Shoving away anything that wasn’t uncut instinct, Kellan lifted Angel out of the bathtub and propped her over his shoulders. The threshold back to the hallway—two steps—the smoke-clogged stairs—twelve plus the landing to make a baker’s dozen—the handful of paces to the front door—all six. Each set of strides became a blur of shapes and sounds as he counted his way to the door. Sweat poured between his shoulder blades, his lungs constricting beneath the crush of adrenaline filling his chest, but he couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t be scared Angel might be dead instead of at the diner with Isabella, where she was supposed to be giving the statement that would put DuPree away forever.
Sunlight blasted Kellan’s field of vision, stunning his senses but not his movements as his boots pounded over the threshold and into the front yard. His muscles screamed with every step, but he refused to give in until a familiar female voice penetrated his consciousness.
“Easy, Walker. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Quinn Copeland, the second half of Station Seventeen’s paramedic crew, rushed up to meet him with a gurney. Kellan lowered Angel to the thin mattress dividing the space between him and Copeland, reaching up to remove his helmet and his mask but not budging an inch as she began her rapid trauma assessment.
“Damn it.” Quinn’s face went from zero to shit-storm serious in less than a breath. “She’s not breathing, and I can’t find a pulse.”
Kellan’s gut took a hard slide toward his knees. “We need to help her. We need—” He yanked his chin in a rough glance from side to side. “Where’s Drake?”
“He’s on the other victim,” she said quietly, her gloved hands moving fast enough over Angel’s body to turn them into a purple blur.
“What?” Oh hell, how many women had been inside that house?
Copeland flattened her palms over Angel’s chest and began CPR, and shit. Shit! This couldn’t be happening.
“Gates found someone else inside just seconds after you radioed in, and from the sound of things, the guy’s as bad off as this woman.” She completed a round of compressions, pausing for a lightning-fast vitals check before shifting to resume CPR. “The paramedics from Twelve are on their way to help us get both victims to Remington Hospital. Until then, Drake and I have to divide and conquer here on-scene.”
“You’re not taking her to the hospital?” Kellan asked, dread filling his belly, and Copeland pegged him with a light gray stare that defied her sweet, all-American looks.
“Drake’s guy is critical too, Walker, and they won’t both fit in the ambo. We have to wait for the guys from Twelve to help us with transport, so right now I’m all this woman’s got.”
“No you’re not,” Kellan said. “Let me help.” He jerked his chin toward his radio before she could protest. “Walker to Command, requesting to assist Copeland with the victim.”
“Command to Walker,” came Bridges’ voice. “Affirmative. You are a go for medical assist.”
Relief left his lungs on a hard burst. “Copy that, Command,” Kellan said, quickly shucking the soot-stained leather on his hands in favor of a pair of nitrile medical gloves and squinting through the sunlight to look at Quinn.
“I’ve got your back, Copeland. Just tell me what to do to help you help her.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Okay. Take over compressions so I can get her hooked up to the monitor.”
Copeland shifted her hands to make room for his to replace them, and Kellan leaned in from the other side of the gurney. Willing his hands not to shake and his focus not to falter, he laced his fingers together, palm over knuckles. He pressed them to the front of Angel’s once-white dress, his brain making the startled realization that it was the same one she’d worn last night.
She hadn’t even changed clothes from the party.
A fresh shot of adrenaline bloomed in his veins, but he stuffed back the heart-twisting detail. He had to focus on helping Angel, right here and right now. No emotions. Just actions.
Kellan flew into motion, starting CPR. One and two and three and four… Christ, she felt so small and frail, his hands spanning more than half of her chest. “Come on, Angel. Breathe. You need to breathe.”
Copeland’s white-blond brows winged up, her hands hitching over the leads to the portable monitor at the foot of the gurney. “Do you know this woman?”
A thread of warning uncurled in Kellan’s chest despite all the go-go-go flooding through his bloodstream. Even a small admission would risk outing Isabella’s off-the-books recon. “I…I’ve seen her before. She’s an informant for the RPD. Or she’s supposed to be.”
“Well, you and I are going to do everything we can to help her.”
Blocking everything from his brain that wasn’t part of the trauma response, Kellan completed a few rounds of compressions before rotating with Quinn to monitor Angel’s vitals. He registered his surroundings in clips of awareness—the radio byplay between Gamble and Slater as they moved through the house with the primary water line, the acrid scent of smoke tightening the back of his throat, the crease that deepened between Copeland’s brows with every check of Angel’s nonexistent vitals.
Jesus. How had this even happened? Angel was supposed to be with Isabella. She was supposed to be safe.