9:28 P.M.
IGNORING HER OWN RACING heart, Natalia moved closer to AJ. “What makes you think you’re having a heart attack?”
Any confidence she had gained evaporated. When it came to heart attacks, the Red Cross focused on the brief window between calling 9-1-1 and having real professionals take over.
But there were no paramedics out here. No ambulance. No sterile surfaces. No technology. No operating room. No board-certified surgeon. There was just Natalia and whatever she remembered from a few classes.
AJ’s face was pale, his eyes wide. One hand was pressed against the center of his rib cage. “Every time I pushed on the gate, I felt this sharp pain in my chest. And now my heart is racing! What if it keeps going faster and faster?”
His expression made it clear he was sure of the answer: if it did, then he would die.
Wyatt whispered into Natalia’s ear. “I know CPR, but not what to do with someone who has a pulse and is breathing.”
“I’ll try to figure out what’s happening.” She just hoped it didn’t come to needing Wyatt’s skills. “Can you get people to give us some space?”
Wyatt clapped his hands. “Hey, guys, why don’t we go back to pushing and let Natalia help AJ?” Beatriz took AJ’s place at the gate. Even Lisa carefully set a half-asleep Trask on Ryan’s lap, then joined the others. Only Susan stayed where she was.
It was a relief for Natalia not to have every eye on her. But if AJ really was having a heart attack, what could she realistically do?
Natalia could think of only one thing that might help. Digging through her first aid kit, she found the foil package of aspirin. “Do you have any problems with blood clotting?”
“No.” AJ’s voice shook, as if she was about to reveal some awful new piece of information. “Why?”
She pressed one of the two tablets into his sweaty hand. “Take this. But don’t swallow it—chew it. It will get in your system faster.” If it was a heart attack, aspirin would help inhibit the platelets that triggered clotting. Clots choked off blood flow, which led to tissue damage. An aspirin might lessen the effects.
And if AJ wasn’t having a heart attack, one aspirin shouldn’t hurt him.
She was getting ahead of herself. Natalia made herself go step by step. It took all her powers of concentration to ignore the smoke thickening the air and the roar of the fire as it ate its way toward them.
ABC. The only thing AJ had in his mouth was the aspirin he was chewing. When she asked him to take two deep breaths, they didn’t sound labored. With a heart attack, deep breathing should hurt. But AJ didn’t wince, his brows didn’t draw together, his jaw wasn’t clenched. She had to check his pulse, and this time it was important that she actually count. She called out to the others. “Does anyone have a watch with a second hand?”
“I have a Fitbit with a timer,” Darryl said. He stepped away from the gate, with Zion trailing after him. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head as he raised his wrist.
“Dude, why are you even still wearing those things?” Jason asked. “If you haven’t noticed, the sun’s gone down.”
It still wasn’t fully dark, partly because it was summer. And partly because of the fire lighting the horizon. But it was pretty dim.
Darryl pressed his lips together. “They’re prescription. My other glasses are back in the car. And without glasses, I can’t see more than a couple of feet away.”
“Come on, guys,” Beatriz said. “We need to keep pushing.” Next to her, Marco kept up a steady, light cough.
Natalia took AJ’s wrist and rolled her fingers until she found the notch. “Okay, Darryl, tell me when to start and then time thirty seconds.”
A light flared on Darryl’s wrist. “Ready?” he said. “Go.”
She started counting beats to herself, ignoring Wyatt’s cries of, “One, two, three—push!” Under her fingertips, AJ’s pulse was fast but steady. She had reached sixty-seven when Darryl said, “Stop.”
“Thanks, Darryl,” she said. “That’s all I need.”
As he and Zion rejoined the others, AJ asked, “So what’s the number?”
“Your heart rate’s 134.”
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” The corners of his mouth pulled down.
It was high, especially since he was no longer exerting himself, but Natalia didn’t think it was dangerously so. “It’s actually not that bad. And it’s strong and steady. Can you lift your T-shirt and show me exactly where it hurts?”
Tugging up the hem, AJ exposed a thatch of black hair. “Right here.” He pressed his fingers in the center and then dropped his hand. Natalia pressed on the same spot, trying not to grimace at the feeling of matted, sweaty hair. He winced, sucking in air. “Yeah, that’s it.” His eyes shone wetly in the pulsing radiance cast by the fire.
Another mnemonic the Red Cross taught was SAMPLE: Symptoms, Allergies, Medications, Pertinent medical history, Last ins and outs, and Events.
“And how would you describe the pain?” Natalia buried the worrisome word in the middle of her list. “Throbbing, sharp, pressing, electric…”
“Sharp.”
But people having heart attacks usually complained of pressure, not pain. They’d say it felt like having an elephant sit on their chest.
On the other hand, heart attacks were often brought on by exertion. And AJ had just been shoving on the gate as hard as he could. Natalia’s thoughts spun tighter. What if he passed out?
“Do you have any other symptoms besides pain?”
“I just feel really bad. Like I’m going to die.” His voice cracked.
At the gate, Wyatt called again, “One, two, three—push!” The wooden railings of the bridge groaned as the gate was pressed against them.
“Are you allergic to anything?”
A distracted shake of his head.
“Do you take any drugs, including, um”—she hesitated—“recreational?”
“Just Wellbutrin,” he said softly. “For depression.”
She pitched her voice for his ears alone. “I’m on Paxil.” The thing was, Natalia was beginning to think they might have more in common than antidepressants. Because she had felt like AJ before. Like she was going to die. Not like she wanted to die, although she’d also experienced that. But like she was going to physically die right that very second.
“Have you recently seen a doctor for anything?”
“I had a physical a few months ago. The doctor said I was fine. Just overweight and out of shape. Which isn’t fine at all. That’s why I decided to start hiking.” He made a sound like a laugh. “For my health.”
“Believe it or not, this was supposed to be my introduction to the joy of hiking.” Natalia smiled at AJ but got nothing back. She returned to her questions. “Have you had anything to eat or drink today?”
“Gatorade, chips, and a sandwich.”
She lowered her voice. “And have you been peeing and pooping normally?”
“Yeah.” AJ said it as if he was about to break. He had eyes for only the fire. The reddish light on his face flared and ebbed as the flames crept ever closer. His panic was catching.
What if they couldn’t force the gate open before the fire caught up with them? What if AJ really was dying? Terrible what-ifs flooded in, just as a half hour earlier she had really believed that someone had pushed her. AJ’s reaction felt all too familiar. But, Natalia realized, that familiarity meant she had some ideas about how to fix things. For both of them.
“Okay, AJ, I need you to do something for me.” She was speaking, but it was Dr. Paris’s words coming from her mouth. “I need you to tell me five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.”
He didn’t respond.
“Five things you can see,” she prompted.
AJ shook his head, swallowed, and then his gaze finally unlatched from the horizon. “Um, your face, that tree, the baby, the dog, and uh, your pack.”
“Good! Now four things you can touch.”
He focused on the ground around them. “That big rock, that plant with the white flowers, my boots, and um, I guess the ground.” AJ set his palms on it, and she did as well. The cool dirt gave slightly under her hands.
“Okay, how about three things you can hear?”
“I can hear Wyatt counting. The water under the bridge.” He paused and shivered. “And, um, sorry, the fire.”
“It’s okay. That’s reality.” Dr. Paris had taught Natalia how to walk that fine line of truth, to acknowledge what had happened, while not falling into fear or despair or self-hatred. It was a narrow path, but it still led out of the darkness. “And two things you can smell?”
“Smoke.” He sniffed deeply, then a small smile raised his lips. “And me. For which I apologize.”
She returned his smile. “I’m pretty sure we all smell bad. Now what’s one thing you can taste?”
“My mouth tastes sour.”
AJ’s breathing had slowed, and fear no longer shadowed his face.
“How do you feel?” Natalia asked.
As he paused to think about it, the people pushing the gate let out a ragged cheer. Now it was nearly parallel with the bridge.
“Better. So what do you think’s wrong with me?”
“I think it might actually have been a panic attack.” Natalia chose the past tense on purpose. She wanted him to think of it as over. “I’ve had them before, too.”
“You mean it’s all in my head?”
She shaped Dr. Paris’s words to her own use. “It’s not like you were making it up. We all react to stressful events differently. There’s no right or wrong way. The only wrong thing right now is the fire. You’re having a normal reaction to an abnormal event.” Getting to her feet, she offered him her hand. “We are ahead of the fire, and we are going to stay ahead of it. We will get out of this. We just have to keep moving and keep breathing.”
“AJ’s going to be okay,” she announced to the group, hoping she was right.
While she was speaking, Jason was dropping to his hands and knees. He was the first to scuttle under the two-foot-high gap. Once past the gate, he got to his feet and walked the rest of the way across.
As the others began to crawl one by one under the tipped-sideways gate, Wyatt came back to Natalia. “Is AJ really okay?”
“I think so,” she said. “The pain got better when I had him focus on other things. I think it was a panic attack. But even if I’m wrong, it doesn’t change anything. We still need to get out of here.”
As Wyatt nodded in agreement, Lisa came up to them. “I don’t think there’s enough room for you to crawl under there with Trask on your back. Maybe if we take him out of the carrier, I can get him to crawl ahead of me and I’ll hold on to his foot.”
They all looked at the bridge. Except for the handrails at the top and a single lengthwise board about knee-high, the sides of the bridge were open between the supports.
Marco took Blue’s leash from around his neck and held it out. “What if you clipped the end onto the back of his overalls and then looped it around your wrist?”
“Thanks.” Lisa took it. “That would work.”
Because Wyatt wasn’t needed to help with Trask now, he hung back to help the others get through. Pushing her pack ahead of her, Natalia went first. She wormed on her belly until she got past the gate. Then she got to her feet and put on her pack to walk the rest of the way. Even once she was on solid ground, she still felt tenuous.
Lisa nudged Trask ahead of her and then got to her feet and gathered him in her arms. Once she was on the other side of the bridge, she came up to Natalia.
“Do you mind holding him while I help my husband get under?”
“Sure,” she said, holding out her arms before she could think better of it. Lisa handed him over and then unsnapped the dog leash.
Trask was warm and slightly sticky, too tired to even go stiff in her arms. He smelled a little bit sweet and a little bit sour, a mix of baby shampoo and urine from what had to be a soaked diaper. When he started to fuss, she automatically jigged up and down, rocking him lightly on her hip, ignoring the slightly squishy feeling of it. He slumped against her.
Memories came flooding back.