He wasn’t a piece of shit.

Oliver knew that even if the words never left his mouth. His pulse jackhammered in his ears as the room rang with the aftershock of the gruesome shot to the head. The man lying on the carpet in that small apartment was someone’s son. Someone who’d once gotten cake on his face and blown out all his candles as his family smiled and sang songs. Someone whose mind had cracked apart under extreme stress, like thin ice under heavy boots.

The man’s chest convulsed as the bullet shredded the vessels inside his brain. His blood pressure cratered. Once carved from workouts on the wrestling mat at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, his muscles melted into violent tremors while his hands clawed at nothing. Each ragged gasp of air sucked scarlet foam from ruptured alveoli in his lungs, splattering his chin with arterial spray. His pupils dilated like an eclipsed sun, his skin blanched to a wax-gray as all capillary refill vanished, and his diaphragm spasmed as it attempted to drag in air that would never reach his lungs. A wet rattle reverberated like a drain gurgling shut as the blood pooled fast beneath his cooling flesh. All of this while the echo of the shot still quivered in the walls.

But now a dying cop was lying next to the dead man on the floor, bleeding out by the bookcase.

“Scott, we work on Gibbs first,” Oliver snapped. “I need bi-lateral lines, I’ve got his airway. If he crashes, we’re moving immediately, I don’t care who’s still swinging guns.”

Triaging patients isn’t something you have time to think about; it’s more of a reflex that just exists in a paramedic’s mind like gravity does on our bodies. Paramedic Oliver Adams had to make a call that he would later have to unpack, and that his ghosts would smuggle through security in their carry-on.

You see, after eighteen years as a Denver paramedic, Oliver believed that he had already witnessed the darkest corners this job had to offer and what the Mile High City could conjure. Yet tonight, everything felt charged and oppressive as he hissed instructions to the firefighters, who loitered like bystanders in the tiny living room.

Blood dripped from the walls, the drapes, and the doors of the small apartment, staining the carpets a crimson red. It soaked into their uniforms and hued their name badges.

Framed photos and graduate-level diplomas had detonated off the plaster wall as they wrestled down the hallway into the living room. As each framed image and prestigious accomplishment shattered on impact against the floor, it was as if they were erasing an entire family’s history one generation at a time.

Paramedic Scott Hollis was already moving, his shirt soaked in sweat and his clenched jaw locked tightly. Oliver and Scott had been partners long enough that language was optional. They didn’t need to speak; they could almost read each other’s minds. A firefighter slid on one knee beside Officer Gibbs and ripped the back Velcro flap of the LIFEPAK 15 Cardiac Monitor open, reaching for the defibrillator pads. You can’t shock an empty tank back to life regardless of how hard you try, but Oliver let it slide. He had more important things to worry about. Plus, it made the rookie firefighter feel like he was, at least somehow, contributing.

“Hey,” snapping at another firefighter with his voice, “I need my trauma bag.” Without looking, Oliver added, “And a chest seal. Now.” The firefighter, awakened from his stupor, jolted into action.

Security, though, stood there like dusty furniture. “All hat, no cattle,” thought Oliver.

A second mountain-sized officer, with muscles bulging beneath his uniform, barked from somewhere above Oliver. Corporal Caleb “Cal” Grayson, still dripping sweat in his police-issued Class C tactical gear, held his smoking SIG P320 9mm in the low ready position as his voice hoarse with adrenaline, yelled, “Everyone out! Unless you’re medical.”

The room was swimming in a dirty wash of emergency lights ricocheting from the ambulance and cop cars arriving outside. Gibbs’s breaths were shallow as he quickly panted through his gritted teeth. The bullet, shot from the stolen gun once housed in Gibbs’s holster, had punched a hole above his vest’s edge and tracked across his left chest, creating a pool of scarlet blood that saturated through the Kevlar fibers of the vest onto Gibbs’ shirt.

The blood seeped out and refused to stop.

“Hey, Gibbs,” Oliver said, voice blunt and calm. “I’m Oliver. You’re gonna be okay. Look at me.”

Gibbs tried to focus and failed. His lips were a collage of pink froth bubbling out of one corner. His eyes were clear, furious… and scared. Good, thought Oliver, scared kept people fighting. Fighting kept people alive.

“Pain’s a good sign,” Oliver said. “Don’t stop breathing for me, you hear me?”

Scott dug out his orange-handled trauma shears from his cargo pocket and cut Gibbs’s shirt open with them, his hands forgetting about the shaking as his muscle memory took control. He lifted the vest over his face and saw the small hole on his upper left lateral chest wall. The tattooing from burnt gunpowder and metal scraps shaved from the projectile created an angry purple bruise that rose just medial to his upper left arm and above the vest's protection. The shot couldn’t have been any more surgical. He saw the entry wound on the left lateral chest, third intercostal space. There was no obvious exit.