Chapter 16
“What the. . .” Sam muttered. Tamara looked over at him, and noticed how wide his eyes were. The traffic wasn’t bad enough for him to be growing so nervous. She knew how much he hated driving in traffic, but this wasn’t bad.
They were coming up on a stoplight, but Sam wasn’t slowing down. She trusted him, but as they drew closer, she began to worry. Then she noticed him stomping his foot. He couldn’t slow down.
“Hold on,” Sam warned, his voice thick with fear. He reached out, putting his arm across her breasts. Any other time and she would have been happy to help him grope her, but right now she barely even noticed. The light was red, and cars were speeding through the intersection.
As they barreled into the intersection, Tamara could see that they weren’t going to make it. A large black diesel truck was headed right for them. She could see the whites of the driver’s eyes, and heard his tires screech as he tried to stop. He wouldn't make it—there wasn’t enough time or space.
Tamara threw her hand up against the window, knowing how futile the gesture was. Time appeared to slow down. Tamara watched as the tires of the truck locked up and they began to bounce on the asphalt. There was no way it was going to stop in time.
No, I can’t die like this. Not now! Her mind screamed. Her gut twisted as the grill of the large truck drew closer. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see it happen. She couldn't. The twisting became a wrenching sensation and grew worse. Pain blossomed in her stomach. Tamara screamed.
“Tamara,” Sam’s voice said, but she refused to open her eyes. She didn’t want to watch the diesel plow into her side, smashing her against Sam and likely killing them both. “Tamara, it’s alright!” She was jostled around as the truck hit them. She tried to huddle into a ball, but something had hold of her shoulders, stopping her. “We’re safe.”
For a second, Tamara couldn’t make sense of her surroundings. Where was the twisted metal? Where was the pain she should be feeling? Where was the blood and gore that should be painted all over the inside of Sam’s car?
Her belly felt hollow.
She blinked a few times and placed her hand on her head. “What happened?” she asked, looking out the window. She expected to see the truck charging for them. Instead, there was a green lawn in front of a white house. They were stopped. More than that, they were unharmed!
“I don’t know.” Something in Sam’s voice made her turn and look at him, but he was looking behind them. “I thought for sure that truck was going to hit us, but it missed us. It's not possible, but it did.”
Tamara followed Sam’s gaze and saw the truck stopped in the intersection. Stopped wasn’t the right word. It was on its side. Smoke billowed up from its hood. People rushed to get the driver out. The trailer had jackknifed and crushed another car that might have been parked on the side of the road.
“We’d better go help them,” Sam mumbled but he didn’t move. Tamara could see his hands were shaking. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared wide-eyed back at the accident. “Maybe I can help them.” He still didn’t move.
“Sam,” Tamara said, trying to encourage him. Was he having some sort of flashback? She placed her hand on his arm. His muscles were taut and solid. He jumped at the touch, flinching away from her. “Sam?”
“Right,” he said, shaking his head. “I can help.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Before she could think to say anything, he turned, opened the door, and stepped out. Tamara was right behind him. “Stay here. You may not want to see this.”
Tamara ignored him and followed as he rushed to the scene. When they arrived, someone was pulling the driver out of the truck. Blood poured from a gash on the man’s head. He was awake, but seemed dazed.
“Hey. Hey, what’s your name?” Sam asked, bending down at looking into the man’s eyes.
“Huh?” The man’s head bobbed as he looked up at Sam. “Uh, Joe. My name is Joe.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” the man that had pulled Joe out of his truck demanded as Sam examined the gash on Joe’s head.
“I’m a medic,” Sam responded. “Head wounds bleed a lot. This might leave a scar, but you’ll live. Do you know where you are, Joe?”
Sam continued talking to Joe as he checked the man’s arms and legs. The man was dazed, but as Sam continued working on him he began to come around.
“Shit, this is bad,” Sam grunted. He was examining the man’s leg and she saw how much blood was soaking his pants.
Flashes of another leg, one smoother and paler, with the bone protruding through the skin flashed in her mind, but she forced it away. Her head began to hurt, but she stuffed that away, too. She wanted to be ready if Sam needed her.
“This is going to hurt,” Sam warned.
“What? Oh, Fu—“ the man passed out as Sam jostled the leg. Had he just reset a broken bone?
“Quick, get his shirt off. That bone may have cut an artery, and I need some kind of bandage.” Sam worked hard, tearing the man’s shirt into a crude bandage, and wrapped up his leg.
“Let’s get him in the shade,” he ordered a couple men around him. Joe began to wake up as they carefully moved him. “Do you remember what happened?” Sam asked when they laid him back down. Tamara could hear sirens in the distance coming closer.
“Yeah, I was, uh, looking down at my phone and when I looked up, there was a car in the intersection. I tried to slam on my brakes, but. . . . Oh God! The car! Is everyone alright? I must have hit it. There’s no way I missed it.”
Joe tried to sit up, but Sam’s strong arm on his chest held him down. “Relax, you’re hurt, but they’re okay. You missed them.”
But Joe was shaking his head. “No. No, I couldn’t have! I’ve been driving long haul for nearly fifteen years and my baby doesn’t stop or turn on a dime. It must be under my rig. Someone needs to get to them!”
Men in red and white uniforms arrived. Tamara saw an ambulance was parked behind them.
“He hit his head,” Sam started telling the medics. “His leg has a nasty break and it was bleeding pretty bad. I did what I could for him. It’s not a tourniquet, but it’s on as tight as I could get it. He hit his head hard enough he might have a concussion. No other injuries that I could see.”
The medic looked at Sam with confusion, then looked down at his leg. He grunted and worked with his partner to get the man backboarded and put on a stretcher. They loaded him up on the ambulance and his partner started taking vitals and tending to the driver. The medic turned back to Sam and asked, “Army or a Jarhead?”
Sam chuckled in spite of himself. "Army. I was a combat medic in Afghanistan.
“Good job here. And good job over there, whatever you did,” the medic offered Sam his hand. “I’m in the National Guard. I drill with the 50th ASG out of Homestead.”
Sam gripped the hand and even smiled. The medic didn’t flinch at the blood on Sam’s hands. “A lot of people give the National Guard a bunch of crap for being weekend warriors, but I’ve seen some of you guys in action. Some of the finest soldiers I knew were in the National Guard and Reserves.”
“Thank you,” the medic responded with a genuine smile. “Anything else we need to know about him?”
“His name is Joe,” Sam offered. The paramedic turned and left to help his partner.
“I take it you might know what happened here?” a uniformed cop asked before Tamara even realized he was there.
“Yeah,” Sam started, but someone else interjected.
“I saw the whole thing, Randall,” Jenkins stated. The suspended cop walked up and butted Sam out of the way. What the hell was he doing here? “Sam ran the stoplight, causing the accident.”
“Great!” Sam exhaled. “Of course you’re here!” Sam turned back to Randall, pointing a blood covered hand at Jenkins. “I want to file a complaint against him. He’s been harassing me and my girlfriend, threatening both of us.”
Tamara felt a powerful thrill course through
her body at being called Sam’s girlfriend. She’d finally done it. He was now hers, and hers alone. He’d admitted it out loud!
“Listen you piss-ant crippled fucker, you’re not getting away with anything this time. Those lights have traffic cameras that’ll prove this was your fault!” Jenkins crowed, bringing Tamara out of her good mood.
“Jenkins, stand down,” Randall demanded, stepping between Sam and the disgraced officer before they could come to blows. He waved another officer over. “Take Jenkins over there and see what he has to say.” As soon as Jenkins was far enough away, Randall turned back to face Sam. “I take it you’re Sam Mendez?” Sam grimaced, but nodded. “We’re all familiar with Jenkins’s opinion of you.” The way he said that didn’t tell Tamara what he thought. “Why don’t you tell me what happened here?”
Sam began his explanation from when Jenkins accosted him at the aquarium. He finished talking about when they miraculously made it through the intersection.
“Is that everything?” Randall asked.
Tamara thought back over everything. She could still picture the grill of the truck only a few feet outside her window. How had it missed her? Even Joe had been adamant that he couldn’t have avoided them. She glance at the still smoking truck, and realized that it had stopped just before hitting them. What could have stopped the large vehicle like that?
“No, that’s not everything,” someone else chimed in. Tamara recognized the man that’d originally challenged Sam when he tried to help Joe. “This man helped make sure the driver of that truck was okay. He kept a level head through it all. He bandaged up the driver of that truck and probably saved his life.”
“Uh huh,” Randal grunted. “I see.” He turned back to Sam. “Is there any damage to your vehicle?”
“Like I said, the brakes aren’t working, but I think he missed us,” Sam responded.
They walked over to the car. Tamara noticed a large scratch along the passenger side of the car that she didn’t remember being there before.
Randall noticed it too. He bent down to get a closer look without touching it. "Looks new, was this here before?”
“No,” Sam said. Tamara looked at him and noticed that the color had drained from his face. His hands were shaking and his eyes were wide as he stared at the slight damage.
“Humph,” Randal grunted, looking from the tipped over truck, to the car, and back at the truck. “Something isn’t adding up.”
Tamara went to Sam, concerned for the large man. She had been proud of him when he conquered his obvious fear of going to the accident. And even more proud with how well he handled Joe and his wounds. But now he looked terrified.
She reached for his hand, but he yanked it back as if burned.
“I’m going to call a tow truck for your car, Mr. Mendez. In the meantime I’d like you to come down to the station and answer a few questions.”
“Huh?” Sam asked “Um, yeah. Sure. As long as that bastard isn’t the one asking questions.”
Tamara tried again to reach out to him, but he turned away and started walking towards the police cruiser.
What had she done to hurt him? Tamara wondered. Her chest hurt, and she found herself shaking. Her breath came out in shallow gasps as she tried to reign in her emotions. Why had he ignored her? She had no idea what had happened, but the way Sam was acting only made her hurt. Didn’t he know that she needed him right now?
“You’d better come along as well, miss,” Randall told her. She barely heard him, too lost in her own worries. When he indicated for her to head to his car, she started walking, but felt numb.
Sam was hers. He’d admitted it! She’d finally won. What was wrong? They were alive. Sam should be happy.
Instead he was treating her like something to be avoided.
She didn’t realize she was in the police car, until Randall closed the door for her.
“What are you?” Sam demanded in a strong whisper. Tamara looked up at him, hopeful now that he was talking to her. The look in his eyes scared her instead. “You washed up on the beach barely more than skin and bones, but a couple days later you could put the models of Victoria Secret to shame. You grabbed a burning pan out of my oven with your bare hands, and didn’t get hurt. And now, today, we should have been crushed by that truck, but something stopped it before it could hit us. I don't believe in this shit, but I don't know what's going on and it's freaking the hell out of me. What are you, Tamara?”
The driver’s door opened, and Randall got in before she could think of an answer. The way her name crossed his lips made her want to scream, but she held herself back. The other officer slipped into the passenger side a moment later.
“Jenkins will meet us at the precinct,” he said.
Tamara barely heard him. The way she felt when people helped her and the weird feeling in her belly. It was still there, the hollow feeling that made her feel weak. Was Sam right? Weird things kept happening, but she couldn't explain any of it. Was she some kind of monster?
"Sam," she breathed and then swallowed down the sudden lump in her throat. Fuck, now she was crying too. What the hell was wrong with her? "I don't—"
He shook his head and looked at the back of the cop's head. She followed his gaze and then looked back at him. Blinking away the tears she bit her lip and nodded. She sniffed and turned her head to stare out the window. Even now, when she could practically taste his fear in the air—fear of her—he was protecting her.
The silence in the back seat of the car made the drive to the precinct take forever.