What has gone before:
I will go down with this ship
I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
...
Gone
"Dispatch."
"Patrol Two. Tell the Chief I'm headed up to the Cullen place."
"Copy. Send back-up?"
Deputy Dave – God how he hated that name, would almost rather be called Deputy Dawg – scanned the forest as his cruiser made its way up the meandering road through the trees. It was way past dark. But a full moon in a rare clear sky was making the landscape almost as bright as a cloudy day.
"I'll call in if I see anything."
The radio crackled a little. " – watch yourself – " Dead air. "– still in the area – "
"Not a rookie anymore, Jules; I know procedure."
"Cocky ass." Crackle. " – get yourself killed."
"No intention."
"Stupid kid."
Dave heaved a sigh. "I know. But it's their job at that age. Two out."
The road curved ahead through the grey and black forest. It only showed green in the glancing edges of his high beams. The Chief was worried sick about his daughter. Could hardly blame him, with all the deaths since January. Bad ones. The kind that stayed with a man, turned up at three A.M. in the dark of a sweaty bed after too much pizza and beer.
It was a hunch that brought Dave up here, while everyone else was scouring the woods and the bus stations. He'd seen the way that Cullen kid had caught the Chief's daughter, as she'd tripped over the blanket in her rush to her father, back on the night they'd fished Waylon Forge's body parts out of the lake. He'd seen the way the boy's hands had lingered on the girl. If there was something going on between those two, it only stood to reason that she'd come out here now.
The ground-up edge of the driveway came up before he expected, and the cruiser's tires slipped a little as he braked to turn in.
"I knew it."
There was the beat up truck the Chief had bought off his Quileute friend. Dave pulled over in the driveway and scanned the yard in front of him. No sign of anything moving. The girl had better be in the truck, otherwise she was probably in the bottom of the basement – fallen in trying to get a look into the ruins. He didn't want to think of what that would mean. Broken bones for sure, maybe worse.
Taking his flashlight, Dave walked over to the truck.
Be in there, kid. Smoking weed, I don't care.
No such luck. Only a backpack on the passenger side of the bench seat.
He swept the grounds with his light.
"Bella!" That's what the Chief called her. Or 'Bells', but she probably wouldn't answer to that to anyone but her father. "Bella Swan!"
It was a dead still night. A trickle of water flowing over rocks somewhere was the only sound he could hear beside his own breathing. He called a few more times, criss-crossing the lawn as he did, stepping over the yellow tape where it was still strung between stakes. A few ends fluttered.
A sudden, hollow CRACK sent Dave to the ground, rolling, and unholstering his gun. The flashlight would only make him a target, so he doused it and crawled sideways, listening.
It's never routine; never routine, asshole. God damn it.
As hard as he listened, there was no noise except for the water as before.
The moon was high and bright. It lit the yard, but also cast deep shadows. He strained to see anything that was the wrong shape, anything moving in those masses of darkness. The silence made his pulse loud and distracting. He forced himself to focus. The sound had come from the general direction of the running water. He knew better than to stare too fixedly in any one place. A slow scan rewarded him with a flash of something moving just before the report rang out again.
"Fuck! You suck, Cullens! You suck!"
Not a gun. A deer-scarer. One of those bamboo knocker things people put in their water gardens.
Fucking rich people.
Dave got up and dusted himself off hard. He was damned if he was going to carry the signs of his roll in the grass back to the station.
The deer-scarer rang again, and his instincts told him the girl wasn't here. He retrieved his light and went to the edge of the ruins anyway. He wasn't going to leave until he'd made a thorough search, cross this place off the list once and for all.
The pit that had been the house's basement yawned like a huge and jagged mouth.
"Bella! Bella Swan! If you're in there, answer! Make a sound! We'll come down for you!"
He walked all the way around the edge, calling, and poking the flashlight beam into the darkness as best he could, squinting for anything that might look like a jacket, or blue jeans, or a shoe. But there were too many corners and holes that the light couldn't shine to the bottom of. If she was down there, unable to respond, they'd never find her without sending a crew in. Even in daylight.
There was a new sound, a whisper of air from behind, bringing Dave spinning on his heel, just in time to be caught almost full in the face by something large and grey. Feathers brushed his raised forearm as it blew past his head.
Hoo … hoo-hoo … hoo-oo
"Fucking owl!"
It didn't stop, but glided on into the trees beyond the house. If Dave had been a foot closer to the edge he might have fallen in, grappling with the thing as it strafed his forehead.
"Bitch!"
He swept his beam across the place the owl had flown from. Seven aspen stood faint and pale in the shadows of the pines. There, against one white trunk, something dark.
"Bella!"
He broke into a run, keying his shoulder mic.
"Bella Swan!"
No answer. But it was her. It had to be. She was standing, hugged tightly to the tree.
"Dispatch."
"Jules!" Still recovering from his second near-heart-attack of the night, he gulped air. "I found her!"
"Thank God."
Dave tugged at the silent and strangely immobile girl.
"Come on, kid, time to come home." No response.
"Is she okay?"
The girl just would not move. No matter how he pulled at her and called her name he couldn't peel her off the tree.
"Dave! What's going on over there?"
"Send medical."
"What happened?"
"She's got herself wrapped around a tree."
"Oh God."
"Not the truck, her. She's catatonic or something. I can't wake her up. She's wrapped on tight."
He pried at her fingers; which felt as cold as ice to him. No use. Unless he was willing to break them to pull her off the tree.
"Send medical. Now!"
"Dispatch to Patrol One."
"Report!"
"We found her."
Charlie Swan let himself breathe again. Billy and Harry had had the boys out combing the woods and shore of La Push since sunset. He'd just gotten their call of no luck. Now it didn't matter.
"Where?"
"Cullen place. Dave's with her."
He'd known that's where she'd be. Kid was sweet on Carlisle's youngest boy. What girl wouldn't be, after being saved from a van? But he'd been afraid, afraid to not search every single other place. The bodies – those cases weren't closed in his mind. And now the Cullens …
"Is she okay?"
"I'll patch you through. We've called medical."
"Medical? What's going on over there?"
Crackle. " – said she was unconscious. Patching now."
Unconscious.
"I'm on my way."
He'd been on his way since pulling a U at Julia's first mention of the Cullen place. Now he lead-footed it, lights on, back through town and out again into the forest, with his deputy's voice rasping on the radio.
" … no breaks, no blood, breathing and pulse are good … "
But that one word. A bad word.
Unresponsive.
She was clapped onto some tree, too tight for a sternal rub – well, and by God he'd kill any man that took his daughter's shirt off without him or a nurse present – but Dave had tried rolling his knuckles hard up and down the center of Bella's forehead. That was a painful enough maneuver to wake up anything but a bad OD or a coma.
" – didn't even flinch. Sorry, Chief."
Stay on the road. Stay on the road. You got to get there in one piece for her.
The ambulance siren sounded up ahead from the moonlit dark. Two turns and he overtook them. They arrived together, bumping over the lawn to get close to the stand of trees where Dave was hailing them.
The slams of the vehicle doors echoed loud and hollow as everyone piled out. Charlie saw his daughter standing with her arms wrapped tightly around the slender trunk of a white aspen. Her head was turned to the right, cheek against the bark, eyes closed. As far as he could tell she wasn't in any pain. But she didn't look right.
Dave gave him the run-down, rapid fire, as Kyle and Ernie cut Bella's parka and shirt away to get a blood pressure cuff on one arm. She was on that tree so tight they could barely stuff the thing between her arm and the trunk. No hope of cardiac leads, they'd just have to listen by stethoscope through her back.
Standing up like she was, made everything hard. They couldn't put their equipment on the ground next to her but had to jack up the stretcher for a makeshift table. A low branch became a hook for an IV bag. Charlie and Dave lashed their heavy-duty flashlights to two others. It wasn't a good sign – converting the glade into a mini ER. Any time you had to stay on a scene longer than twenty minutes was just one more chance for something to go wrong.
"Vitals are good, Chief." Ernie reported. "We gotta put a line in her."
"Do it."
An antecubital was impossible, with her arms locked around the tree. Her hands and forearms were no better, the veins submerged from cold, even with the tourniquet. It took five pokes before they got in. She never made a sound, never twitched. Nothing.
Kyle hooked her to the saline and Charlie moved in again.
"Bells. Bells. It's your old man. Wake up, kid." He squeezed her shoulders. "Come on, baby girl." Her whole body was cold.
Two feet away, Ernie was on the radio to the ER doc.
" … completely rigid." He rattled off the child's vitals. "Glasgow three. Yes, you read me: three. Negative on tetany. She's like … almost decorticate – "
Charlie racked his brains to try to remember what that meant – something about the brain. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
" – but she's standing. We can't budge her." Ernie stepped over, pulling a small Maglite from his belt clip. "Sorry, Chief."
"Here." Charlie lifted his daughter's eyelids one at a time.
"Fixed and dilated."
But still breathing.
Still breathing.
He wrapped his arms around his daughter and the tree. She should be shivering if she was as cold as she felt to him. He wondered briefly if it was such a good idea to be running cold saline into her, even at the slow drip they had going. "Come on, Bells. Snap out of it. You can't go checking out like this." He heard Ernie telling Kyle to get the intubation kit.
"What are you doing?"
"She's compromised, Chief. And anyway we gotta get her off the tree." He started drawing up medications in a syringe. "How much does she weigh?"
"What? Give me the comm."
Charlie barked into the receiver, "Who am I talking to?"
"Ken Lindsey."
"What's the plan here?"
"We've got to bring her in as fast as possible. Her presentation's saying brain injury. We're going to give her some succs and versed to try and relax her off the tree. We'll have to intubate immediately because she won't be able to maintain her airway once she's down."
Down. Like an animal.
"But she's breathing fine. Shouldn't we leave – "
"She's in some kind of coma – a deep one – and we don't know why. She's not stable like this: her airway can go any time. We gotta get her here where we can manage her, and figure out what the hell happened. Time's not on her side, Charlie."
Manage her. In Forks' tiny hospital? They didn't have the facilities. And with Carlisle gone, they didn't have the talent. They'd be shipping her out. To Seattle maybe, if it was as bad as Lindsey was saying.
Charlie handed the cell back to Ernie. "Do what you gotta do."
"How much does she weigh? A hundred, maybe?"
How much did his daughter weigh? He had no idea. She just looked small to him, so small. Small enough that he could pick her up and carry her in his arms. He'd never had the chance to do that nearly enough.
Keep it together, Swan. Keep it together. You can't lose your shit now. Later. Not now.
"Get it off her records; she was just in there a couple months ago."
He grabbed a blanket roll off the stretcher and shook it out to wrap around his daughter. "Come on, baby girl. Come back to us. Come back."
"We hafta bag her first, Chief."
They struggled for a few minutes to get the oxygen mask over Bella's nose and mouth. How could she remain standing yet unconscious through all this? Charlie felt the hair on his arms standing up. This just wasn't natural.
"Damn, can't get a good seal." The tree trunk was in the way, her cheek pressed too tightly to it.
"Never mind," Charlie said. "I'll hold it. Hurry up." They cranked the O2 up to 15 liters, and Dave held the bag ready to start compressions if she stopped breathing on her own.
"Lido going in … now. Fent … Done." Kyle continued, injecting sedative and paralytic one by one through the IV in Bella's hand, while Ernie laid out the laryngoscope and trache tube on a makeshift sterile field. Four. Four different drugs they put in his daughter. Heavy drugs. Enough to knock out a horse kept running through his head.
With the meds in, they waited. The only sound was the faint hiss of the oxygen and the beep of the pulse monitor that stayed clipped to her finger. Charlie just hoped that enough of the O2 was going into Bella's lungs to prepare her for what was coming once all her muscles let go. He held onto her, and the mask against her face, and closed his eyes.
"Is she softening up?"
Not that Charlie could tell.
"Give it a couple more minutes."
The moon was inching its way back down toward the treetops, pulling the shadows from the woods and the ruins and the untouched gazebo into taffy black ghosts across the lawn.
"Anything?"
Charlie tested his daughter's arms. They were as tight as ever.
"Shit. She should be completely flaccid by now."
"Check her vitals."
Kyle pumped up the blood pressure cuff again.
"She's stable."
"This ain't right."
Ernie called the hospital.
"No! You're not putting any more drugs in her. We're cutting down the damn tree."
Dave snapped to attention. "I'll get McClanahan."
"Do it."
The kid sprinted to his squad car, cell in hand. Joe McClanahan wouldn't appreciate being hauled out of bed at three in the morning; and he and his crew would need escort. Even after the fire, all that most people knew of where the Cullen house was, was that it was in the boondocks somewhere north of town. Or maybe east.
The two medics exchanged glances.
"Maybe she'll ease up before they get here," Kyle muttered.
She didn't.
It was four before the crew arrived, with disheveled hair and their breath blowing white in the slanting moon. Kyle and Ernie had taken turns getting warmed up in their vehicle, but Charlie had stayed with his daughter. With no coffee, and the temperature dropping as the night wore through, his hands were rough, and as cold as Bella's.
"Come on, baby girl. Just hold on. Cavalry's here."
Charlie didn't try to help as McClanahan's boys set up a tackle to pull the top of the tree away from Bella and all the instruments when the time came. He kept the blanket around her as best he could, kept the mask on her face, while Kyle and Ernie unhooked the IV bag and stowed it for the ride in. They pulled the flashlights off and everybody held one.
"Stoop down a little, Chief, we wanta get it as close above her head as we can."
Two inches above his head, the first chain saw spat to life, and whined loudly as it bit into the sap-filled wood.
Brain injury. From what? Carlisle had said her scans were clear from the crash. She hadn't been hit. Carlisle's boy had knocked her out of the way. And anyway that was months ago, now. So what was this? With his free hand Charlie searched his daughter's forehead and scalp for the tenth or hundredth time for any sign of a bruise or lump … or softness or ridge where none belonged. There was nothing.
Wet, fragrant sawdust rained down on his hair and the back of his neck, and his arms and the back of his hand where he shielded Bella's face from as much as he could. It would be a few days before he'd be able to hear again. There'd been no time for earplugs.
The trunk wasn't all that thick, and before he knew it there was a loud crack.
"Dave! Get clear!"
"Pull!"
"Shit! The other trees!"
"Just pull!"
With a last screech and grind the saw cut clear through the trunk and Dave and the boys jerked the top away from everybody's heads.
"Chief, you okay?"
Dimly, Charlie heard the felled aspen crackle and slide its way to earth through the branches of the surrounding pines.
"Come on, let's try to get her off this thing."
There was grunting and straining and not a little bit of embarrassment for several minutes.
It wasn't working. The girl's legs were locked straight, and she was full body plastered to the tree. Grabbing and hauling on her buttocks and thighs and under her arms to try to slide her up off the trunk was getting nowhere except bruising her. Even through her clothes, they all could feel it.
"God damn it!"
"Chief."
Charlie glared at the lumberman and hoped that no tears were really leaking out the corners of his eyes.
"I can cut just under her arms. Even if she don't let go, we can load her with it."
The thought of that chain saw anywhere near his daughter's body made Charlie sick. But it had to be done – and fast. God only knew how long she'd been out like this already.
"Turn the damn oxygen off. I don't want any sparks catching."
"Should we try to collar her first?"
"She's not going anywhere." I got her.
The chain saw growled and whined again. Aspen sap bled – sweet, pungent, and crystalline in the moonlight – as the blade ate its way through under Bella's armpits.
"Not too close! Not too close!"
"Break it! Try to break it off now!"
"Ditch the mask! Help me pull!"
Dave and Ernie piled on, while Kyle protected the instruments. There was a cracking and ripping of wood, and suddenly everything gave way. Three men and a girl ended up on their backs in a heap. But they'd freed her from the tree. With a long, tense minute of tugging and wrestling, three pairs of hands finally extricated the last segment of trunk from her arms, and she fell limp as a rag in their grasp.
Kyle was already gloved up and wading in.
"Light, give me light!"
Did they have to do this?
Nobody was asking Charlie's permission any more. Dave pulled him away, and he watched numbly as Kyle stuck the hard metal scope down his daughter's throat, and the plastic tube after it. She never so much as gagged.
"I'm in! Bag her!"
No more mask, just the ambu bag and oxygen screwed straight to the tube. Collar. Hard board. Blanket rolls. Charlie watched them strap her on tight and load her into the ambulance.
Slamming doors. Engine. Siren fading down the hill.
He barely heard Dave say he'd take care of the report at the station. Only vaguely registered McClanahan's boys packing up their gear, and Joe waiting to ride in with him to the hospital.
The moon lay big and round on one end of the sky, as the first edge of rising light paled the other. A lone dark bird flew out of that light and over Charlie's head.
He would have to call Renee.
A/N: First of all big shout-out and thank you to Woodlily, ATONAU, and MeilleurCafe for helping me with this chapter. I was about as stuck as could be and they unstuck me. Thank you also as always, to everyone who reads, who PMs me, tweets, etc asking after the story. You all mean the world to me, and help me keep writing, no matter how slowly.
There was a lot of jargon in this chapter, so here is a 'glossary' which I hope may be useful / interesting. In order of appearance:
(1) Sternal rub: this is a maneuver used to rouse unresponsive patients. The knuckles are rolled, hard, up and down along the center line of the breast bone. It hurts like an SOB and usually wakes people even if they are in a heavy stupor as from alcohol, drugs or medication. The center of the forehead is an alternate location for this maneuver, and that's the one that Dave uses here, since Bella's breastbone is pressed to the trunk of the tree.
(2) Antecubital: meaning in the crook of the elbow. It is a favored site for blood draws and IV starts, especially in the field or emergency department, because the vein there is relatively large and easy to stick. With her arms wrapped around the tree, Bella's antecubital area is not accessible so they have to go for her hand, wrist or forearm.
(3) Glasgow three: this is referring to the Glasgow Coma scale - a commonly used assessment tool to evaluate level of consciousness. Here is a summary of the scale and how it's used: : / / www . unc . edu/~rowlett/units/scales/glasgow . htm A three is the lowest score possible on the Glasgow coma scale and indicates deep coma.
(4) Tetany: a spastic hyper-exitability of motor nerves caused by electrolyte imbalances. Here's a video: : / / www . youtube watch?v=hOzOCNCfa_Y
(5) Decorticate: this is a type of involuntary posturing that is associated with brain injury. The two types of posturing are outlined here: : / / head-nurse . blogspot 2010/10/abnormal-posturing-made-overly-simple . html Decorticate is the first level of serious brain injury, indicating potentially permanent impairment or loss of higher functions like thought, speech and coordinated movement. The next step, decerebrate, corresponds to impairment or loss of basic functions like breathing and blood pressure regulation. Charlie is right to be scared.
(6) Succs: succynylcholine: a fast-acting muscle relaxing drug used in emergency intubation.
(7) Versed: midazolam, also known as 'milk of amnesia' - a strong sedative used in emergency and surgical settings as part of the combination used for induction of anaesthesia.
(8) Lido: lidocaine - a medication used to prepare a patient for induction of anaesthesia. It regulates cardiovascular responses and is considered a protective agent in case of suspected increased intracranial pressure.
(9) Fent: fentanyl - a powerful pain reliever used in emergency and surgical anaesthesia.
(10) Here is the reference I used to try to get the procedural details of the intubation fairly close to real. : / / www . scdhec . gov/health/ems/rsi . pdf Practice varies with location and time period (there have been innovations since the time the story is set, 2007), and there is considerable variation in the choice of medications. Hopefully the one I modeled after is middle-of-the road enough to pass. Any paramedics reading please pm me with corrections. I will gladly incorporate. Yes, I have a nerd card.