“Come on, kiddo,” Rhys said. “I’ve got to go. This lady will look after you.”
“No,”the girl said again in a perfect echo of their first exchange.
Her grip was fearsome and something in her eyes terrified Rhys, but there was little he could do but detach her tiny hands and force her into the waiting woman’s arms.
He backed away and ran to the waiting chopper, slotting into his place opposite Marc. The helicopter took off and Marc shot instructions across the strapped-down gurney, but even as Rhys’s mind switched back to autopilot, he found himself glancing out the window as the incident scene grew smaller. The young girl was impossible to spot, but somehow, he still felt her gaze all over him.
* * *
“That’s it,” Marc said. “We’re done for the day.”
Rhys glanced up from the coffee pot he was surreptitiously emptying into the flight crew’s travel mugs. “We’re not going back?”
“Couldn’t if we wanted to. Chopper’s fucked.”
Mixed emotions warred in Rhys’s tired brain. They’d already made three runs to the fire incident and fatigue had begun to creep over all of them. Going off duty was a relief, but the helicopter was their ride home. If it was grounded, so were they. “What’s wrong with the damn thing now?”
“No idea. Someone’s coming to look at it, but even if they can fix it, it’ll be awhile.” Marc glanced at Rhys’s handiwork. “Is one of those Pater’s? I’ll take it to him.”
Marc departed with the pilot’s coffee, leaving Rhys alone in the staff lounge they’d been permitted to use. A doctor was asleep in an armchair in the corner. At first glance, he reminded Rhys of Jevon, but closer inspection revealed hair that was too short, skin that was too pale, and actually... he didn’t look anything like Jevon at all.Fuck. Will this never stop?
Scrubbing his face, Rhys turned away and retreated to his own quiet corner to drink his coffee. A nap sounded good, but as the hospital java kicked in, sleep wouldn’t come.
Restless, he crept out of the staff room and into the bustling A&E corridor. The department was still in major-incident mode on top of their usual patient numbers, and the quiet hum of civilised chaos got under Rhys’s skin, reminding him why he’d become a paramedic and not a nurse. Disaster was a lot easier to face with the rain on your back, the wind in your hair. Indoors, there was no escape.
A nurse hurried past but doubled back when she noticed Rhys. “Did you come from the Smallwood fire?”
“The detention centre?” Rhys nodded. “Yeah. Three times. How’s it looking?”
The nurse shook her head. “Horrendous. We have half a dozen fatalities and double that in unaccompanied children. No one speaks English, and we have no idea who belongs to who.”
Rhys’s mind flashed back to the little girl he’d plucked from the ground. The young man who was likely her brother had died in the helicopter, and he hadn’t had time to ponder her fate before now. “Where are they all?”
“Over there,” the nurse said, pointing to a curtained off area in minors. “Social services are here, but they don’t know their arse from their elbow without an interpreter. Those poor kids.”
She shook her head and disappeared in the direction of the unclaimed children. Curiosity got the better of Rhys and he followed her, expecting to be hit with a wall of noise as she pulled the curtain back. But there was none. Beyond the busy department, twelve or so young children were huddled on the floor, silent and staring.
Their haunted faces felt oddly familiar, and Rhys found the little girl almost immediately. She met his gaze, but there was no recognition there, and his heart sank, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He’d held her for mere moments before he’d passed her over. Why would she remember him? “What’s going to happen to them?”
The nurse, who was handing out juice cartons, shrugged, but the arrival of a social worker cut her off.
“We found an interpreter at a local charity,” the social worker said. “He’s on his way, but he wants us to move them out of here and into a private room. Do you have anywhere big enough?”
“I doubt it,” the nurse snapped.
She drifted away to find out for certain. Common sense told Rhys to go back to the staff room where Marc could find him, but he lingered anyway, glancing between the silent children and the brisk social worker, absorbing a dynamic that inexplicably made his skin crawl.
It was a while before he realised the social worker was wearing Marks and Spencer chinos. Beige. Wrinkled. And held up by a belt just thick enough to break skin. “Bend over, boy. It’s time I knocked some sense into you...”
Rhys inhaled sharply. His father’s voice faded as suddenly as it had appeared, but disquiet bloomed in his gut all the same. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his flight suit suddenly unbearably tight. Sweat prickled the nape of his neck.Fuck this—
“There’s a room upstairs,” the nurse announced, stepping around Rhys. “It’s got nothing in it, but we’re rustling up some furniture. Maybe a TV.”
The social worker and a couple of nurses mobilised to begin moving the children out of A&E. Rhys kept back as they directed the operation with hand signals, but the little girl he’d encountered at the incident site didn’t move.
Rhys pushed past the seemingly inept social worker and picked her up. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you.”
The girl showed no indication that she’d understood, but she didn’t protest either. Rhys took it as a win and joined the line of exiting children. They passed the staff room to get wherever they were going. Marc spotted Rhys and came to the door.