Protected Pt. 03 by SanityCheck,SanityCheck

I should have kept my attention on controlling the coach as it was trying to crash itself, but I couldn’t stop myself from repeatedly glancing over my shoulder as Willow scrambled to the back of the coach on her hands and knees. She disappeared into the bathroom, reappeared moments later with four bath towels, and began making her way back to the front.

I couldn’t stop watching her, dividing my attention between piloting the bus and watching her treat Fish. She pressed a towel under the back of Fish’s jacket, holding it over the wound as she laid him back on it, and then pressed another towel to his stomach and held it in place.

She looked at me with fear in her eyes. “It’s all I know to do.”

I gave the coach more throttle, but as the RV picked up speed, the shaking became so bad that I was unable to keep it straight, and after the second heart stopping near crash I slowed. I’d do Fish no good if I crashed the coach. After thirty minutes of shuddering and shaking along the dirt road, we finally reached pavement. I slowed as much as I dared, worried I had hidden company following us in our dust cloud, and heaved the coach around the corner.

“How’s he doing?” I asked as I floored the throttle while glancing in the rearview. I didn’t see anyone following us and I breathed a small sigh of relief.

“He’s still alive but in shock,” Willow said, her voice tight with worry and concern. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”

“We should get a cell signal soon,” Goose shouted over the rushing wind. “We can call for help.”

I kept the throttle pinned to the floor as the coach accelerated to seventy, then seventy-five, before finally topping out just under eighty miles per hour. The RV was fucked. Something smelled hot, and I was constantly fighting the vehicle to prevent it from dragging itself into the ditch on the right side, but I kept my foot down, unable to give more than quick glances to Willow as she tended Fish.

She kept bending over to hover her ear near Fish’s mouth and checking his pulse. “You have to hurry,” she said after one of her checks, her voice telegraphing her distress.

“This is it! It won’t go any faster!” I snarled as I pressed the throttle harder to the floor, willing the machine into giving me just a little bit more.

“I have a signal!” Goose said a moment later. “Shit! Lost it!”

“No, no, no, no!” she cried as she started chest compressions. “Come on Fish! Please! Don’t do this! Stay with me!” She worked on him for a long moment, breathing for him, compressing his chest as she murmured the lyrics to Staying Alive by the Bee Gee’s to keep her rhythm, before pausing and bringing her ear close to his mouth before starting again.

“Fish, Goddammit!” I bellowed. “Don’t you fucking die on me!”

After a long time, she stopped and flopped to her ass, clearly exhausted. “He’s gone,” she panted, her face dripping with sweat, her hands covered in his blood as she stared at the ground rushing past the open door. “I couldn’t save him.”

“Goddammit!” I raged, pounding on the steering wheel as my fury boiled over. Three more brothers dead. Three more friends lost. I clung grimly to the wheel, staring through the crazed windshield, afraid to speak, holding tight to my wrath so I didn’t take it out on her. She wasn’t a doctor, and she’d done everything she could. It wasn’t her fault my best friend, my brother, had died.

We were starting to pick up traffic but I barely slowed, cars moving out of our way as if by magic. “Goose, as soon as you can, find me the best way to the hospital, then call the cops. Tell them what happened and to meet us there.”

Goose was quiet for a moment before speaking. “Stay on this road until you get to the sixty-nine, then take the Bob Bullock Loop.”

I nodded watching the signs. Having grown up in Laredo, I had a general idea of where Goose was sending me. Behind me, I could hear Goose talking to the police, telling them what happened. When I reached the Bob Bullock Loop, I was able to follow the hospital signs, other cars giving me wide berth as we made our way toward medical help. When I turned onto Sandia Drive, with the hospital in sight, a police cruiser, blue lights flashing, pulled into the center of the road and began slowing. I slowed as well, clinging as tightly to the wheel as possible as it tried to squirm its way out of my hands. As we ground to a halt, two more cruisers closed up behind us to block us in.

Once we stopped, two officers stepped out of the cruisers at the rear. I kept my hands on the wheel as the officers approached carefully, their weapons holstered but unsnapped, with their hands on the butts.

“Several of us were armed,” I said, when the first officer appeared at the edge of the door.