No Mercy / Book Three

Chapter One: Ultimatums

Juniper Hayes stared at the woman in front of her and quickly blinked past the tears that welled up in her eyes, body still shaking from the adrenaline that was pumping through her system.

"Honey, why don't you come with me? You don't need to be out here to see this," she encouraged gently, putting her hand on Juniper's shoulder and guiding her past the wreckage that used to be her car.

The first responders were still trying to pry the back door open, the metal bent and still smoldering. She didn't know what they were looking for, no one else was in the car with her, but they had started shouting and racing towards it as soon as she stumbled into the road.

Juniper pressed her hand against her head and winced when she came in contact with split skin, the pain blooming from her forehead coming full force. She had bashed her face against the steering wheel when the explosion went off from her backseat, barely missing her nose but undoubtedly leaving behind a goose egg.

"Right up here, sweetheart. Let's take a look at you. Make sure that you aren't hurt too badly," the woman advised, and Juniper finally took a moment to look at her uniform; EMT patched on her shoulder. She climbed unsteadily into the back of the ambulance and sat on the gurney, clutching the blanket that was thrown over her shoulders.

"Can you tell us what happened? Did someone hit your car and then drive off? Maybe you spilled some gas in the backseat and accidentally sent a cigarette back through the window?"

Juniper shook her head, resisting the urge to bat away the hands that were tugging on the skin of her forehead. She knew that they were just doing their job but she just wanted to lay down and cry until there were no more tears left in her body.

"It wasn't another car and I don't smoke," Juniper muttered, wincing when the hands on her forehead pinched the skin together. "I need to talk to the police. Can someone please get a hold of them?"

She bit her lip to keep from yelping when the paramedic took a bandage from the EMT and pressed it against her forehead, the pain so intense that she saw stars behind her eyelids.

"Someone has arrived on scene and will be with you in just a minute, but we need to put a neck brace on you since you hit your head. We can take it off once we get you to the hospital and they do a scan of your neck and back to make sure you have no spinal cord injuries," the paramedic explained, lifting Juniper's hair out of the way and slipping the brace into place.

She counted to ten in her head and took a deep breath, trying to keep calm. The adrenaline that had been pumping through her system just minutes before was slowly wearing off, making her feel nauseous. She knew she was going into shock and that it wouldn't be very long before she crashed hard.

"Here he is now," the EMT reassured her, taking her gloves off and tossing them into the trash bin. "We'll give you some privacy but you can't talk for long. We need to get you to the emergency room as soon as possible."

Juniper looked out of the open ambulance doors and cringed when she saw the man hurrying towards her, a scowl on his usually attractive face and a suit in place of his normal police uniform. He at least had enough decency to wait for the paramedic and EMT to crawl out of the ambulance before launching into the speech that she had heard at least a dozen times.

"I can't believe that you would go so far as to cause a car crash," Jaxon Daniels drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and flicking his eyes towards what used to be her car. "That's a new low, even for you."

Juniper clenched the blanket between her fingers and waited for him to finish what was slowly becoming a normal occurrence for her.

"How many times do we have to go over this? You can't stage real emergencies just because you're bored. Get a damned hobby and stop making my life even harder than it has to be."

"Will you just shut the hell up and let me tell you what happened?" Juniper snapped, slamming her hand down on the gurney and making Jaxon roll his eyes. She took a deep breath and tried not to gag when she drew the scent of smoke into her lungs. "There was an explosion from the backseat. I don't know what it was, but surely to God something survived that you can get some kind of evidence off of. This isn't fake, you asshat. This is my life we're talking about here and you treating me like some kind of criminal because you can't be fucked to do your damned job is more than I can deal with."

She pressed a hand to her stomach and took a deep breath through her mouth, body shaking like she had just been drug out of a frozen lake. She barely even registered that Jaxon had taken an aggressive step towards her until she looked back up and he was practically in the back of the ambulance with her.

"I refuse to waste my time on people who think that they're above the law," Jaxon snarled, earning a glare from Juniper. He had been like this since their second meeting, obviously making his mind up that she couldn't be trusted for reasons she didn't know.

"And I refuse to have my life put on the line because you think you're above it since you have a shiny badge and a fucking uniform! Either do your job or I find someone else who's willing to listen to me and your captain hears all about how you're abusing your power. It's not that hard," Juniper hissed, refusing to back down. She was tired of this getting swept under a rug just because he had some issue with her.

"Get your shit together, Jaxon. You have until I get out of the hospital to start finding me some answers or so help me God I'll go looking for them myself," Juniper threatened, sagging back against the gurney when the paramedic shouldered Jaxon out of the way and climbed into the back of the ambulance with her.

She wasn't sure what was going to happen after she got out of the hospital. If Jaxon would put aside whatever problems he had with her and started acting like a cop or if he would continue to believe that what happened was somehow a ploy to gain sympathy. But one thing was certain: she was sick and tired of running and always looking over her shoulder. It ended now, or she was going to be dead before the month was over with.