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Bailey saw the sirens first. Jeremy and Ralley were already out there, as were the fire department and every ambulance in Barratt County. Clay had called in to Finley Creek for more.
It was going to be bad.
She could see the flames now. “Clay...”
“I know. Listen. Pick a first responder, medical personnel. Stick with that responder, do what they need you to do. Move from car to car but keep yourself safe. Priority of life. You can’t help anyone if you’re the one hurt. It’s going to be slick out there, and there’s going to be blood. You’ve been trained for this.”
She nodded. “I know. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m probably always going to. I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”
The first person she saw when she and Clay jumped out of his patrol vehicle was a woman wearing dark scrubs and thick glasses. “Nikkie Jean!”
Nikkie Jean stopped her mad dash toward the ambulances and came toward Bailey instead. “Bailey. I have a family of three—parents need help getting out of the vehicle. And I need to get back to the kid on the rear passenger. It doesn’t look good. I need help, now!”
Bailey shot one more look at Clay as he ran as much as he was able on the wet pavement toward the head of the first responders. “Let’s go.”
The mother was screaming.
Bailey would never forget how the mother was screaming, trapped between her mostly unconscious husband and the side of the ditch. The car had turned at an angle that almost didn’t look possible.
“We need to get him out first,” Nikkie Jean said. “But I don’t know how.”
“We’ll have to break the window out, Nik.” A paramedic Bailey didn’t recognize said from behind them. He went to work.
Within moments, they had pulled the father out and passed him on to the waiting paramedics. Bailey and Nikkie Jean pulled the resisting mother next. At the angle they were at, the tall, strong paramedic had been too big to get inside. But she and Nikkie Jean—they had been small enough to fit inside the almost crushed economy sedan.
Nikkie Jean was more in charge than Bailey. She had the mother facing her straight on. “We need you out of the way so we can get to them!”
That was all that seemed to work. Nikkie Jean scrambled over the back seat.
Bai—I need a second set of hands.”
Bailey followed her friend into the small economy sedan.
The kids were crying.
Nikkie Jean passed a baby no older than Liam into her hands. He was still in his infant carrier.
She handed him to the waiting paramedic.
Next was a little elf of a girl who was crying for her mommy. The child clung to Bailey’s neck for a moment.
But it was her big brother who concerned Bailey.
Hands were there to take the little boy when she and Nikkie Jean were finally able to get him free of the seatbelt and the door panel that had crumbled almost on him.
He’d wakened and stared at her. Even smiled at her, even though he was so obviously terrified.
She’d never forget that little boy.
Or the long hours that happened next.