Jevon tapped out of WhatsApp and attempted a FaceTime call. The Wi-Fi failed for video, but the audio call went through until it failed to connect at Rhys’s end. Disappointment weighed heavily in Jevon’s bones. It was Saturday afternoon, and Rhys was on nights. Jevon would’ve regretted waking him up, but every snatched contact was precious. Missing one felt like the end of the world.
An inexplicable dread settled over Jevon. He sat up, boner forgotten, and rubbed his chest to disperse it, but agitation took hold of him instead. He’d been scheduled a rest afternoon, but suddenly the idea of spending the next four hours alone was awful.
He abandoned his bed, dressed in his least dirty clown clothes, and left the tent. The FFP big top was a five-minute unicycle ride away—three, if he avoided the sludge, and when he got there, he found a rowdy game of stuck-in-the-mud in full swing.
The noise and the joy you only saw in children when they ran without a care in the world was a welcome distraction. Jevon ditched his unicycle and joined in, scooping up the smaller children and dashing around the tent with them, shouting, whooping, and celebrating tiny victories as though they were changing the world. Because laughter did change the world, if only for a moment.
After the third game, the session leaders called a timeout to distribute juice and snacks. Jevon sat with the acrobat children from Aleppo. He’d grown close to them in the fortnight since they’d arrived, and they seemed drawn to him too—and Rhys, when they’d worked out that Jevon was talking to someone whenever he retreated to the corner with his phone.
The oldest boy—spokesman for the tight knit group—nudged Jevon’s arm. “Can we talk to the orange man?”
Jevon chuckled. He’d yet to tell Rhys about the nickname his flight suit had earned him. “You mean Rhys? I don’t know. I think he might be at work.”
The children continued to stare expectantly, reminding Jevon that Rhys being at work had proved no barrier to communication in the past. A tour of the rooftop base and the air ambulance had kept fifteen children crowded around Jevon’s phone for forty-five minutes a few days ago, before they’d broken form to put on a show for Rhys and his colleagues. “Seriously, guys. We can try, but don’t get upset if he can’t talk, okay? Rhys has a very important job.”
They made the call. Rhys didn’t pick up, and the kids wandered off, but Jevon stayed on the floor, picking idly at a leftover packet of raisins, trying not to scrutinise the time and wonder what Rhys was doing to stop him answering the phone. Jevon had told the kids he was probably working, but it wasn’t like Rhys to let two calls go by without some kind of response, even if it was a one-word text.
And it wasn’t like Jevon to fret over something so ridiculous either. He finished the raisins and hauled himself to his feet.Daft twat.There were all kinds of reasons why Rhys might not have called back. The fact that Jevon had lost the ability to think of any was irrelevant. Or maybe it wasn’t.Huh.Perhaps he did need those rest hours after all.
Jevon was on his way out of the big top when Anton appeared, carrying a baby that had come off the same boat as the Aleppo acrobats. “Oh, hey.” Jevon took the baby and fitted her to his hip. “I thought she was too poorly to come and play?”
“She was yesterday,” Anton said. “But we got a surprise shipment of antibiotics overnight. A donation from The Royal London Hospital.”
Royal London was where Rhys was based. Where the air ambulance he worked on took off from every day. Coincidence? Rhys hadn’t mentioned talking to hospital bosses, but he knew about the shortages the camp medical teams were facing. Knew how a simple resupply would keep hundreds of people alive long enough to continue their journeys.God, I love him.
Jevon relieved Anton of the baby for a while and took her to the magic show he’d been planning on skipping. With many of the children tired from a rambunctious afternoon, the performance was light and easy and filled with gentle laughter that made the baby girl hiccup with glee.
She was still smiling when Jevon returned her to her family a little while later.
And Rhys still wasn’t answering his phone.
J:Everything okay?
Jevon waited for two grey ticks to appear by the message to signal that it had been delivered, but for long minutes there was only one. Tired of fretting, he thrust the phone into his pocket and returned to his bed. His planned nap turned into a restless doze, and when he woke, the evening had turned into night, and temperatures in the camp had dropped. Jevon joined the medical staff passing out blankets and woolly hats to new arrivals, determinedly avoiding his blank phone screen. Camp officials liked children to stay in their assigned tents at night, but that didn’t mean FFP’s work was done.
It was close to midnight by the time Jevon had finished his rounds, sprinkling tiny foil dreamcatchers with “magic” dust. Anton was waiting for him, his face grave.
Jevon’s forced good mood faded. “What’s the matter? Did a boat come in?”
Anton shook his head. “No. It’s not that. Load your news app, Jevon. Something’s happened in London.”
Eighteen
Rhys hadn’t been born with a gut instinct that carried him through a paramedic shift; it had developed over time, nurtured by each and every job. Every patient. Each life he’d held in his hands. Five years deep and he was still learning, but as he dashed across London Bridge, tracking the shouts of panicked police officers, every nerve he had was in overdrive.
“Is there anyone else on scene?” Tarryn, the chopper doc for the shift, shouted ahead.
Rhys tossed a glance over his shoulder. “No. Just the police. LFB are on route.”
“Jesus.”
Rhys concurred. It was rare that a helicopter crew were first on scene, but they’d been on another run when the call had come in, loading their patient into a road ambulance. With the incident just over the bridge from their location, they’d opted to approach on foot, leaving the chopper to take to the sky and find somewhere closer to land.
They reached the other side of the bridge. A policeman called out, and Rhys zeroed in on him, absorbing the carnage. Blood. So much blood. Rhys’s stomach turned over.
He dropped to his knees, hands doing what they were meant to even before his brain had processed the patient’s injuries. “What happened?”
“Knife attack... like the last one,” the policeman said. “I’ve got two down here, one at your six and more further into the street to your left.”