image [https://i.imgur.com/6vbFNuh.png]

When I woke up, I was laid up in a hospital bed, having traded my station uniform for a hospital gown.

The nurse who’d been in my room as I came to was so shocked, she brought in the on-call doctor immediately. Though I’d come into the ER practically on death’s door, they were stunned by the fact that in only a couple of hours, I’d completely stabilized like nothing had happened.

I’d asked if any other firefighters had gotten sick from the exposure, but apparently I was the only one afflicted. Upon closer inspection of my gear, there’d been ventilation issues in my mask, so I’d been much more heavily inundated than just about anyone else on the scene. Just my luck, I thought bitterly.

The doctors were apprehensive about discharging me, so I got to look forward to a restless night at the hospital on top of everything else. I dreaded trying to sleep anywhere that wasn’t my place; it just felt unsafe in ways I couldn’t describe.

When the puke pills they’d given me finally took effect, I made it a priority to send a text to Mercy. She was an obsessive news watcher, and rather than catch my hospitalization on TV, I wanted her to have heard it from me first. Unfortunately, my phone was back at the station, so I had to call her from the hospital bed.

Despite my best efforts, my voice felt gravelly and pained, so I know the message I left had to have sounded at least a little unnerving. Still, when I didn’t get an immediate call back, I figured I’d see Mercy tomorrow.

However, only forty-five minutes later, Mercy came whirling into my room like a tornado. The second her gaze fell upon me, she burst into tears. “Manny!” She cried. “Oh my god— Manny!”

I can’t imagine just how awful I was to look at. I was hooked up to several machines, each one beeping tirelessly to alert the nurses of whichever part of my body was failing that second. Judging from my hands, my skin had taken on the telltale pallor of illness, and my lips were dryer than a desert. Immediately, she rushed to the side of the bed, hands flying up to my face.

“Jesus, you look terrible,” she said. The longer she stared, the more upset she became. “Are you okay? What on Earth happened?”

“Damn, Benz, at least tell me I’m pretty.” I smiled weakly. “You’re gonna make me all self conscious.”

“How can you even make jokes at a time like this?” She pulled her hands back, and I felt a pang of disappointment. “I guess I should be glad you’re able to talk at all… did they tell you how long you’ll be in for?”

I shrugged. “Well, I know they’re gonna keep me overnight for observation, but they’re all confused as hell. When I got here, some of the docs thought I was gonna die, but now they’re saying I’m pretty much fine.”

“Die?!” She gasped. “Oh, Manny…”

God, I hated making Mercy cry. More tears came streaming down as she anxiously twisted a tissue back and forth in her lap, cheeks reddening as she wept.

Though it felt like a Herculean task, I moved my arm just so that I could hold her hand; when the IV needle pierced further into my skin, I forced myself not to wince. “Hey, hey. No more tears.” I squeezed her hand. “Please?”

In reply, Mercy sniffed and dabbed her face with her tissue. It was clear by the crooked name tag on her chest and her branded cardigan that she’d just gotten off of work, and when I saw what time it was on the clock, I can only imagine how anxiously she’d waited in rush hour traffic before she got to my room.

“So you’re going to be okay, right?” Mercy’s mouth formed a flat, nervous line. “Like, no long-term damage?”

“Great question— they don’t know what really happened to me,” I said. “They think I got poisoned by the lab chemicals, but for now, I’m stable. As for the future… who knows?”

“But… what actually happened while you were out there?” She asked. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was afraid to actually find out. “What went wrong?”

As I opened my mouth, a nurse came in to check on me. She’d mentioned something about the doctor, mentioned something again about if I was hungry, mentioned something else about visiting hours. I wasn’t paying much attention to her, to be honest; I was more focused on the warmth of Mercy’s hand in mine.

Once the nurse had left, it was just me and Mercy. Between the sound of her sniffles and the chorus of beeping devices, it was like being in a hospital drama. Already, it felt like this was all making a big deal out of nothing.

“Look, I’ll tell you more about it later, okay?” I squeezed her hand once more. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now, honestly. I feel like fucking shit.”

“That’s okay, Manu.” She gave my hand a simple pat. “Just focus on getting better.”

Even if it was hard for her to be here, I was just glad that Mercy was here at all. It didn’t matter how smudged her cheeks were from her running mascara or how the lighting in the room washed her out - it was good to see her. To feel her touch, soothing and sweet, was healing in its own right.

“You know, I’d hug you, but I don’t wanna disturb all these…” She gestured to the lines connecting me to the machines nearby. “These things.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s alright— I’d probably barf all over you, anyway. If I even have anything left to barf.”

For the first time in her visit, she smiled, though it was obvious that she was trying to put on a brave face. “So what time do you think you’ll be out tomorrow?”

“Depends on if they find anything else freaky, but probably in the morning,” I replied. “At any rate, fingers crossed that the Chief’ll let me have the rest of the week off to recover. We should do something fun.”

“Are you insane?” Mercy narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s not a vacation! You need to rest. Don’t even think about it.”

“Maybe I’ll get a new tattoo.” I smiled, thinking out loud. “I’ve been thinking a neck piece would look pretty sweet, but some of the scripture on my sleeve could use some touching up…”

“Stay your ass at home, Manny.” She stared at me with the seriousness only a mother could muster. “I mean it.”

“¿Eres mi jefa now, Benz?” I couldn’t help but razz her; it was the only way I knew to alleviate the tension. “Since when did I take orders from you?”

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Unamused, Mercy’s gaze traveled down my chest and all the way to my feet before circling back to my face again. Tears ran down her cheeks once more. “Why can’t you work a normal job where you don’t get hurt?” She asked quietly. “Where I don’t have to worry about this kind of stuff?”

In shock, I blinked. She’d never objected to firefighting before - in fact, she’d always been proud of me for it. Dozens of times over the years, she bought me t-shirts about it so embarrassing that I only ever wore them when I did chores that would ruin clothes that I actually liked, so this was a new development.

“Aw, come on— you know how bored I’d get doing a desk job?” I tried to laugh, but my abs ached from vomiting earlier. “I’m an adrenaline junkie— I’m hooked on the excitement.”

“Yeah, well, one of these days it’s gonna kill you,” she whispered, voice wobbling. “And losing you is gonna kill me.”

My heart splintered in my chest. Our hands had never parted, so I squeezed hers one last time, but it didn’t make a difference. She pulled away from me and stood up, wiping her face clean.

“Benz…” I began.

“Please don’t try to joke with me, I’m serious.” Mercy crossed her arms across her chest. “Every day I think I’m gonna get ‘the call’, or I’m gonna see your name on the news, or… or I don’t know, maybe it’ll be just like Feliz, where they send men in uniform to my house. Probably won’t even get that much, actually. I don’t know if I count as any kind of next-of-kin for you.”

“Can you just drop it, please?” I pleaded. “I’m not really up for an argument right now.”

She dabbed the tissue against her nose and sniffed forcefully to clear it. “You don’t know how hard this is on me, Manny. I just want you to be safe.”

Frustrated, I sighed. “Everything else I do in life is for you, so can you let me have this one thing? Or is that asking too much?”

My words came out crueler than I intended for them to, and regret immediately washed over me. Tears welled up in Mercy’s eyes again, but rather than seek comfort in my arms, she shot up to her feet and made her way to the exit.

“Call me when you’re getting out,” she said, each word like an icicle. “Joey’s car is back to normal, so she can come get you if I can’t.”

“Alright,” I replied weakly. “See you tomorrow, Benz.”

She didn’t bother looking back.

･ ･ ･

Once I’d earned myself a clean bill of health, I was finally discharged from the hospital.

At some point before my paperwork had been finalized, someone from the crew - probably Heather or DeShawn, if I had to guess - had dropped off my phone, wallet and my keys, which were all waiting for me at the front desk with the nurses. As I waited for Mercy by the hospital entrance, I checked the various messages on my phone.

I scrolled through my notifications: some kind of glittery sticker of a Get Well Soon bear from Cleo; a missed call from Mercy; a voicemail from Chief Cormorant ordering me to take the rest of the week off before coming back in (damn, I wasn’t even getting a full five days off?)…

But most interesting of all was the message I got from Cliff.

You’re in luck. I got some info for you, it began. Shelter near S St. Paul St by the art academy. 3 of my boys have seen a guy matching his desc hanging around there recently. If I were you I’d start there.

My heart beat so wildly that if I had a pulse reader on, they’d yank me right back into that hospital bed. While the EMTs had fought for my life in the back of the ambulance, the only thing that kept me tethered to consciousness was how badly I wanted to see Raja again one last time. If there was a chance, I had to take it.

That excitement was swiftly snuffed out when, instead of Mercy, Joanna came wheeling up to the pickup area in her little red Malibu. She unlocked the doors and then stared at me blankly until I came inside. “Buenas, Jojo.” I smiled warmly as I buckled my seat belt. “¿Qué pasa?”

“Get in,” Joanna snapped. As usual, friendliness was always wasted on her. “Need to make any stops?”

My stomach gurgled like an unfixed septic tank. “You up for some food?”

“Not really,” she said dismissively, “but I can take you through a drive-thru or something.”

After thinking about it, I didn’t want to spend more time with Joanna than was absolutely necessary, so I waved my hand and dropped the subject. I could always order takeout if I really wanted to.

As we sped off from the hospital, Joanna rolled down the window and lit a cigarette. I was normally rather unaffected by cigarette smoke - I mean, I kind of had to be - but today I found it harder to take than usual. Maybe she was smoking a new brand, I don’t know. It was just sort of making me sick, and I was really sick of being sick.

“Hey, could you…” I pointed to her cigarette.

“You don’t like it, get an Uber next time,” she replied sharply. Out of some sort of compromise, she unrolled my window for me, but it didn’t help nearly as much as she was acting like it would.

I didn’t feel like fighting with Joanna today, so I didn’t bother to say anything else. Instead, I stared out the window, thinking of Raja. I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to go about finding him, even with Cliff’s help. What were the odds that out of a city with millions of people, I’d luck into running into him twice?

During the drive, Joanna’s phone went off when we made a turn out of an intersection. When she picked up, I hadn’t heard her voice so light and sprightly in ages. “Hey, baby,” she sang. “What’s up?”

I didn’t really care to hear her talk to one of her boyfriends; I knew that at certain points, she broke up with them, but she would also get back together with them, so trying to keep up with them was a pointless endeavor. I tuned it out immediately.

The call was surprisingly brief, and when it was over, I looked at Joanna and tried to seem interested. “Who was that, Jojo? You got yourself a new man?”

“None of your business,” she replied.

“Ah, why bother asking when I already know the answer?” I teased. “Got yourself a carousel of guys at this point, don’t ya?”

“That’s rich coming from you, mujeriego.” Joanna let out a cross between a scoff and a hiss. “Or did you finally run out of girls in Dallas that can put up with your shitty Terminator jokes?”

Her words hit closer to home than they had any right to, and I’d winced without even thinking about it. The last relationship I’d had was laid to waste by night terrors, panic attacks and the fact that whatever was wrong with me just couldn’t be loved away by the right person. I was too much, and she was better off without me. We both knew that.

Since then, I’d resorted to one night stands and flings, but as of late, they’d left me hollow in a way that felt worse than just being alone, so I’d let my bed stay empty instead. Didn’t mean I liked it, but my options weren’t great. Just thinking about it was sorely depressing.

“Damn, girl,” I said, staring out through the window. I tried not to seem as wounded as I felt. “That’s harsh.”

Casually, Joanna snorted, flipping her turn signal on with a fluid motion. “Not my fault that the best you have to offer these days is los papeles.”

In spite of the urge to spit fire right back to her, I said nothing else. After we sank into another long stretch of silence, I couldn’t have been more grateful when she finally pulled up to my complex and unlocked the doors. We didn’t waste our breath to exchange any other words.

Now that Joanna sped off out of my line of vision, I pulled out my phone and found myself returning to Cliff’s message. Near South St. Paul street… art academy… I was making mental notes to look up a map as soon as I got inside, just to figure out where to start the search.

While in the middle of unlocking my front door, I noticed that a wasp’s nest was forming beside the overhead lamp. It was a bad idea to just leave it up there to grow bigger, so I made an additional mental note to bring out some hornet spray next time I left.