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 fuck 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.”
And that pissed him off even more. He was fuming, his fingers curling into tight fists because he didn’t want to chance touching her and hurting her.
She hadn’t said she was afraid she’d die. No, her only concern had been for the rest of them. He had enough panic for her for them both but damn it, if he couldn’t instill that same vehemence when it came to her own life, how the hell was he supposed to make her start caring for herself?
In the distance sirens wailed, drawing closer and closer until they screamed in Caleb’s ears. He remained on his knees, surveying the damage in an attempt to make sure everyone was accounted for.
The two detectives had taken the lead going into the trailer while Caleb’s men had fallen behind Ramie. To his relief he saw Detective Ramirez bending over one of his fallen police officers but then his blood chilled when he realized the man Ramirez was tending to wasn’t moving.
“Ramirez!” Caleb shouted. “He okay over there?”
“He’s breathing,” Ramirez called back in a pissed-off voice. “Unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig. He was impaled by debris.”
Caleb swore, his fury mounting with every passing second. Medics from three ambulances swarmed the area while multiple police cars screeched to a stop a short distance away.
“Caleb, how is she?” Eliza demanded as she crouched down next to him.
“I’m okay,” Ramie said weakly. “My head hurts like hell though.”
Eliza’s eyes swam with concern. “Did something hit you? Or did you hit it going down?”
“She wasn’t hit,” Caleb said through clenched teeth. “She damn near gave herself a stroke fighting to pick up the image of the bomb underneath the crap he wanted her to see.”
“So that’s how you knew,” Eliza murmured. “I saw your nose start to bleed, but I didn’t know if that was normal or not.”
“It didn’t used to be,” Ramie said drowsily.
“Baby, stay awake,” Caleb said in alarm.
He exchanged worried glances with Eliza, whose sharp gaze was already scanning Ramie.
“Kind of hard to sleep when your head hurts this bad,” she mumbled.
Caleb lifted his head up, looking quickly for an available medic. He was starting to get extremely worried. Ramie needed medical attention regardless of whether she thought so or not.
“You know they’ll just think I’m crazy if you take me in and explain how and why my nose bled and my head hurts,” she said dryly.