I did end up arriving in Silver Grove—via ambulance.
The gash on my forehead was a good hint that I might have a concussion but according to the paramedics' conversation, I'd been lucky that my brain hadn't been rattled even more. Or worse, my spine. They thought my case wasn't pressing enough to take me to a big hospital in Calgary and instead, they set course for the small Silver Grove hospital.
It wasn't like I'd had a great entrance in mind before, as if I'd stroll in through town and announce that an alpha woman was coming in to dethrone any alpha men they had available. But this certainly hadn't been what I envisioned about my new beginning. In the back of my mind, I wondered if this was some sort of heavy handed omen.
Those thoughts faded to the background as soon as I was wheeled out of the ambulance and into a series of examinations that lasted the whole night. Every time I dozed off, someone woke me up.
When I started to get pissed about it, I snarled at a nurse. "Why can't I just get some sleep? I'm exhausted."
"Sorry," he said in typical Canadian fashion, of starting even stern sentences with an apology. "We're just making sure your faculties are intact."
"I tell you what's not going to be intact if I can't sleep," I started, but before I could send everything to shit, the doctor who'd been taking care of my case came over with a clipboard in his hands. He read the contents for a quick second.
Finally, he gave me a smile. "Congratulations, Miss Diaz. Nothing abnormal came out in your scans. If you feel anything strange in the next twenty four hours, I'd suggest that you rush back to the ER. For now, you're good to go."
"Ay, gracias a Dios." My body deflated despite the fact that what my soul wanted to do was dance around the ER. Something hit me like a bolt that forced me to sit straight. "Wait, I have nothing. I lost all my car and all my things... including my phone, wallet and papers. I don't even know where I'm supposed to go."
My chest squeezed with a sudden worry. What should I do if I lost my papers? It wasn't like I'd be able to get a new passport, with the fact that I was here on asylum. And without the asylum documents I was technically illegal, which meant I could be deported. For the first time since arriving to the hospital, my eyes started to well up.
"Please, help."
"Is there anyone we could call?" the doctor asked me after exchanging a glance with the other guy.
"Uh." I racked my brains. Not a fruitful exercise, even without considering the night I'd just had, because I didn't know anybody's phone numbers from memory. The only thing I could think of was to say, "Lance Benoit. He's supposed to be my boss from today on."
"I know Lance, should be easy enough to reach him."
"Yeah, but I need my papers." My voice came out with the same difficulty that someone speaking with a block of ice down their throat would have.
Before I clung to the doctor's robes, the nurse who had almost borne the blunt of my temper interjected. He must have sensed the crazy in me about to spill over, because he modulated his voice to a level of sweetness I never knew a guy to be capable of. "We'll try to help, okay? In the meantime, you can catch the snooze you almost bit my head off for."
Oh, the saccharine tone was sarcasm.
"Thanks," I mumbled, recognizing I was at the mercy of strangers even though it made my skin crawl.
My family and friends would be proud of me, after killing me for having almost killed myself. That would all have to wait until I staved off exhaustion.
My body collapsed on the hard ER bed with the same relish as if I were tucking into a hearty meal after a day's worth of work. My eyes zeroed in on the weird stain on the ceiling, until I could no longer keep them open and finally, let my consciousness drift.
When I came to, it was because a loud voice announced my name. I felt as though I'd drank my weight in Molson last night, rather than almost dying.
"Huh?" was my intelligible answer to what turned out to be my new boss's greeting.
Lance stood by my bed. I recognized him from his Linkedin picture. He was a forty-something-year-old lumberjack version of Santa Claus. His brown hair showed the first hints of silver atop his head and in his thick beard, and the red checkered flannel shirt he wore with sleeves rolled up his arms revealed almost as much ink as I had.
"Goodness, I never expected to meet you in these circumstances," he said, his sun-reddened forehead crinkled with concern.
"You and me both." I cringed as I maneuvered myself to a sitting position. "Tell me this whole saga didn't get me fired before even starting."
His eyes widened for a second, before his mustache stretched into what I figured was a grin. "Fortunately for you, accidents outside of the work environment don't fall into possible termination reasons."
I squeezed my fists so tight that my bones crunched, all with the effort it took not to cry. "Even if I lost my papers in the process?"
"Ah, don't worry about that." He waved his hand like we weren't talking about the very reason I was alive. "Kevin told me the situation and I took care of it."
"Who?" I asked.
"Kevin," he repeated, as though that made sense by itself. When it was clear that I was just as lost, he continued, "Your doctor. He explained the situation and I called the firefighters. They got you."
Did they? I recalled the condition my SUV had finished its life with, the metal scrunched up like some giant had used the whole vehicle as a fucking accordion. If my backpack with the documents wasn't part of the debris that the rest of my belongings had become, then it might take a miracle for someone to be able to retrieve it from the wreckage.
Miracles were real and a thing that kept happening to me despite not deserving any. If people said that three times was the charm, this was it, I was all out with just having survived the wreck. The first miracle was that I'd survived protests that had turned violent, just like the one that had taken my big brother. The second miracle was surviving my ex. Finding my papers would be a fourth miracle and what were the odds of being so loved by the heavens?
As if to answer the question, the angel strode into the ER right at that second.
It was funny how he seemed to bring the early morning sunlight with him as he traversed the short distance from the entrance and to the front desk. There, a nurse pointed in my direction and the impossible blue eyes turned to me.
I squeezed my jaws shut against the impulse to become a cartoon, mouth hanging open and tongue waging. That wasn't me anymore. This had to be a psychological thing, where a survivor felt attachment to their savior, because I wasn't attracted to men any longer. I didn't trust any of them as far as I could throw them.
Unfortunately, as the firefighter walked closer, I realized that he wasn't the kind of guy I could pick up and pitch over a bar.
I turned back to Lance, just to test if I felt any of the same. The Santa Claus vibes didn't necessarily make me trust him, but he sure was way less scary than a firefighter I felt an inexplicable attraction to.
"Coraline Diaz?" the angel said, now upon my bed.
My heart beat so fast I had half a mind to call for Kevin. The accident might not have damaged my brain but my chest was malfunctioning. And this guy couldn't possibly be the reason.
His eyebrows went up, expecting an answer that my throat couldn't work out. I swallowed with difficulty and rubbed my palms together. The familiar ridges of the burn scars centered me.
I wasn't the Cora from when I got them, naive, idealistic, in love with a cause that sounded like a calling to my soul, spoken by the mouth of a monster. I no longer believed in things at face value—that had caused scars deeper than the ones in my hand and my body. I had to stop this nonsense of looking at this guy and thinking he was some perfect creature, even if he looked like one.
He was a man and men were the farthest creatures from perfection.
Finally, I cleared my throat and said, "Actually, it's Coralina."
"Oh, sorry." He lifted up a familiar backpack so it was in my line of sight. "Is this what you need?"
Damn it, tears welled in my eyes.
"I told ya these guys had you covered," Lance said, reminding me that he'd stood beside me and watched the whole thing. He extended a beefy hand and shook the firefighter's. "How you doing, Pace?"
"Doing okay, Mr. Benoit. What about you?"
"Stop making me feel old and call me Lance already." My new boss blew a raspberry. "But where are my manners? This is my new employee, Coralina. I heard you rescued her last night."
Heat rushed up my throat and I wasn't entirely sure if it was embarrassment or anger. Maybe it was both.
Before I was able to react, Lance continued. "And this is Pace Leblanc, Silver Grove's most outstanding citizen."
Like magic, the Pace guy's face lit up like a red streetlight. He cleared his throat and gave out an awkward laugh. "That's not true."
"Well, it should be, seeing how you keep saving people's lives." Lance's eyes were suspiciously shiny as he grabbed my backpack from the firefighter and handed it to me.
I ignored it by rummaging through my damp backpack. The relief at finding all my documents intact was so heavy that it settled in my head like an anvil threatening to flatten me. The only thing that held me from collapsing again was that I refused to do it in front of either of these men.
Shouldering my backpack, I climbed out of the bed and because I wasn't a total asshole, offered my hand to the firefighter, saying, "Thank you for everything."
It caught him off guard for a moment, but he returned the gesture and—que mala idea. A current of electricity travelled from every nerve end of my skin encased in his, all the way down to my toes. Worse was that maybe he felt it, because he startled at the contact and looked down where our hands joined with more intent than a regular handshake took.
"Uh, no problem," he said.
Clearing my throat, I pulled my hand away and focused on Lance. "So, do I start work today, then?"
"Goodness, no." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "You should get some rest and start on Monday."
It was Thursday. What was I supposed to do until then?
When I asked just that, Lance said, "I'm sure you have a lot of things to settle, plus you can also do a bit of sightseeing."
Yeah, I guessed now I had a lot more things to take care of than originally expected. The first order of events was putting as much distance between the firefighter and I as possible.
Turned out that wasn't really going to be possible in Silver Grove. As I took a step outside of the hospital, I was greeted by a town so small that I might not even need a new car after all.
The main street spanned the whole length of the town, about two kilometers at most. Every person we passed greeted the men beside me with the same level of familiarity that said everybody knew everybody. There would be no hiding, no becoming anonymous—or any need for sightseeing when, as I stood in a corner by the main street, I could easily make out the beginning and end of the town from all cardinal points.
The saying came to my mind unbidden, pueblo pequeño, infierno grande. I wondered if that would prove true.
Glancing from the corner of my eye at the departing figure of the firefighter, I dreaded finding out if in the end he would be the one to set me on fire or put the flames out.