere it was impossible to tell who was okay and who wasn’t.

Several groans, mutters and curses arose as everyone began stirring. Then to his relief he heard Detective Ramirez urgently calling for backup and ambulances, radioing their location to dispatch.

Detective Briggs crawled to where Caleb was hunkered down over Ramie. Blood streamed from a cut in his forehead and a large bruise was already forming on his jaw. He spit blood on the ground and then asked, “Is she okay?”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. “I think she’s a hell of a lot better than you. You should lie down, man. You’re spitting blood and even I know that isn’t good.”

“Just a busted lip,” Briggs said in disgust. “This son of a bitch has to go down. Now he’s conspiring to take out an entire police unit?”

Caleb made a sound of agreement. As he glanced back down at Ramie, his hands began to shake. He touched her cheek and then ran his fingers down her body, checking for any bleeding wounds that required immediate attention.

God, he’d come so close to losing her. If she hadn’t touched the railing. . . . ?He closed his eyes, unable to continue with the current direction of his thoughts.

She wouldn’t have been the only one to die. Thanks to her everyone looked as though they were moving at least.

Dane crouched down next to Caleb for a brief moment, his gaze assessing Ramie’s condition.

“Shock,” Dane said grimly. “I’m going to help Lizzie triage the rest so that when the ambulances start rolling in the higher-priority cases will go first.”

Caleb nodded. He was in shock himself. He couldn’t get his shaking extremities under control. Every time he tried to touch her to reassure himself that she was alive, he had to pull back or risk injuring her with twitching hands and complete clumsiness.

Once Dane disappeared, Ramie’s eyes moved, her head turning slightly so she found his gaze.

“Go help with the others, Caleb,” she whispered. “I’m all right, I swear. I don’t even hurt anywhere.”

“I think you’re hurt worse than you think,” he said grimly. “There’s blood all over your face and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from.”

She blinked in surprise and then lifted a hand, wiping it over her nose and mouth. When she did so, he saw that blood covered both her hands too.

“Jesus,” he swore. “That’s it. You’re taking the first ambulance.”

She shook her head and he swore again, immediately framing her face so she couldn’t move her neck again.

“Be still, Ramie,” he said forcefully. “You have no way of knowing if you have a spinal injury or not.”

“It’s not from the explosion,” she said, her voice louder and stronger this time.

He looked at her in puzzlement. “What isn’t?”

“The blood,” she said patiently. “It’s not from the explosion.”

“Then what the hell is it from?”

“Nosebleed,” she said simply. “The pain was horrible.” She grimaced as she said it as if recalling just how painful it was. “I had to fight hard to see past the images he wanted me to see. I was scared I’d have a stroke or an aneurysm or that my head would just explode from the pressure. My head has never hurt like that. My nose started bleeding heavily. My back must have been to you or else you couldn’t have missed it. And then finally just when the pain was too much to bear any longer I saw the bomb through his eyes.”

Caleb cursed viciously. “This is enough. You’re done with this. I won’t let you risk yourself anymore. I don’t give a f**k if that means you live the rest of your life hiding. At least you’ll have a life. You can’t keep this up, Ramie. Even you have to see that.”

“I was so scared, Caleb,” she said in a dazed voice that told him she hadn’t even registered his statement. “God, I thought you’d all die.”