Chapter 6
Danny immediately pulled back into the cab of the truck, shooting with his door open to protect himself. The bullets were coming from behind the old Chevy, whoever was responsible was hiding in the tall grasses. "Still think this is a good idea, Steve?" He yelled tensely.
"You're the best shot in Newark, Danno, we got this." Steve replied, firing rounds from the driver's side. "Emma, put on the other vest in the back and get down." In the spattering of bullets off metal, the boys didn't hear her answer. "Emma?" Steve asked, not willing to take his eyes off the truck to check back on her.
"Give me a gun." She said with determination. "Those guys from the tail car are going to show up any minute.
Without hesitation, Danny cracked the glovebox and passed Steve's extra weapon back to her. "You do what we say, clear?"
Emma stood ready with baited breath for the car to catch up to them. As she saw it come around the curve and into the open, she raised the gun and froze, waiting for them to make the first move. Strangely, the two people in the car didn't do anything, simply talking to each other in the car. "Steve, they're not doing anything. What do I do?"
"Focus on them," Steve replied, "They're not going to sit still forever." He changed out his clip. "Danny, Ito's down."
"I'm guessing there's two left, judging by the volume of shots." Danny replied evenly. Emma couldn't understand how they could make judgements and hold conversations in the middle of madness. Even though she was a cop, the only times she had shot, or even raised her gun, outside of a range had been in Hawaii—first the robbery, and now…this.
She turned around briefly to try and see what Danny saw, trying to determine where the shooters were. As soon as she turned around, the first shot exploded behind her. She whipped around and started firing at the passengers, doing her best to remember her training. Her only cognitive thought was that for some reason, the bullets coming from the car sounded different than the ones coming from the other direction.
"One left from the front," Danny commented.
"Two from the back," Emma sputtered. She took another shot and saw one of the men jerk. The shooting stopped for a millisecond. "One…I think." Emma had been sitting inside the car still, positioning herself behind cover as best she could while still keeping an eye trained on the car. She leaned a little further out of the car to see the man's condition, and suddenly regretted it when a burst of bullets flew her way. She tried to pull back into the cab, but her left foot slid, throwing her off balance, and she ended up with one leg out of the cab, desperately trying to crawl back in. Before she could panic, her thigh twinged. It wasn't too painful at first, but she felt her thigh go numb as she hauled herself back into the safety of the truck.
"Guys…I think…I'm hit." She gritted her teeth. "I have two rounds left."
Steve still hadn't moved his eyes from the front. "Danny, take care of the back. Emma, stay down," he said simply. She nodded and tried to breathe as she stared at her thigh. It was dark red blood, dripping down her skin and slowly staining the jean shorts she was wearing. She pressed it experimentally, feeling for the hole she knew was there, under the rivulets of blood. Suddenly, as she felt the hole, the pain made itself known as well. She gasped.
Danny turned around and, having good visibility at the driver, needed only two shots to take him out of the equation. At the same time, Steve had taken out the last gunman in front of him. Emma could barely hear the quiet over the ringing in her ears. Danny walked over to the car and checked the pulses of the men. "Steve, take care of Emma." He said sharply, seeing her prone in the back seat.
Danny went to search through the grass for any more weapons while Steve jogged around the truck. Emma was breathing heavily, but seemed to be in control. "Is this the first time you've been shot?" Steve asked, gauging her cognizance.
"Uh…yes." Her hands covered the top of her thigh, but Steve noticed blood leaking from underneath her leg as well.
"Emma, I'm just going to help you out onto the grass so I can get a better look at the wound." She nodded, and Steve grabbed her forearms, sliding her out and helping her balance on her good leg. She hopped a few paces, then Steve lowered her gently to the ground. She was sitting up, which was a good sign, but swayed slightly. Danny came back around, grabbing the first aid kit from the back of the truck. Steve snapped on some gloves and poked around, making Emma wince. "Entrance and exit wound, it's a through and through. Not arterial." He muttered to himself. "Danny, grab the gauze roll and some of the square pads. Put the pads on the entrance and exit, I'll wrap it."
Up until now, Emma had felt detached from the wound, not quite believing that she had actually been shot. But now, the curiosity had been replaced by a pain that clarified everything. She heard Steve's calm voice and forced herself to respond. "So…it's not bad."
"You're going to be fine, Emma. I need to put pressure on it and that's going to suck, but we'll get you to the hospital and you'll be fine." He looked up at her face, and took her pulse. "Emma, take some deep breaths." He demonstrated, his shoulders moving exaggeratedly as he breathed with her. "You have lost enough blood that you probably feel a bit woozy, huh?" She nodded. "Do you want to lay down?" Another nod.
Danny, who had been sitting back on his heels and watching Steve work, gently took her shoulders and sat down behind her, letting her head come to rest in his lap. He wiped some stray wisps of hair out of her face and tried not to think about Grace. "Steve is a pro at this kind of thing. He's like Rambo."
Emma smiled, as close as she could to laughing. "Doesn't Rambo…hurt people?"
"You can call me McDreamy," Steve supplied, a sly smile on his face. He tucked in the end of the gauze, checking one last time to make sure it was tight. "Alright, I think we're good to go. Danno, you drive, I'll ride in back with her.
"I wouldn't have pegged you as a Grey's Anatomy fan." Emma responded, letting herself be helped to her feet. As she tried to gain her balance, a cramp exploded through her stomach. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, wobbly on one leg. "I think I'm going to be sick." She dry heaved once, then began to retch for real as Steve helped her back down to the ground.
"Just a side effect of the blood loss," he murmured, rubbing her back. But as he said it, his eye was caught by the dark color of the vomit. "There's blood….why is there blood?"
Emma let herself fall from her knees to her back and curled up on her side. Steve knelt next to her, tugging at the Velcro on her black vest. "Emma!" Danny said insistently, noticing her eyes beginning to glaze. "Were you hit more than once? Emma!"
Steve pulled the vest up and over her head and took a second to compose himself. There was a dark red stain on her abdomen, just above her hip, and an exit wound out the stomach. The bullet had gone through the vest, but didn't have the momentum to exit the vest on the other side. The tight Kevlar had acted as a tourniquet, but once they removed it, the bleeding started in earnest. "Steve," Danny muttered, out of his element.
"We need to go. Now." He picked up Emma's mostly limp form and hauled her into the back seat as Danny sprinted to the front. Sirens on, they screamed away from the lawn and back onto the road, retracing their steps towards the highway.
Steve applied pressure to both abdominal wounds, and noticed Emma dropping in and out of consciousness. "Emma, sweetie, I know it hurts, but you gotta stay with me. Tell me about being a cop, huh? Tell me about LA."
Her eyes lolled open, then crinkled in confusion. "Scott?" A tear slipped down her cheek. "Stop it! You're hurting me!"
Danny drove like a madman, but glanced back every few seconds to check. Panic built up inside him but manifested itself as anger. Anger at Steve for his crazy plans, angry at himself for letting this go too far. Emma's feeble protests sounded different than they had before. "What's going on?" He asked, his voice tight with worry.
"She's not lucid. I need to apply pressure, though, I can't stop just because it hurts her."
Emma was whimpering, still murmuring about Scott. Fear was mixed with the pain on her face, and Steve felt apprehension pulling in his own gut. Steve didn't remember seeing any 'Scott' in Emma's history, but it was evident that he wasn't a good omen. "Stop!" She yelled weakly. "That hurts, Scottie. Please, please…I'm sorry!" Steve only pushed harder on the wound as he tried to avoid watching her face contort.
"Keep going." Danny encouraged.
Emma, fading back out, started to close her eyes. "Emma, no!" Steve said forcefully. "Stay with me. I know it hurts, but—"
"Stop it Scott! I mean it, I'm sorry! Stop…" Tears came easily now, parading down her cheeks as she cringed away from Steve.
Steve tried to keep the fear out of his tone, and make his voice as gentle as he could. "Emma, you're safe. I'm here to help you. You're going to be okay." Either the soothing words or the blood loss finally took effect, and Emma lost consciousness again. The sirens screamed, but inside the truck it was quiet…deathly quiet.
"Steve, just tell me she's still alive."
"She's alive. How far out are we?"
"Five minutes."
"Call ahead." Danny took out his phone and called 911, explaining the situation.
"We should've just gotten a medevac," Steve muttered. "Why didn't I think of that right away." He took her pulse, which was slowing dramatically. Blood was still leaking out around his fingers, saturating the gauze until there were no clean bandages left. "I'm worried, Danny."
In response, Danny pressed down heavily on the accelerator. They were close; Steve recognized the streets. He held his breath, part of him hoping it would make the minutes go faster. He pushed as hard as he could against the wounds, feeling the muscles in his arms tighten and cramp.
Finally, mercifully, the truck slowed to a stop. Danny opened the door and was yelling, but Steve's only thought was to get Emma to the experts. He felt muscles in his arms strain as he held her out, offering her limp body to them in desperation. He set her on a gurney, perhaps harder than intended, and the gurney shivered sideways as the weight hit. Immediately, doctors and nurses swarmed the bed and took control, spitting medical terms like rap. Steve stood back, and Danny grabbed his bicep to pull him back and out of the way.
The gurney and medical team disappeared behind a set of swinging doors, and Steve sat down on a bench beside the doors, head in his hands. He was breathing heavily, and Danno started to get concerned. "Steve? Breathe, buddy." Steve didn't look up, but his chest was heaving. "Hey, with me. Steve! Listen to me…in, and out….in, and out…" Steve's eyes were unfocused, but Danny could hear him relaxing.
"She's a cop." Steve muttered.
"Yeah, it sounds like it."
"I got a cop shot." Steve was rapidly unraveling again. "It was stupid. Go ahead, say it."
"Say what?"
"You told me so. You did, you said it was stupid, I should have listened."
Danny was speechless. He wasn't going to lay into Steve right now, but he could feel anger boiling at him looking for a release. Looking for an exit, he saw the truck. "I'm going to park the truck; I'll meet you in the waiting room." He climbed into the cab and carefully avoided looking at the stained back seat. As he drove away, he swore as loud as he could, as many words as he could, releasing some of the anxiety he was feeling. He parked and bent forward, resting his head on the steering wheel. He reached for the radio on the dashboard, and hesitated before pushing the button. "Lou, you there?"
"Yeah Danny, whaddya got?" Lou's voice crackled over the radio.
"Emma Frasier was shot, Steve and I brought her to the hospital. We had a shootout in the backhills off Waianae Boulevard. I'm not sure the exact address, but there's bodies."
The other side was silent for a second. "Are you and Steve okay?"
"We're fine," Danny said, thinking back to Steve. "Oh, I know where it was…uh, Ito's house. Get his address."
"I'll get the team together and get out there. You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah, we're probably going to stay here…wait for news."
"Want me to make the notification?"
Danny sighed again, thinking of the flower shop lady…Lily. "If you can get me the emergency contacts, I can make the call."