She bowed her head and lit her cigarette with a match. She let the match burn itself down to her fingertips before shaking it out and taking a deep drag of the filtered Marlboro. She ignored the tremble in her hands as easily as she ignored the tears welling up behind her eyes. She refused to cry. O’Reilly women do not cry. They rage, they bitch, they nag and they brawl, but they most certainly do not cry. She took another drag. Her hair fell into her face and she impatiently rewound it into...

It started as a normal night. My partner and I ate, and talked, drove around, nothing big. Then a call goes out in an area we normally don’t cover. We respond, lights, siren, the whole nine yards. As my partner throws the rig into park, I jump out and open the back doors. A Paramedic rounds the corner of my ambulance and climbs in, a blue toddler in his arms. He lays her on the gurney and I see a thin red welt snaking its way across her neck, from one tiny studded ear to the other. I see the ...

"It's a beautiful night." I say, tilting my head back and taking in the star-studded sky. Ryan takes a drag off his cigarette and grunts. We are leaned up against the ambulance in a tiny patch of comunity grass. A siren wails in the distance and Ryan cocks his head toward the sound. "P.D." he judges, "Going up Prairie." I nod and the radio crackles. Opening the passenger door I hear a call for a gunshot wound dispatched. Ryan takes a last drag and says, "Jump it." He flicks his cigarette away...

She bowed her head and lit her cigarette with a match. She let the match burn itself down to her fingertips before shaking it out and taking a deep drag of the filtered Marlboro. She ignored the tremble in her hands as easily as she ignored the tears welling up behind her eyes. She refused to cry. McCain women do not cry. They rage, they bitch, they nag and they brawl, but they most certainly do not cry. She took another drag. Her hair fell into her face and she impatiently rewound it into a ...

When Peyton ran, she tried not to think about her job. It never worked. No matter how hard she tried the doubts always found their way to the forefront. Peyton shook away the tears. She didn’t know why she was crying so damn much lately and it bothered her. Burn out was a major risk for firefighters, double for fire medics. Throw being a woman into the mix and it was almost a guarantee. Running back up her drive, she realized she only had time for a quick shower before work. It was okay, she’...

My partner, Ryan and I hear a gsw (gunshot wound) go out on the county fire radio. We jump the call and head out. We pull up and everyone is standing around. Standing around usually means a bullshit call or a call thats so serious the only things that can be done are the things that the paramedics do. This is one of those calls. The kid, who's young, maybe 20 years old, has no gang markings & no gang colors. He is sprawled in the street in the nicer side of Unincorporated Athens. With quite a...

Jason started his car but didn't put it in drive. He was thinking about Peyton. He loved her, he knew this for sure, as much as one person could love another. He loved her since that crazy day, more than five years ago, when he'd introduced himself and she had told him to fuck off. He smiled at the memory. They had both worked for an ambulance company and were assigned to work with each other. They couldn't remeber now why she had taken such an instant dislike of him, but all that had changed...

She bowed her head and lit her cigarette with a match. She let the match burn itself down to her fingertips before shaking it out and taking a deep drag of the filtered Malboro. She ignored the tremble in her hands as easily as she ignored the tears welling up behind her eyes. She refused to cry. McCain women do not cry. They rage, they bitch, they nag and they brawl, but they most certainly do not cry. She took another drag. Her hair fell into her face and she impatiently rewound it into a b...