Chapter 1

1

Large flakes of frozen precipitation appeared pink swirling in the red strobe atop the ambulance roof. Winter in the big city could be pretty, unless one was staring up at it from flat out down on cold, slushy black pavement.

“Can you tell us what happened?”

Two EMTs tended to my lower half. Each touch made something hurt, and every time I reached up to swipe at my glasses, a jolt of deep, searing pain ran down my whole left side. “Ow.” Every time. “I thought jogging in the snow would be fun,” I said.

“How’d that work out for you?” The male attendant had seemed a little grouchy from the start.

“You tell me.”

He did. “I don’t think you’ll be running for a while.”

“You fell down the stairs?”

“Yup,” I told the woman bundled up against the chill that was biting me every place on my body that didn’t burn like fire. “Every one. First foot out the door and down I went.” The eventual bruise on my ass would be nothing compared to the one to my ego.

“Yikes.”

With another pass at my glasses, I was able to catch her turning back from a quick glance toward the steep flight of forty-six metal steps that went up the side of my apartment building.

“Exercise will kill you,” Grouchy But Sexy First Responder Dude muttered.

“He’s not going to die,” his partner promised. “You’re not,” she assured me.

“Not even of hypothermia?” I wanted to ask.

“Do you know what year it is?”

“Um, 2018?”

“Try not to move.”

That was a hard ask, when my vision was completely obscured every few seconds and her partner was so cute. “Sorry.” Not being able to see only added to my anxiety, which, though it did have its benefits as a distraction from the agony I was in, was rather intense at the moment.

“For your own good,” the female of the duo said. “Do you know the whole date?”

“January…something…2018. Just after New Year’s.”

“Close enough.”

City Ambulance Techs was abbreviated on their official, toasty-looking bomber jackets. The CATs had been pawing me a while, pulling at my jacket, the sweatshirt beneath it, and the running pants that weren’t very warm to begin with, all in an effort to assess my injuries. Wet fabric on wet skin with more wetness below me and some falling from the sky resulted in chattering teeth

“We’ll get you a blanket in a second. What’s your name?”

The female EMT had asked that already. This time, it was likely her idea of a distraction, or possibly a test. I’d been almost truthful regarding how many times I’d banged my head whilst tumbling down all those steps, like an out of control six-foot-two Slinky. “Russel Aaron Spears, like Britney, but I can’t dance.”

“You’re cute.” She brushed off my lenses for me with her neon orange glove.

I wasn’t. “What’s your name?” I figured I’d answered enough questions to get away with asking one or two.

“Brenda. This is Mark.”

“What’s up?” he asked.

“Me pretty soon?” I tried to put the better of my two feet flat on the pavement. “Ow.”

“Yeah. Not happening,” Mark said. “No dancing, no standing no walking, no jogging.”

I’d tried to stand before, right after the fall. “Fuck.” I hoped cursing was allowed. I could still do that, and it didn’t even hurt.

“Pain is good right now,” Mark told me. “Just the leg, or so it seems. Could have been worse.”

“Yeah.” I shivered.

“Let’s get him out of here,” Brenda said. “It’s cold.”

That was an understatement. Alexa was calling it frigid.

“We’ll be taking you over to Mercy, Russel. Is there anyone you’d like us to call to meet you there?”

The worst part of the whole ordeal thus far, other than the pain, was the seemingly endless stretch of time I’d spent lying all by myself. My city wasn’t the one that never slept. Everyone else in my building was off in dreamland, and the streets were empty. Staring up into a pitch black sky while being pelted by soggy, cold confetti, I felt a kinship with that Life Alert lady. Falling and not being able to get up was no joke, even at just twenty-eight. Thank goodness I’d had my phone, which now had a large crack down the whole length of the screen.

“Where are your gloves?” Brenda’s thoughts were apparently racing, too.

“I tend to lose them. Mostly just the right one.”

“‘Cause you can’t stay off your phone.” Mark was right.

The tip of my finger had finally stopped bleeding from when I’d dialed 911, at least. The blood coursing through me had probably frozen, like the water in the pipes down in the basement the other night.