Fascinating Villains

{5} - I Believe in You.

My partner is outside of the ambulance, she is asking the young man who witnessed the shooting and called 9-1-1 a few more questions before we can leave for the hospital. We want to make sure we have a complete version of the facts and a good understanding for our report. Furthermore, this will indicate if we need to involve the police or any other services in our procedures.

The young man who was shot is named Jackson Poole, according to what his friend out there told us and his ID card. His eyes are closed and he is breathing laboriously, lying down on a stretcher next to me. He was actually hit twice. One bullet seriously notched his left shoulder and the second one is lodged in his right hip. Whoever did this has terrible aim... Or was in a phenomenal hurry. Maybe his assaillant was not in a state of clear consciousness... There are many possibilities, that is certain.

I readjust my sky blue medical gloves and reach for the zipper on his backpack, avoiding the blood stains against the damaged dark khaki fabric. I make sure Leah is not heading towards the back of the ambulance and start digging. Let's see if I'm right about you, Mr. Poole...

If he is indeed the younger brother of Jordan Poole, my hunch has a high chance of being proven. Nevertheless, I am still hoping I won't confirm my hypothesis. That would bring me more relief than the alternative.

I swiftly rummage the contents of his bag. At last, I find a large pencil case, the kind that has holes on one side to secure it inside a ring binder. I open it and push the pencils away. There it is. I carefully pick up the crumpled resealable plastic bag. Through the clear material, I can perfectly see that it contains a significant quantity of white powder. And I would be willing to bet it's not flour. I hear Leah stepping back into the driver's seat, on the other side of the partition.

"Alrighty, Tanza, we're going back. Everything okay back there?"

Thankfully, my colleague cannot see beyond the divider.

"Yes, absolutely. I'm ready," I calmly answer.

I hurriedly slip the bag of drugs inside my first responder bag, underneath a stack of two folded blankets. I don't want to apply too much pressure onto the fragile receptacle, if it tears I am screwed.

Luckily, Jackson has not moved in the slightest and has no notion of what I am doing. I mean, we are injecting him with sedatives to reduce his pain and guarantee he will not rebel against our efforts to heal him. I did not give him a lot, though, he was already significantly dazed from blood loss when we arrived. His friend called 9-1-1 at least 10 minutes after the shooting occurred.

I pull a navy pouch out from my bag and grab one of my cards from inside it. I never go anywhere without them. They sort of ressemble business cards, and I had them printed out specially a little while after I began working as an emergency medical technician. On each card I listed the most trustworthy and efficient mental health and financial help services in town, along with homeless shelters, recovery programs and such institutions. I seldom update the information, only if an organisation undergoes major changes or adopts a new address.

Whenever I steal incriminating possessions from a patient, I exchange them with one of my cards. Needless to say, I never do this under the watchful eyes of any witnesses. And since my name is not on the cards, it is an entirely anonymous gesture. Well, as incognito as it can be. The victims must suspect someone from the hospital staff did this when they find a card instead of their valuables, but it would be difficult to trace the theft back to me. No one surveils the footage of the cameras inside our ambulances unless an investigation is launched by law enforcement officials.

I whip my pen out of one of my safety jacket's breast pockets. I press the tip against the blank space I left out on the back of every card and jot down: "I believe in you.". I always dot my statements to express the honesty behind the note. Using a more unrecognizable handwriting would be useless. Whether or not I make the effort of changing each character so it does not look like my natural calligraphy, the cameras above my head are recording my unlawfulness.