Hotline Fling

22: Say Something

Damian's POV

Say something? What the fuck was I supposed to say after June ripped open the most impactful moment of my adult life, the incident that sobered my cocky ass into a detached, soulless robot? Any words I formed before June's answer evaporated into a nightmare the more she spoke, unwrapping a single coincidence I refused to believe. Because it was fucking impossible. Impossible.

The same events haunted me to this day, and I couldn't ignore them any more than I could answer her other than the gaping hole my mouth formed.

It's her. It's fucking her.
What the fuck was I supposed to say? Her parents were gone before I arrived on the scene?

Not even the wind from our exposed, elevated position on the George Washington Bridge stifled the late August heat and humidity choking the air. Within two minutes, my new dark navy blue uniform was drenched with sweat at the neck and armpits. Among ear static of buzzed radio comms and car honks from impatient asshole drivers, officers, EMS workers, and even an NYFD truck worked tirelessly to reroute the gridlocked traffic, tend to the victims, and clear the accident scene.

Two EMS workers in white shirts and navy blue pants hoisted up a large man strapped onto a silver metal gurney. Crimson blood stained the sides of his head and neck. Dotted black with coagulation, it matted his beard into coarse clumps. His eyes closed and head strapped down, he presented no signs of life. One of the workers administered him a breathing bag while the other steered him to an open ambulance.

A loud exhale whooshed over my shoulder, followed by a low, crass voice soaked in disappointment. "Blew a point-one-nine."

Over my shoulder, my superior officer's gaze hardened. He hadn't shaved down the grays around his ears yet, so they curled around the edges of his peaked uniform hat with his black strands. His Sergeant badge glinted in the sunlight as he crossed his tanned-skin arms over his chest. A frown drew his thick brows together and marred his red, sweat-drenched forehead.

With trembling fingers, Sergeant Hernandez dragged the back of his right wrist over the glistening beads that threatened to drip into his eyes. The brown in his irises darkened the longer he gazed at the carnage ahead. "Fucking shame, they were coming back from vacation."

In a trial by fire, he made me walk through the accident setup, then corrected my lack of observed details.

"Notify the victims' family."

Those four words hit me like a punch in the gut. En route, I knew I would remember the experience, no matter how much I didn't want to. It wasn't from the first time I witnessed gory car accident details so close that I smelled and tasted them, sobering up my arrogance from graduating top of my Academy class. The reality that those two white-sheeted bodies were related to someone who didn't yet know cemented the experience in my memory.

My brain was absolute mush from the moment I sat in the air-conditioned cruiser. With blocked traffic, we could've walked faster into New Jersey. Streets I knew very well, and grew up on, blurred around me. My brain buzzed, and a ringing pierced my ears. Even closed, my eyes hurt from strain.

The only movement I could manage was plucking my shirt between my finger and thumb at the center of my chest. To cool off my leaking perspiration, I tugged at it over and over.

Hernandez rehearsed our standard, lawyer-approved protocol speech to use in these circumstances. He could've spoken Greek, for all I heard.

"We're here."

Hernandez's quiet voice snapped open my eyes. I blinked a few times, then smoothed and tucked in my sweat-soaked shirt. With a lurched stop, he parked along a rare suburban street. Jersey City. Boxy houses sat next to each other, separated by small patches of grass. The one we parked out of was a fucking jungle of knee-high blades.