Ranger and I, and Lindsay and Angus, sat in the auditorium at the university. Heather was graduating from her Master's program, and we were there to cheer her along.
Ranger and I were in Scotland in the process of taking over another company. Castle Force was, in many ways, like Rangeman. The only difference was that, while Rangeman's special teams were all military in nature, Castle Force's special teams added to the spy network.
We had found out about Castle Force in an odd way. A man named Colin Stewart had approached us and told us that he owned Castle Force and he was interested in selling off the US locations. The sale of the eleven locations was good, the price was good, and Ranger wanted it badly. I said there was something wrong with the purchase. However, the day we started to investigate it, I collapsed at work and had to have an emergency hysterectomy.
The Gurus came to visit me a few times and they said that they couldn't figure out why I had a hinky feeling. They had crawled over the data extensively, but had no clue. So Ranger called Colin Stewart and I figured out right away what was wrong – even though Colin was supposed to be Scottish, his accent wasn't smooth. While most of the time he sounded Scottish, there were times that he had an American accent.
From there, we called the real Colin Stewart and talked to him. He had nine months left to live and was trying to find a good buyer for his company, a buyer that would be sensitive to the need for the special teams that he had. He had a good feel for us, and we had a good feel for him. He came to Trenton and, over the next week, our Executive Team worked with Colin to devise a merger plan. At the end of it, Colin said that he was excited about the merging of the two companies, that he didn't need the money, and because of that he was giving Ranger the company to take over and develop further. The company was worth about two-and-a-half billion pounds.
However, during that time I had become close friends with Colin. He was a good man, and we connected fast and talked extensively. At the end of the week, he gave me half his fortune – seventy-five billion pounds – and the castle he had bought for his family before his fiancée had died. It was an incredible gift – not because of the value as much as because of what it represented. Colin told me that he knew I would use the money for good, and he wanted me to remember, every time I saw my bank balance, that I was being given the money and castle because I was the person I was, because I was a good person, a valuable person, and one that he loved very much. He gave it to me to remind me that, if his fiancée had lived and his baby had been born, he would have liked his baby to have been just like me. He gave it to me to let me know that he chose for me to be a part of his family, that he adopted me as a daughter, and that he was incredibly proud of me. He gave it to me to remind me that I was everything to him, to Ranger, to my kids and to my friends. He wanted to make sure I realized that I didn't deserve any crap.
That was important. While this was all happening, my sister was harassing me and demanding that I give her more money. She told me that I was useless, worthless, a blight on humankind. She told me that I was stupid, had slept my way into my Vice-Presidency at work, and that I was nothing without Ranger and his support. She was brutal in her comments, and Colin saw me break down and cry after she made them.
Since then, Ranger and I started putting the merger plan into place, Colin became sicker, we came flying over from the States to see him one last time. He died with me there. However, through that period I was also recovering from my hysterectomy, and the pneumonia that I had contracted in the hospital. Between the stress of it all, Kai – my doctor and my daughter Julie's boyfriend – ordered me to bed for some significant rest and he put me on sick leave for a month. I made it through that month, but since I was still recovering from the effects of the pneumonia, he was only letting me work half-days. I hadn't started yet, but in another two days I would be.
I had been spending a lot of time with Heather while I healed. Heather and I had a strange start to our relationship. When we first arrived, Heather insisted that Colin was her father. She harassed Colin and his family and generally made Colin's last days horrendous. When I arrived, she moved that harassment to me.
But when she held me at gunpoint, I started talking to her and I found out that the real reason that she was so insistent upon Colin being her father was that she wanted someone to belong to. Someone who cared whether she was alive. Her mother was a drug and alcohol-addicted hooker and had told her that Colin was her father, and Heather needed to believe her mother, needed her mother to have proven her love and told the truth. So I disarmed her, talked to her, and then Ranger and I offered to give her a deal – she would clean up her life and email me every day to check in with me, and we would let her go. After all, it was the fourth time that she had approached me and two of those times she had attacked me and once she had held a gun to me.
But by giving her someone to check in with each day, someone who cared about her, she rose like a phoenix from the ashes. She did check in with me every day. She started seeing a counsellor and had been doing good work. She had become a Big Sister and was making a difference in a young girl's life. She had taken up running again and perhaps most importantly, she started working intently upon her Master's in Library Science. She had almost finished the degree a few months before but had dropped it to chase Colin, and we encouraged her to pick it up and finish it. That was two months ago. She had worked her ass off on it and was now graduating. She had proudly invited Ranger and me, and Lindsay and Angus, to the ceremony.
Lindsay was Colin's sister and Angus was Colin's nephew. They had been dealing with Heather for a while, and there was no love lost between them. However, I talked to them about the upbringing that Heather had, and how much she had accomplished despite it. I talked about why she had insisted that Colin was her father and how she was trying to revamp her life to make amends. In the true spirit of the good people they were, they gave Heather another chance. They invited her to the spreading of Colin's ashes and told her that she could say any last words to him then. She told me she had made a mental apology and, as she finished, a ray of sunlight came out and shone on her, and she felt like she had been forgiven. She said it was the first time that she had ever felt accepted and at peace. We got together with Lindsay and Angus a couple of times a week, and Lindsay and Angus had started inviting Heather to the dinners. The first time they had invited her, she started to cry. Since then, Lindsay and Angus had forgiven her for the way that she had treated Colin and had 'adopted' her. Their constant encouragement and acceptance had meant a lot to Heather, and she had blossomed with the attention. Lindsay had told me that I had brought a lot of happiness into their lives, first with giving Colin a joy that he hadn't felt in decades, and then with my family joining their family, and then to bringing them Heather. Lindsay said she was enjoying adopting her and saw a lot of good in Heather. As she had told Heather, she was very proud of the way that Heather was working to turn her life around.
Heather had to go in front of the judge for her assault charge. Lindsay and I took her shopping for a skirt suit to wear to court, and when the court date came up, Lindsay and I attended to support her. I got up to talk as a witness, and I talked about what Heather had done, the fact that she had apologized on her own initiative, and what she had done to turn her life around. I talked about the good in Heather and some of the things that she had told me – and about how she was checking in with me every day and everything that she had accomplished in the previous two months. The judge was impressed. He told her that he would have assigned her community hours and mandatory therapy, but she had already volunteered to be a Big Sister and had started therapy on her own initiative. He said that he had never seen anybody work so hard to amend their actions and because of that, he was letting her go and wishing her well. Heather had started crying in relief, and Lindsay and I took her out for lunch to celebrate.
A couple of weeks later, Lindsay and I took her out dress shopping again. Heather was graduating from her Master's program, and we wanted to get her a special dress to wear. Heather picked a beautiful blue dress to match her eyes, and it was tasteful and modest and absolutely gorgeous on her. That was last week. Heather had just walked in with her class, and I could see her anxiously searching the audience for the four of us, and her look of gratitude and relief when she saw us. All four of us were sporting grins of pride, and she smiled when she saw it.
We sat through the ceremony, and we all took pictures as she walked across the stage. She saw us do it and, once again, looked grateful.
As the last person crossed the stage and the dean stood up to say his final remarks, something exploded, smoke filled the room and people started to mill around in panic. Ranger turned to Lindsay and Angus. "Get out of here. Angus, look after your mother. Steph, stay with Lindsay and Angus."
"No way in hell", I said. "I'm coming to help people."
"Babe! This is not going to help your breathing."
"I'll cope. Stop stalling." I headed into the stampeding crowd towards the front of the room. When we got there, Heather was providing triage on how to get people out of there, and she had got a few of the men from the graduating class to help carry them out. The area was hot and the walls were catching flame. I choked with the chemicals that were burning as they caught in my throat, and Heather assigned each graduate an unconscious person, helped them pick them up, and directed them to the back of the hall and out of the building.
Ranger jumped up on the stage and picked up the dean. He was the only person left up there. He had a serious injury on his chest, but he was breathing and choking in the fumes, and his pulse was steady and strong. Heather picked up one other victim and I crossed the floor, picked up the person hidden behind some chairs, and tried to lift him up. I couldn't, so I dragged him out of the auditorium. I was just glad that the closest aisle out of the auditorium was not yet on fire.
I dragged the man up the aisle and out the doors, sighted Ranger, and dragged the man over to join the group. Ranger put down the dean as I sunk down to my knees, placed my victim on the ground and coughed up black phloem. Heather placed her victim beside us as well, then proceeded to monitor the three for breathing and heart issues.
I was having trouble getting air in and was feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I lay back on the grass and concentrated on breathing deeply and slowly. Ranger came over, a look of worry in his face. "You okay, babe?"
"No, but these people need to go into the hospital."
Ranger took my pulse. "So do you."
"No! The dean is hurt."
"I know. We aren't going to leave him behind."
Lindsay and Angus joined us. "We couldn't find you in the crowd", said Lindsay.
"I'm going to get an ambulance", said Ranger. "The dean and Steph need to get to the hospital, pronto."
"Don't go", I said. I looked at him with tears in my eyes.
"I'll go", said Angus.
"Tell the paramedics that the dean has third-degree burns and Steph needs oxygen and has second-degree burns", said Ranger.
"Right-o." Angus hustled away.
"I have second-degree burns?"
"From your knees to your toes."
"That explains why it hurts so much. How are you, Heather?" I said.
"A little choked up, but I know that I am doing much better than you."
I sighed as I looked at Ranger. "How are you?"
He looked scared. "I'm okay, babe. I wasn't recovering from pneumonia in the first place. You haven't completely recovered from your first bout three months ago."
I sighed. "I think it is a good thing for Kai to have come with us to Scotland. There is no end to the medical help that I need." I started to cough, then rolled onto my side and threw up. My vomit was black.
Two paramedic teams raced over to us with a couple of stretchers. As they brought the stretchers forward, they assessed the dean and loaded him onto a stretcher, then assessed me and did the same thing. "How is everyone else?" I said.
"They must not have been in the room for as long, so I doubt they'll have any problems. Other ambulances will take them to the hospital in a few minutes. They have a little irritation in their throat, but they will be okay."
"Can you check Heather and Ranger?" I said. I pointed to them.
"After we get an oxygen mask on you", said the paramedic. They affixed the oxygen mask and administered some morphine, then turned to Ranger and Heather. They assessed them and smiled. "There is some irritation", said the paramedic. "I recommend that they drink lots of water and concentrate on coughing up all the crud. They'll be okay, but they can get checked out at the hospital when they come in with you. Who carried out whom?"
Ranger pointed to the dean. "I carried out the dean. I could do it while not disturbing his burns."
"I carried out this man", said Heather. "His name is Paul Blum. I had him in a couple of my classes." I looked. Paul was a good-looking man, fit and trim. He was also awake and smiling at Heather.
The paramedics looked at me in shock. The person I had dragged out was about three hundred and fifty pounds. I shrugged my shoulders. "How did you do it?" said one of the paramedics.
"Determination", I said. "The place was filling up with smoke. If I didn't get him out, he wasn't getting out and I couldn't leave him to die."
The paramedics raised me to a normal height and, as I said goodbye to Lindsay and Angus, Heather and Ranger and I left for the ambulance.
"You are a true hero", said the paramedic. "Instead of Stephanie, we should call you Wonder Woman." I snorted.
Ranger sighed. "What she isn't telling you is that four months ago she had an emergency hysterectomy and developed an acute case of pneumonia, that she still isn't completely over. She was just going to start going back to work for half-days next week."
"How does your abdomen feel?" said the paramedic as he and his partner loaded me onto the ambulance.
"Sore. It feels like I tweaked something in there when I was pulling him."
Ranger looked at me in worry, and I looked at him with concern. I didn't know how to soothe him, how to make him realize that I was going to be okay. I could tell that he was upset, and he was trying to figure out how it could have been done differently so that I wouldn't have been hurt. And I could tell when he realized that there was no other way. The smoke was too thick and black, and I was the only person left.
"Mention it to the doctor. My guess is that they will want some imaging done. You are a true hero, Stephanie. Most people wouldn't have tried to lift someone so large, let alone drag the person out. You're what – 54, 55 kilos? The man weighed almost three times your weight. And you did it all while you were recovering from an operation and pneumonia?" He shook his head. "That's incredible. You hear many stories of bravery and determination in this job, but I will definitely remember this one."
Tears came to my eyes as I smiled. I reached out my hand for Ranger's and, as he clasped it, I closed my eyes and fell asleep.