Chapter 2 - Twenty-Seven Seconds
I have heard people say that twenty-seven seconds is nothing. They have never watched their child go limp during twenty-seven seconds of desperate waiting.
"Leo?" I reached for him. "Baby, open your eyes."
The biker eased him onto the booth, supporting his head. "He's breathing, but it's shallow. Give him space."
"What did you do?"
"What I had to." His voice shook on the last word. "Someone find that thing he coughed up. Don't throw it away."
A waitress in a green apron slid under the table. The owner, a square-shouldered man with perfect silver hair, hurried over from the register.
"What happened to my furniture?" he demanded.
"A boy almost died," the waitress snapped.
Sirens filled the street before I could answer. Two paramedics came running with a stretcher and oxygen. The biker stepped aside immediately, describing the episode in clear, precise words: unable to speak, poor air movement, back blows, object expelled, brief loss of responsiveness.
One paramedic nodded. "Good work."
Good work? I stared at the stranger's huge hands. I could still feel them pushing me away.
They placed an oxygen mask over Leo's face. My son's eyelashes fluttered. His chest lifted a little deeper.
"Mommy?" he rasped.
I almost folded in half.
"I'm here, sweetheart. I'm right here."
A police officer stopped me near the ambulance. "Ma'am, someone reported a man shoving a child. Did you see it?"
My mouth ran ahead of my brain. "He grabbed him. He pushed me. I thought he was attacking us."
The biker heard. He didn't argue. He only looked at Leo through the open ambulance doors.
"What's your name?" the officer asked him.
"Jackson Mercer. Jax."
The owner stepped closer. "Officer, I have cameras. I can give you footage."
Jax's eyes narrowed at that. He said, "Then give them all of it."
I climbed into the ambulance beside Leo. I was holding his cold little fingers when his oxygen monitor began to beep faster.
May you like
The paramedic leaned forward. "Nora, I need you to move your hand."
And suddenly the look on her face frightened me more than the siren.
