Blue Bloods

Jesse bounced to her feet like a rubber ball. The shrapnel from the exploding helicopter had already gone past, so standing was relatively safe. Something had yanked Steve clear of her a moment after he knocked her down. That left only two of them on the roof with any serious paramedic experience.

Charlie had attacked the blazing wreckage with a pair of fire extinguishers. He looked for all the world like some bad gun fu firefighter. Angela pulled herself up, moving to check on Drew. She didn’t realize Steve had got hit. After a second, Jesse realized that she didn’t see Steve anywhere on the roof. A fist of ice gripped her stomach; a fall from the hospital roof was far enough to kill or maim, and there were no soft landing spots below.

A moment later, she saw the taut safety line stretching over the edge of the roof. Taut meant it still had weight on it. Weight meant that whatever dangled from it hadn’t hit the ground. She scrambled over the chairs to the edge of the roof as quickly as she could without being blown over herself. The wind had picked up, and she wasn’t a very big woman. Before she leaned over the edge, she grabbed another of Charlie’s safety lines and clipped it to her belt. It wasn’t a safety harness, but it should be enough to keep her from going over the edge.

Jesse leaned out over the edge of the roof, scanning down the taut safety line. For a moment she couldn’t understand what she saw. Halfway down the building, a bloodied fragment of helicopter blade stuck out from the side of the building. It looked like it had been hammered through the safety glass of the windows by the force of the impact. The double layered safety glass held it there, a bloody testament to Steve’s fall.

Ten feet beyond the blade, Steve clung to the rope, dangling from one arm. While she watched, he tried to grab at the rope with his other arm but couldn’t get his hand up. When his motion spun him around so she could see his front, she had all she could do to choke back the bile that rose in her throat. The entire front of his shirt had ripped in two, and blood soaked his shirt and the front of his pants. She couldn’t see the wound, but the blood on the helicopter blade was obviously his.

She glanced over her shoulder. Despite Charlie’s best efforts, the fire spread around the remains of the helicopter. Angela dragged Drew out of the path of the blaze. Given how much she struggled, she might not be much help anyway. She needed Drew and Charlie, and she didn’t have either of them.

If she didn’t get Steve to the emergency room, and fast, he would die. He’d probably die anyway at this point, but she didn’t care about that. If she couldn’t lift him, she had to lower him. She looked at the length of the rope. It would be barely enough, but if someone went downstairs to catch him, she could do it. She just had to be sure someone would catch him.

And make sure she wasn’t pulled over herself.

“Angela! Steve’s hurt! You need to get down to the ER entrance; I’ll lower him down to you!”

Over the growing roar of the wind and flames, Charlie’s shout was almost inaudible. “Steve’s dead! He took a chopper blade to the chest!”

Anger washed through Jesse, making her fumble as she worked her safety line into a hitch to help her lower Steve. “He’s still moving! He’s hanging on!”

When she said that, Angela stopped trying to wake Drew and sprinted for the roof access door. Charlie looked up from where he fought the blaze, and something fey and wild crossed behind his eyes. He squinted, as if trying to see something in the blaze, and his voice carried in the sudden silence. “And you guys say I make bad puns.”

The flames had stopped. They hadn’t gone out. They hovered there in midair, glowing faintly. They just didn’t move. Neither did the dust and smoke. It all just hung there in midair. Jesse felt frozen in place as she watched Charlie sprint over to the elevator door, unlock it, and shove Angela in. He sprinted to Jesse next, and when he touched her shoulder, he seemed to break her out of her fugue.

“Good idea. Wish we had some pulleys, but we’ll have to brute force it.”

Jesse couldn’t keep the acerbic tone out of her voice. “Yeah, well, I guess you’re not all that prepared, are you?”

Charlie looked at her, deadpan, as he moved the PVC lawn furniture out of the way of where they would be lowering Steve. “The pulleys are in the emergency helicopter, where they’d be useful on a rescue. There’s another set in my truck, but I thought that might take too long.”

He got a speculative look in his eyes. She tied off the last of the hitch and waved him over. “When we get a chance, you have got to tell me how you pulled that trick with the fire. We need to lift him a little to get some slack in his line. We can’t get a grip on it otherwise.”

He looked at the line, looked at her. “I have no idea, but it’s better than a treadmill for taking the wind out of me. I’m beat. You lift the line up. I’ll get a grip and pull. You grab the slack I make, then I’ll grab behind you. Got it?”

She nodded. “On three.”

They counted together, their voices loud in the stillness. “One. Two. Three!” Jesse lifted straight up, trying to give Charlie the angle to get a better grip. She stood smoothly, her hands pulling the rope as if it didn’t have a load on it. Her heart sank; Steve had slipped. Something still kept the rope taut, though, and she started hand over handing the rope up. She’d pulled in about ten feet when Charlie shouted behind her.

“Jesse! Stop! You’re fraying the rope on the edge of the building!”

She looked again; whatever the rope had hooked to had enough weight to fray the rope where it ran over the edge. Charlie shouted, “hold it there!” and ran for the edge, trailing his own safety line behind him. He took a grip, leaned out. When he looked back at Jesse, his eyes had gone wide. When he spoke, his kept his voice tight, controlled, just loud enough to be heard.

“Jesse, how long can you hold that?”

She shrugged. The weight of the rope wasn’t much. It was good, high quality line. If the whole length weighed ten pounds she would be surprised. “As long as you need me to, I guess.”

“Come over here.”

She walked over to the edge. The line remained taut. A few feet on she felt a snag from behind her. Distracted by grief, she tugged angrily on the line. She heard a ringing metallic snap. Something flashed by her, and Drew jerked like she’d been slapped. Drew sat up, holding her cheek. When she moved her hand and looked around to see who had slapped her, Jesse saw a fading welt, like she’d been smacked on the cheek with a cheap ruler. It ran right across her cheekbone, counterpointing the fire in her emerald eyes.

Jesse stared, the rope slipping as her hands went slack. Charlie yelled, and she grabbed at the rope before it played out, but her eyes remained fixed on Drew. When she spoke, she could hear the distracted awe in her own voice.

“Charlie. Look at Drew.”

In the corner of her eye, Charlie looked away from whatever he watched at the end of the rope, glanced at Drew, then looked back to the ground. His gaze drew back as if he had a cable attached to his eyeballs, winching them back from the ground to Drew. His jaw dropped open just a touch, and Jesse almost laughed to see how his whole posture changed. Standing like that, cocksure and subtly flexing everything, she saw what club girls saw in him.

All of that remained beside the point, though. Even with the body he’d sculpted as bait, the posturing and posing he’d learned from classes and books, he was nothing next to the vision in front of her now. Tousled, dust covered, the raven highlights in her hair still shone through. Perfect cheekbones framed emerald eyes, flashing as she realized that Jesse and Charlie both stared at her. Drew rose from the chair, clothes hanging oddly. Her top too small, her pants hugged her hips but hung loose at the waist.

Charlie shook himself. In the silence, he muttered “Broken bones, Chuck, broken bones,” just as Drew said, “what are you guys staring at?” Her voice had become a perfect mezzo-soprano, with just a hint of sultry rasp. That voice made Jesse twitch and think of bedroom games, and she was straight as an arrow. Charlie closed his eyes and whimpered.

“Guys? I’m serious. Did I get messed up again? Am I all gross now?” A plaintive note crept into her voice, and Jesse could barely keep herself from rushing over to comfort her.

When Jesse finally found her voice, it sounded harsh and braying compared to Drew’s. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just… Look, it’s nothing important right now. Steve got hit by some shrapnel, fell off the building, we dropped him, and…”

Charlie’s voice cut her off. When she turned, he faced the side of the roof again, looking over the edge to where the rope dangled. “No, you didn’t. He’s down there.”

Jesse yanked the rope up and down. “No, he’s not. There’s like, no weight on this thing.”

The rope went slack in her hands, and, his voice dry as dust, Charlie said, “and now he lost his grip. I think he was only about five feet up. Can you two go get the fire hose broken out?”

“Why?” Jesse had to get used to that voice coming out of Drew. It was Drew, only… better.

Charlie’s voice wavered, and he collapsed onto the side of one of the deck chairs, forearms resting on his thighs, head cradled in his hands. “’Cause I’m about to pass out, and I think that fire’s gonna start back up again when I do.”

“Oh. My. God. What’s going on?” Drew had finally seen Charlie’s frozen fire. Jesse grabbed her perfect hands with their perfect nails and pulled her to her feet.

“It’s about to start burning again. Can you feel the heat?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s get it doused then. I wish Steve were here.”

Drew muttered something and then jogged for the fire hose. Jesse found herself sprinting to catch up. Drew had always been athletic, but now Drew had longer legs, too. Jesse started to get a little envious. By the time she reached the fire hose, Drew had the end out and unrolled it as fast as the spool would let it out. Jesse grabbed up the nozzle and ran to a position where she could see most of the flames. They started to waver, a heat haze showing above them.

Drew called out from the spool, “Brace yourself, I’m turning the water on!”

Jesse turned to tell Drew to wait, but the admonition died in her throat. There only had the two of them, and Drew had to stand where she did to turn the water on. Jesse would have to hold the hose by herself until Drew reached her. She set her feet and Drew cranked the handle wide open. The hose writhed like a live thing as water filled it. The moment Drew had the spigot open as far as it could go, she turned and sprinted toward Jesse.

The hose whipped around to cut her off at the knees. Another loop came in from behind. Jesse started to cry warning, then swallowed it when Drew dove forward, slid through the air like a fish in water, bounced through a perfect handspring, and landed a few feet from Jesse. Sheer shocked surprise filled her eyes.

“How did I just do that?”

Burgeoning envy tinged Jesse’s response. “I don’t know. How did you just do that?”

Drew looked at her, shocked by Jesse’s tone. When she spoke, it took Jesse a moment to realize that the shock wasn’t from Jesse’s tone. “How are you doing that?”

Jesse frowned at Drew. “What do you mean?” Following Drew’s pointing fingers, she looked down at her hands, where she held the nozzle. It gushed water as fast as it could come through. She hadn’t noticed the pressure when it came on. She still couldn’t sense more than a simple stiffness from it. She took a hand away to turn the handle on the nozzle, and the water stopped. She turned it again, and the water gushed forth, a stream reaching out to douse the frozen flames around the helicopter.

“I have no idea, but I’m suddenly less upset that my best friend is a supermodel.” With an almost childish glee, she sprayed the water over the remaining reanimating flames, cackling as she did. They burned again, but the hose was designed to put out building fires. It doused, quenched, and washed away the relatively small aviation fuel fire before it fully returned to life.

The fire out, she turned the handle and looked at Drew. She tried not to be smug when she spoke, but it was hard. Looking at Drew again, she realized that each of them had gotten something the other would have more fun with. Shrugging philosophically, she nodded to the spool and spigot. “I think you can shut the hose off now.”

“What do you mean your best friend is a supermodel? Did you get a new best friend while I was face down on the pavement?”

“Drew…” for a moment, Jesse stood speechless, completely unable to get her mind around Drew’s stubborn self-deception. Then again, she suspected her friend might have some self-image issues. Those would take a beating, she suspected. She finally figured out what to say, and her lips curved in an impish grin when she did so. “Go look in a mirror.”