“Yes, but I got us a FastPass, so we’ll be able to jump the queue.”

She couldn’t reply for coughing, but she managed to give him a thumbs up that made him smile.

“Stick your arm around my neck,” he told her, when the alarm began to sound again. He cradled her against his chest and lifted her as if she weighed nothing at all. What little she could see suddenly pitched and rolled, and the sky, bright with fire and blue neon, swapped places with the balcony and the drunks holding their vigil on the road. She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the nausea and the noise and the relentless ache in her ribs, and let the man carry her down.

Chapter Fourteen

“Officer, you need—”

Rosie shook off the paramedic’s hand. “I’m fine. See to the girls.”

“They’re fine,” he said, clearly exasperated. “You’re bleeding.”

“Where’s Jem?” She paced away from the ambulance, almost in tears. She’d been rational and efficient since she got off the lift, taking the time to arrange a police escort for Ava and Chloe and providing a very brief overview for her sarge. Her arm wasn’t bleeding that badly, and she no longer felt like coughing her spleen up, but she’d lost Jem in the melee and couldn’t see her anywhere.

The paramedic took one look at her face and relented. “I think she’s with Bob and Dougie.”

“Which vehicle?”

He pointed past the first two fire engines. “That one.”

“Thanks. I don’t mean to be an arse.”

He pulled off his gloves and balled them up. “Tell her Spence sends his love.”

She ran to the ambulance, dodging fire crews and hoses and the occasional belligerent rubbernecker, and banged on its back door.

“Give us a minute!” a man shouted.

“Is Jem in there?” She tried to sound imposing, but she could barely speak for crying.

The door opened, and a grey-haired man, sweating and obviously stressed to fuck, looked out. “I’m guessing you’re Rosie,” he said. “I’m Bob.”

She dried her eyes on the scrap of curtain binding her wrist. “Is she okay?”

He shook his head, and she followed him inside, shutting the door behind her and staying in the corner, out of the way. She heard Jem before she saw her: the rapid gasp of every snatched breath, and the drawn-out wheeze that marred each exhalation.

“Look who I found,” Bob said to Jem, cupping her chin and supporting her head so she could see Rosie. “Will you behave yourself now and keep that mask on?”

Jem sobbed once, and Rosie sat on the floor beside her stretcher, taking hold of the hand that wasn’t tangled in an IV line and monitoring leads.