Leon caught up with me in a few strides. Besides being 8 inches taller than me, he also had legs like a giraffe. Kind of moved like one, too. Graceful and yet with a touch of youthful awkwardness. I revised my estimate of his age down ten years.
“How old are you?” I asked as we passed the perfume counter. An improbable redhead smiled at me and held up a spritzer. I shook my head but she squirted me anyway. I was enveloped in a mist of sandalwood, jasmine, musk and vanilla that made me sneeze. Gagged. She looked offended as I waved the air in front of me.
“Phew! That stinks!” I complained and moved on as he took my elbow dragging me by store counters and displays back out into the mall’s open walkways until we exited on the opposite side of our entrance.
The parking lot was huge, filled with cars and tour buses sandwiched between a few trucks and SUVs. This wasn’t farm country where trucks were commonplace. There were so many men dressed as casual shoppers that it made my hackles raise and I wondered if all these undercover agents were here because of me.
One of them accidentally bumped me. Wrinkling his nose at my scent, he excused himself and walked towards one of those big black Navigators. I saw him look down at a cell phone but it was more than that because the jammer in my pocket was vibrating like crazy telling me that he had a tracking device.
I pulled Leon away from the vehicle in a detour. He didn’t say anything as he steered me towards a non-descript Ford Taurus, one of the thousands in the lot. Silver gray, the most boring color and one of the most common.
I sat in the passenger seat and buckled in as he drove smoothly away. Craning my neck around, I watched to see if any of the big SUVs followed but so many cars were coming and going, I couldn’t be sure if one was shadowing us.
“Relax,” Leon said. “Those agents haven’t a clue as to who I am nor are they looking for me.”
“You know they are agents?”
“Of course. They had a reading on you 12 minutes after you escaped and enough of a trace to know you were heading this way. The only thing out here where you could be heading to is the Mall. So they blanketed it with agents. Good thing you make a pretty girl.” He wrinkled his nose. “Stinky, too. It made the one asshole not even look at you.”
I sneezed. In the close confines of the car, the smell of the perfume was really bad. My eyes watered and he handed me a box of tissues. “How can you stand it?” I asked and he answered.
“It smells kind of nice. Sexy,” he grinned as I scooted further towards the door. “Don’t worry, little Chiquita. I have a beautiful lady that takes care of all my needs,” he said. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
“Where’s Rachel? Is she waiting for me at this safe house? How did she get out and who helped her?”
“She’ll meet you later,” was all he said. My stomach did flip flops because I felt something was wrong. I put it down to the near accident he just avoided as a garbage truck plowed through a red light and rear-ended the car in front of us. Then to my horror, it literally exploded into shrapnel with a major portion of it hitting the windshield and knocking our vehicle into three others like a mad ball in a pinball machine. And us with it. Blood spattered the windows as both of our heads cracked the glass. It knocked me silly for a moment. When I opened my eyes, I watched in delight as the sun caught individual shards floating effortlessly in a scintillating rainbow of jeweled colors. Time moved in microelements.
Leon’s groans brought me out of my reverie and time resumed its normal speed. I looked over and he was bleeding copiously from a hideous gash in his chest where a large piece of metal had impaled him pinning him to the seat just below and to the right of the xyloid process. Puncturing his lungs, liver and just missing his spine.
“Leon.” I spat out a mouthful of blood but I thought it was just from biting my tongue. Unhooking my seat belt, I leaned over and touched the metal spear.
“Don’t,” he said faintly. “Bleed out.”
“Leon, you’ll die either way. This is gonna hurt.” I concentrated and felt the warmth run through me, down my fingers and into the metal. He screamed as it cooked his insides and I pulled free the spear as it loosened. Only a trickle of blood followed. I concentrated on healing the huge lacerations inside his body; he coughed and expelled a veritable flood of oxygen-rich blood in my face. His went from pale grayish tan to a rich bronze, and his eyes widened as he took a deep full breath of air.
When I took my hand away, the hole in his chest was gone and with it, all the other scrapes and dings. His eyes closed and he slipped into shock-induced sleep.
Moving like an old lady, I punched at the crumpled door but it wouldn’t open. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I kicked and the whole thing flew off to land in the street at the foot of a pedestrian who was on his cell phone. I ignored him and pushed my way towards the other cars involved in the accident. There were five counting the garbage truck but I didn’t check on them as the drivers were wandering around shocked but unharmed. My goal was the remains of the car that they had totaled.
The front half was smashed into the front of a bus kiosk and nothing was left of the stand. If anyone had been inside it, they were gone. When I looked inside the car, I nearly gagged at the mess of what had been a driver. The steering wheel had sheared off crushing her rib cage, the door had crumpled in amputating both legs and one arm. The only reason she was still alive was that the airbag had cushioned some of the impacts and was keeping her from bleeding out. She was unconscious, her pulse so faint that I could barely feel it.
As my hands touched her, she blinked her eyes, stared into mine and spoke. “My kids.”
I couldn’t even tell if she was white or Afro-American, she was that bloody and bruised. Her internal injuries were so vast that I was amazed she was still alive.
“How many kids?” I asked urgently.
“Three. Two boys. Girl.”
“I’ll find them,” I told her and was able to stabilize her. Removing the parts holding her in required no more energy than healing her but I could feel it draining me faster and faster. Reattaching the limbs was child’s play compared to healing her internal organs.
Someone behind me shouted, “Oh my God! There are kids in here!”
I tried to run but my legs felt like Jell-O as I stumbled over to a bizarre sight. The back half of the car stood impaled on a broken light pole like a giant lollipop. Kids’ hands hung from what remained of broken windows; blood dripped steadily down the fingers. I knew some were alive; I could hear faint moans above the ominous creaking of metal tearing. People gathered underneath taking pictures but I knew my jammer was still working and would prevent them from posting anything on U-Tube.
“Call 911,” I said and put my hand on the pole’s base. Heat flared, the metal softened and slowly, with infinite care, I directed the angle of descent until both wreckage and pole were on the ground. One of the onlookers stepped forward and offered to help. Together, we examined the remains and pulled on the doors. The rear left side flew off and a pre-teen boy fell out at my feet.
“You know first aid and CPR?” I asked and he nodded. “Good. Take him over there and assess him.” I’d already scanned him and other than a broken ankle and sprained ribs, he was uninjured.
“His back or neck might be broken,” he said. “You’re not supposed to move him.”
“This wreck is going to fall any minute and crush all of us,” I replied. “They’re not safe in there. He has a broken ankle, bruised ribs and maybe a lung so it’s safe to move him. But move him by supporting his head and neck with his shirt.” I showed him how and he agreed. I watched until he had dragged the boy out of the way.
Crawling inside, I found the other two and swallowed back nausea. The girl was bad, maybe dead and the boy broken in so many places that moving him was too risky so I did what I could inside the car. This time, the heat took longer and made the interior light up like a Christmas tree. I heard voices outside over the strident sounds of sirens and helicopter blades.
Carried the boy out and laid him on the piled coats that the crowd had put down. Another covered him. There was complete silence as I brought out the girl. She hung limp in my arms, so gray and white that they knew she was dead. Her head fell backward and from the angle, I knew she had broken her neck. Death must have been instantaneous and painless. I laid her down on a red wool jacket and looked at the crowd, tears running down my face.
“No,” I said. “No. Not on Christmas Eve!” Pouring myself into my hands, I willed her to live, I gave everything left in me; saw the crushed and mangled spinal cord and piece by piece, cell by cell, I rebuilt her spine, fused the bones and made her better than before.
I found that precious, unmeasurable spark that poets called the soul and gave part of mine to her so that it kick-started what had been slowly fading away. She met me there and I knew her, her family, her mother, brothers, and father. I became a part of that family. Her grandparents were there and gently pushed her towards me saying it was not our time to walk their path.
Under my hands, I felt the faintest tremor of a shiver, a beat of an unbroken heart, the shifting of tiny muscles. She opened her eyes and whispered my name. Around us was a cocoon of indrawn breaths, a silence of hushed cathedral shaped immensity. She sat up, drawing the wool coat around her even as I knew that she was allergic to it. I had no need to tell her about the family, she knew what I had done. I tried to stand up but fell over. It broke the crowd’s stillness and one of them, a woman reached down to grab me.
“Honey, are you alright?” she asked and I smiled lopsidedly.
“I will be.” Now, photos of me were popping everywhere. I staggered up with her help and everyone wanted to touch me. I shrank back. “Please. I gotta throw up.” I begged and a lane appeared just as the first Paramedics arrived at the scene. I slipped through the crowd and as they turned to look at Life Flight, I headed for a back alley where I could rest. I wanted to go back and check on Leon but the minute I took two more steps, a crushing blackness swept over me. I never even felt it when I landed face first on the sidewalk.
*****
Washington General was known for its Trauma Center especially for GSWs. It was informed that Life Flight was bringing in multiple victims from a multi-vehicular accident involving a garbage truck and cars. They braced for severe trauma and readied the ORs.
As the first victims arrived, they were shocked. Not by the injuries but at the lack of major ones. No one had anything more serious than bruises and scrapes, even the child one first-aid trained witness had vowed was dead.
Curiously, one driver had holes in both the front and back of his clothing consistent with a through and through impalement but the only evidence was a bruise on both sides of his torso. His blood pressure was low and he showed signs of shock as did all the victims.
The worst case was a teenager who had administered first aid to all the victims according to eye witness reports. She had been found unconscious with deteriorating vitals, on the sidewalk behind the crowds. Paramedics intubated her, put her on IV fluids and a cardiac monitor but it wasn’t until the nurses stripped her in the ED that they realized it wasn’t a teenaged girl but a young boy in a wig.
“Transgender?” they wondered but continued with their care.
“BP is 60/42, pulse 32, respirations 30 rapid and shallow,” the nurse reported.
“No blood in his rectum,” the ER doc said. “Let’s get X-Rays and an ultrasound of his belly and CAT scan of his head. Let’s see if he’s bleeding inside.” He opened an eye and stared at the brilliant blue orb, flashing a penlight in both. “Right pupil is blown. Looks like we’re dealing with a subdural hematoma. Let’s go, people. Our golden hour is ticking.”
“Anyone know his name?” one of the nurses asked the Paramedics who had brought him in.
“Asked and someone said he’d come out of a Ford Taurus with another victim. Name of Leon DeCarlos.”
“His…son?” He looked at the dark red hair that was almost black.
“He’s not married. Girlfriend works at Bethesda Hospital. We’ve notified her and she’s on her way over.”
“This DeCarlos conscious?”
“No. He was in shock, we transported him by ambulance.”
“Okay. He’s J. Doe until we learn who he is,” the doctor nodded as they whisked him up to CAT scan.