FLATLINE

The rain came down hard enough to drown the sirens.

Water hammered against the windshield in thick waves, the wipers fighting a losing battle as Medic Twelve pushed through another flooded intersection. Red lights reflected across slick asphalt like blood smeared under glass.

Raine Calloway shifted in the passenger seat and rubbed at the ache building behind her eyes.

Eighteen hours awake.

Two overdoses. One combative drunk who tried to bite a deputy. A diabetic emergency at a gas station. And now this.

Of course the worst call of the night would come twenty minutes before shift change.

The radio crackled through static.

“Medic Twelve, update from callers—multiple vehicle accident with rollover and possible entrapment. Fire rescue en route.”

Raine grabbed the mic automatically. “Medic Twelve copies.”

Thunder rolled overhead so hard it rattled the cab.

Beside her, Mason leaned slightly forward over the wheel, fingers tight around it as rainwater sprayed across the road. “Roads are getting worse.”

“No kidding.”

A semi blasted past in the opposite lane, throwing a wall of water across the windshield so thick Raine lost sight of the road completely for half a second.

“Jesus Christ,” Mason muttered.

The wipers struggled furiously before visibility returned.

Raine leaned back into the seat and exhaled slowly. Her shoulders ached. Everything ached lately.

The MDT mounted between them chimed with another update.

POSSIBLE EJECTION

UNKNOWN PATIENT COUNT

“Fantastic,” Raine said flatly. “Because multiple traumas in a monsoon sounds like exactly what I needed tonight.”

Mason snorted quietly.

“You know,” she continued, “normal people are home asleep right now.”

“Normal people also don’t get free ambulance snacks.”

Raine looked over at him. “The stale peanut butter crackers expired three months ago.”

“Adds flavor.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Yet somehow still your favorite partner.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled faintly despite herself.

The siren echoed through the storm as they approached another intersection. Most vehicles were already pulling off to the sides, headlights glowing blurry and distorted through the rain.

Mason slowed again before entering.

“Think it’s really bad?” he asked.

Raine shrugged. “Middle of the night, heavy rain, possible rollover? Somebody probably thought their truck could swim.”

“Bet you five bucks it’s tourists.”

“Floridians can’t drive in rain either.”

“That’s fair.”

The light ahead turned green.

Cross traffic slowed to a stop.

Mason eased forward carefully anyway.

Raine checked left out of habit.

Clear.

She turned right.

Headlights cut through the rain.

Fast.

Too fast.

The SUV appeared almost ghostlike through the storm, tires spraying water as it slid toward the intersection.

For one strange second, time stretched.

The reflection of emergency lights flashing across the SUV’s hood.

The driver’s wide eyes.

The realization that they weren’t stopping.

Raine’s stomach dropped so violently it felt like falling.

“Mason—”

Impact hit like an explosion.

Metal screamed.

The front corner of the ambulance lurched sideways with enough force to throw both of them violently against their restraints.

Then the tires lost grip completely.

The world tilted.

Raine heard Mason curse.

The ambulance rolled.

Her shoulder harness locked painfully across her chest as the cab flipped sideways. The windshield burst apart instantly, safety glass exploding inward in glittering shards.

The second rollover was worse.

Everything weightless.

Everything spinning.

The scream of twisting metal drowned out the siren.

Behind them, inside the patient compartment, cabinets ripped open violently. Equipment tore loose from the walls with deafening crashes. Oxygen tanks slammed free from their mounts like cannon fire.

Something massive hit the divider behind them hard enough to shake the entire rig.

Raine’s headset ripped away.

Pain exploded through her shoulder as her body snapped hard against the seatbelt again.

Then her head slammed into the side pillar beside the window.

A sharp crack.

White light burst behind her eyes.

The cab rolled again.

Airbags deployed late, the powder burning her nose and throat.

Glass sprayed across her arms.

The radio shrieked with broken static.

Then—

impact.

The ambulance landed upside down hard enough to drive the breath from her lungs.

Silence followed so suddenly it rang.

Raine hung suspended by the seatbelt, disoriented and gasping.

Rainwater dripped through broken glass onto her face.

Somewhere nearby, steam hissed from the destroyed engine compartment.

For several long seconds she couldn’t understand what she was looking at.

The world was wrong upside down.

Streetlights reflected strangely through shattered glass. Water pooled along the crushed ceiling above them. Smoke drifted through flashes of red and blue emergency lighting.

The smell hit next.

Gasoline. Smoke. Hot metal. Blood.

Her blood.

Something warm slid down the side of her forehead and into her eye.

Raine blinked hard, trying to focus.

Pain pulsed through her skull with every heartbeat.

“Mason?”

No answer.

Fear punched through the fog instantly.

“Mason!”

A low groan came from somewhere beside her.

Relief hit so hard it almost made her dizzy again.

“Oh thank God.”

Her voice sounded weak. Far away.

Outside the wreck, muffled shouting carried through the storm.

Footsteps splashing through standing water.

Doors slamming.

People gathering.

Raine tried to move her arm toward the radio but nausea rolled through her violently the second she shifted.

The seatbelt dug painfully into her ribs.

Everything hurt.

The rain hammered endlessly against twisted metal around them.

Then she heard the voices.

Faint at first.

Blending together beneath the storm.

Raine frowned slightly.

Bystanders.

Had to be.

People always gathered after bad wrecks.

Especially bad ones.

The overlapping voices sounded distorted through the rain and ringing in her ears.

Some loud. Some barely whispers.

Like several radios talking over each other at once.

Someone outside yelled:

“Call 911!”

Another voice:

“I already did!”

Then another:

“Oh my God, are they alive?”

Raine swallowed hard against the metallic taste filling her mouth.

Blood.

Definitely blood.

Her vision blurred briefly before sharpening again.

The voices kept bleeding together around her.

Muffled.

Layered.

Wrong somehow.

Like conversations underwater.

She thought she heard crying.

Then screaming.

Then what sounded like someone praying.

“Mason?” she croaked again.

Another groan answered her.

Good.

He was alive.

Somewhere in the haze of voices, one sounded suddenly closer than the others.

Too close.

Right beside her ear.

“She’s still here.”

Raine jerked hard against the seatbelt.

Pain exploded through her skull so violently her vision flashed white.

The whisper vanished instantly beneath the sound of rain pounding against twisted metal.

Outside, flashlight beams cut through the storm.

“Fire rescue!” someone shouted. “We’ve got movement in the cab!”

Hydraulic tools screamed somewhere nearby.

Metal groaned loudly as rescuers began pulling at the crushed frame.

Raine opened her mouth to answer them—

—but all she tasted was blood.

The voices blurred together again.

Maybe radios. Maybe bystanders. Maybe shock.

She couldn’t tell anymore.

Her eyes drifted shut despite her trying to fight it.

The last thing she heard before darkness swallowed everything was the sound of someone whispering her name from somewhere behind her.

Then everything went dark.