Alphas Like Us (Like Us 3)

I carry the weight of this shit situation in my eyes.

Oscar nods back and tries to rub water off his face. “I know! You’re it, Redford!”

Meaning, no one else on site has this level of medical training. Oscar has some experience from studying sports therapy at Yale, but it’s not exactly the same.

Oscar yells over a crack of lightning, “We should get them out fast!”

I nod, agreeing. Oscar grips Winona by the armpits and pulls her out through the window. She’s still in a slight fog or else she’d most likely want to stay with Ben.

Once Oscar has her, I call out, “Maximoff!”

He’s more coherent and currently trying to unbuckle himself. But he can’t move his right arm.

“Farrow,” he says, frustrated and raspy. “Are you…okay? Oscar has Winona?” It’s like he’s ensuring he didn’t just hallucinate that.

“I’m fine. She’s okay,” I confirm. “Don’t move—”

“Charlie and Ben?” he asks and grits down, pain wrenching his face.

“Don’t move yet,” I say deeply with an outstretched hand. “Just wait.” It’s hard for him, but he physically has no choice, and I shift carefully and quickly towards the front.

Both Cobalts hang upside down.

“Charlie,” I call.

Charlie winces, and he keeps looking at his brother in concern.

“Talk to me,” I tell Charlie while I take Ben’s vitals, my fingers to his carotid pulse. I listen to his chest with my ear. Normal breath sounds.

“My leg is broken,” Charlie states through his teeth, and he wraps his arm around the seatbelt before unbuckling—I reach out and help him slide to the bottom of the car.

“Ben, do you know where you are?” I ask, and I snap the seatbelt. Careful with his head and neck, I hold all his weight. Shit, the youngest guy in this car is the tallest at six-foot-five.

He blinks, still dazed. I check his eyes, and then I lean him against his intact door, the window already shattered.

At this point, I understand clearly who’s critical and who isn’t.

One person is critical.

Just one.

I return to the back at the same time Maximoff drops down too easily, like he’s done this before with a broken collarbone.

He hasn’t, by the way.

His Timberlands hit the shattered bottom, and he clutches his forearm to his chest.

I can’t even surface a glare as I say, “You stubborn idiot.”

He crouches, his breath shortened. “I’m feeling great. Thanks for…asking.”

“I didn’t ask,” I say, my fingers to his neck. I mentally file his fast heart rate. “Anything else hurt?”

“No. Yeah, I don’t know. We need to get my cousins out of here.”

Before either of us move, Oscar returns and lifts the flap of the airbag. “Redford?!”

“Ben has a concussion!” I call out. “Eyes are dilated, but he’s not critical!” I explain how he’s accessible through the driver’s window, and Oscar has Ben out in a minute flat. He doubles back for Charlie and helps his client out the same side.

I turn to Maximoff. “I’m going out first so I can help you.”

He doesn’t argue or combat me, and that just about kills me. Because it means he’s in severe pain.

I slide out the window backwards. Rain instantly pours on me, soaking my inked chest. Drenching my hair and dripping off my lashes.

Now it’s his turn.

I kneel and clutch his waist, not his arm or shoulder, and I pull Maximoff out the window. He uses the strength in his legs, and he almost screams through his teeth.

I have him out of the overturned car, and he tries to pick himself up to stand. He wheezes.

“Stay down.” I can’t touch his collar without hurting him more. He just has to listen.

And he does with no pushback. It fucking guts me.

Maximoff lies on his back, tilting his head to try and make sense of the dark, stormy surroundings. I kneel closer to his side, concentrating on his injuries, but I still see the cameras flashing.

Akara, Quinn, and some of Epsilon security restrain the paparazzi who’ve jumped out of their vehicles on the highway. They try to snap photos of the wreckage. Right where Maximoff lies on the pavement littered with metal and plastic car parts.

I can’t move him yet.

Security yells and pushes paparazzi backwards.

“Can we help?!” a pedestrian asks, other cars parked in the emergency lane. Epsilon creates a barrier to keep them back from us.

Quickly, I rip open his soaked shirt at the collar until it tears in two. Welts bloom around his ribcage, and he has trouble catching his breath.

“Where’s…Nona?” he asks, worried. It’s all killing me. Every word he says, every gasp of breath he takes is eviscerating me.

“Range Rover with Ben and Charlie,” I answer. Near the wreck, Oscar leans into the Range Rover, doors open, and I assume that Ben and Winona are inside. Waiting for the ambulance.

Charlie has a suit jacket over his head, and he rests against the hood of the Range Rover, putting all his weight on his left leg.

Maximoff winces, his palm floating above his abs. Rain continues to beat down on us, and I hover over my boyfriend to protect him from the storm.

“Chest pain?” I ask, already knowing by sight.

“Yeah…” He wheezes again.

I put my ear to his chest. Absence of breath sounds on the right, and no visible movement. I take his vitals again. Tachy.

I’ve never treated a loved one before.

Fuck, I’ve never loved someone the way I love him. With a father married to medicine and no mother, I didn’t grow up seeing love, but I sought that in every relationship, and I thought I met it.

But I realize that I never even came close.

Then I fell for him.

It’s a love that pummels me every time I wake and crave to near him. Every time I see his morality and think, how good you are, and fuck, I’m lucky. It’s a love that beckons me towards him when he’s gone. One that reaches into my core and wraps itself around me. It’s that persistent, unforgettable undetachable love.

He’s in critical condition, and he can’t know what I know. I’ve never lied to him, but I can’t tell him this. Right now, I’m the first and last defense against fatality.

“Oliveira!” I shout, the night sky rumbling as sheets of water pound the pavement and us.

Oscar leaves security’s car and sprints to me. “What do you need?” He crouches so neither of us has to yell.

“The trauma bag.” We keep one in security vehicles in case the concierge doctor needs supplies. “You’ll find a needle decompression kit, and get me an umbrella.” I almost have to shout since he takes off running. Realizing the enormity.

“Farrow…” Maximoff inhales a ragged breath, forearm tucked to his chest. He tries to gesture me closer, but his fingers only twitch.

I hover over my boyfriend, my palm on gravel above his head. Rain thumps against my back but helps keep his chest and face dry.

“You’re bleeding…” He tries to reach out again, to help me. He grimaces, his arm immobile.

“Don’t,” I say. “Just relax, wolf scout.”

His eyes drift to my temple. “You’re bleeding, you know…”

I touch my temple, the cut small. “It’s nothing. Tell me how you feel.”

He licks his lips. “I feel…great.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Like I could fly to the moon, pick us up some lunch, take my Audi out for a spin.” His eyes melt against mine before flooding with pain. His face twists.

I stroke his dark, wet hair out of his face. “It’s not lunch time and you don’t have a license.”

He almost grimace-laughs, and then he coughs roughly. Really roughly, and suddenly, Maximoff solidifies to marble. He notices blood splashed on pavement.

He’s coughing up blood.

My head swerves to the car. “Oliveira!?

?? He has to be struggling to find the kit. I check the time on Maximoff’s wristwatch.

“Farrow…” Maximoff says, swallowing, his teeth stained with blood as he winces. “Just…tell me.”

He wants to know what’s wrong with him. It’s killing me. It’s killing me. “Maximoff—”

“You’ve never…held anything back before…” He takes a shorter breath.

My eyes sear and well, but rain washes my agonized face. I’m dying…with him. I take a deep, punctured breath and get my shit together.

Breathe. Give him what he wants.

Like always.

Gravel digs in my palm as I shift closer. “You have a flail chest; ribs four through seven are fractured,” I say. “Hemoptysis, coughing up blood, indicates a pulmonary contusion.” Off his confusion, I say, “Your left lung is bruised.” That’s not the serious injury. This is… “You’re in severe respiratory distress on the affected right lung. Neck vein distension, no breath sounds, tracheal deviation. It’s a tension pneumothorax. Your broken rib collapsed your lung, and now air is filling in the pleural cavity.”

I don’t explain how at this stage the pneumothorax can cause obstructive shock. Lack of blood flow to the heart, and the heart will stop pumping blood to his body.

Maximoff nods slowly, listening. Understanding. He’s good at that, and he knows. I know he knows that this could be fatal, so I say, “I’m not going to let you die. You hear me?”

He grimaces, blood still filling his mouth. “You’re…smarter than me.”

“Stop.” I need him to say how I’m the know-it-all asshole. How he could’ve regurgitated all this shit just as easily as me, even if we both know that’s not true.

I help lift his head as he coughs.