"You're not staying down here with a bomb, you idiot!" JT blared, his patience long gone. "Not again, you're not!"
"I'll be fine," the profiler said. Even with his back turned to them, as Malcolm started to frenetically open random drawers and looking at body-tags, they could see that his entire body was vibrating with tension.
….
It happened on a Saturday, in December. She remembered that because she had been looking forward to spending a nice, quiet and warm Sunday at home when her twenty four hours in hell were over.
It had been a pretty normal day. A few cases of running noses, the odd broken bone and more stitches than she could remember -it had been really icy outside and too many people insisted on wearing the wrong kind of shoes- and Edrisa had found herself falling into a false sense of security. These were all cases that she could deal with in her sleep.
And then the two victims from the car accident arrived.
Most of the severe trauma cases were handled by other ER's with higher trauma level units, but as those two patients had been fairly stable, the EMTs had been diverted there, as they were closer.
At first glance, both patients' condition had seemed to be pretty straightforward; the guy behind the wheel had been conscious, breathing without trouble and complaining about chest pain and a headache, both expected as he had wrapped his car around a street lamp, fortunately while wearing his seatbelt. Has he had no alcohol in his system, everyone was blaming it on the icy roads.
The other guy hadn't actually been hit by the car, but by the street lamp, as it fell down, which had done wonders for his leg. The exposed bone fracture had looked nasty, even if fascinating, and Edrisa had decided there and then that her first priority was to stabilize that bone before any of the jagged edges decided to nick an artery and kill the guy.
That had been a decision that had forever changed the lives of two people on that Saturday, hers and the man she had killed.
….
Edrisa followed Bright's actions with a certain degree of curiosity. He was looking for a body in particular, that much was easy to guess, but why? It wasn't like she and her team were in the habit of storing bombs in a particular drawer. In fact, all bodies were x-rayed, some even scanned when there was the need for that... she would know if there had been a bomb inside one of them. "Are you sure-"
"And when you find it, what do you intend to do with it, genius?" JT went on as if she hadn't spoken at all, sounding like he was talking to a five year old. She believed that was his coping mechanism when dealing with Bright, to stop himself from slugging the younger man at least five times a day. "Do you even know how to disarm a bomb?"
"But-" Edrisa tried again. If only they would tell her what they were looking for, she could actually help in moving things along a lot faster.
"Of course! I took a... seminar," Bright supplied, casting a quick look at the taller man. Before resuming his search "At Quantico."
"A seminar..." the detective growled. "Dani, take Edrisa and this piece of trash out of here," he let out. "Someone who actually knows something about bombs needs to stay behind with the village idiot."
The medical examiner gave the detective her very best stinky eye, not only because he was being mean to Malcolm -well, mean worded, because it was clear to see that his annoyance came from a place of concern-, but also because he was treating her as a child.
Edrisa knew JT and Dani were both very smart and competent detectives -Gil wouldn't have them on his team otherwise- and Malcolm, as far she was concerned, was a certified genius, which meant that if they believed that the bomb was inside one of the bodies still at the morgue it had to be disguised as something that neither she or her team would remove and send to evidence. Something that wouldn't be related with the cause of death and appeared to belong inside the body.
Since she was pretty certain that exploding tumors belonged in the realm of science fiction, it had to be some kind of prosthetic or implantable medical device. Only... in this day and age, more and more people tended to have one or more inside of them, some having become as common as hair dye. Bone and joints prosthetic replacements, insulin pumps, breast implants, pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators, heart valves... the list went on forever, and those were just the ones big enough to pack an explosive of decent size.
Either way, she could help find whatever it was they were looking for. They were, after all, in her turf, so to speak.
The gunman had mentioned 'fat pigs' when he referred to the people he had murdered, which was, first and foremost, offensive as hell, but also incorrect when applied to his victims. However, for people who didn't knew better, there was the common stereotype of diabetics being overweighted as a rule. A stupid stereotype, as they often were, of course.
There were different types of diabetes and, while some were indeed related to increased body mass, that wasn't the cause of diabetes for all insulin-dependent patients, as genetics played a more important role.
The point was... insulin pumps, of course! They were looking for the body of-
The shouted "Look out!" had been barely audible over the loud clatter of too many metallic instruments and tables clashing together.
Edrisa startled, reality harshly kicking her out of her thoughts and puzzle-solving escapades. Because, outside of her mind, there was still a ticking bomb somewhere inside the morgue and a dangerous man dead set on watching them all blow up.
And said dangerous man was no longer secure in detective's Tarmel's strong hold. Somehow in the discussion of who went and who stayed, the prisoner had taken advantage of the building tension and pushed JT against one of the instruments table before making a dash for his fallen gun.
Time slowed down. Like in those Matrix movies, but with a lot less entertainment value and a whole lot more of dreadful terror. Edrissa could see both Dani and JT pulling out their guns, could see the moment their fingers pressed the trigger in beautiful synchronicity.
The air filled with the sound of multiple weapons firing, thunder trapped inside a too small room.
Lethargically, the medical examiner pondered if she had heard two or three guns firing, wondering if the profiler carried a gun at all. From the ringing in her ears, she wondered how she was hearing anything at all. She looked up, eager to see if everyone was still alive and hopefully unharmed.
Only then did she noticed that her field of vision had been fully taken over by an expensive looking shirt of pale blue fabric. "Bright?"
To be completely honest, Edrisa had once -okay, twice at least- fantasied about what it would be like to have Malcolm Bright in her arms, moaning in absolute pleasure. As time resumed its regular pace and the profiler lost his fight with gravity, falling backwards with a pained moan, the small woman could only think that this was not what she had imagined. At all.