Free Marked by Sarah Fine

could rewind this entire night and . . . I don’t know. Be better. Faster. Smarter.” It wasn’t the first time he’d felt that way.
    Galena made a sympathetic noise. “Eli, you take too much responsibility for things beyond your control. Sometimes stuff simply . . . happens. What matters is what you do now. I’m sure she’ll appreciate you just being there.” Her voice faded to a whisper. “I know I did.”
    “I will always be there for you.” He rubbed at the ache in his chest. “Hey, you ever heard of the Ferrys?” And do you know why your name was Patrick Ferry’s last word?
    She laughed at the abrupt subject change. “No, is that some paramedic superstition around here?”
    “Ha ha. I’m not talking pixie dust.” He spelled the name. “They’re an important family in town, and they own this company called Psychopomps Incorporated. Ever heard of it?”
    “Uh, no. Should I have?”
    Eli relaxed a little. He had probably been hearing things. After all, it had been loud in the back of the ambulance and Patrick Ferry’s voice had been so weak. Plus, Boston was a big place. Even if Cacy’s father had said “Galena,” he probably hadn’t been talking about his Galena. “No. No worries. I was just wondering.”
    A bang on his window jerked Eli’s head forward. Len peered up at him, waving a bottle of Powderkleen.
    “Hey, G, I have to go.” Eli raised one finger at Len. “My new supervisor’s got some issues.” One of them being Cacy, but he didn’t have time to get into that. “Love you, sis. Thanks for the advice.”
    Eli clicked off his phone and opened the ambulance door. Len shoved the bottle in his face. “You’ve got some work to do, Sergeant. Your rig’s a dump.”
    Eli took the bottle and leveled a somber look at the night shift supervisor. “Cacy’s dad didn’t make it.”
    Len gave him a curt nod. “That lets Cace off the hook, but not you.”
    “It wasn’t an excuse,” growled Eli. “I just thought, since you claim to care about her, that you’d want to know.”
    Len’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, I already knew. And so do the others. They know you’re the medic who let Patrick Ferry die.”
    Eli’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t thought of it that way. On his first night on the job, he’d lost one of the most prominent men in Boston. The Chief’s father. Would Cacy feel the same way? Sure, in the shock right after it happened, she’d told him he’d done everything he could, but would she feel differently tomorrow? Would the Chief?
    Eli avoided the stares of his new colleagues as he cleaned out the rig. He scrubbed until his hands were raw, wishing it were enough to bring Patrick Ferry back. As he worked, he overheard a few guys talking about the attack, speculating about what had happened. Apparently, they hadn’t caught the person who did it. The police officer had chased the assailant into Boston Common, the wild, overgrown swampland at the edge of their emergency response zone. It was pretty much a lawless hideout for canal pirates, so the officer, alone and without backup, had given up before going too deep.
    The killer was still on the loose. No big surprise, but Eli had hoped the Boston police would be more effective than law enforcement where he came from. Apparently, they were as understaffed and underequipped here as everywhere else.
    Eli used an entire bottle of Powderkleen on the rig. By the time he finished, his nose and throat felt burned by the chemical scent. Len had walked by a few times to tell him what a crap job he was doing. Eli had put his head down and gritted his teeth to avoid succumbing to the temptation to turn Len into a bleeding pile of human wreckage on the garage floor.
    He finally punched out after what felt like the longest shift of his entire life. His fellow paramedics were already shunning him, his supervisor had it in for him, and for all he knew, the Chief might blame Eli for his father’s death. What a shitty start to his new