“We need to cover the eye socket.” Olivia takes a tiny penlight out of her purse to examine Becca's eye. “It's a blunt trauma injury.”
“Is my eyeball bleeding?”
“You're going to be okay,” answers Olivia. “Danny? We need to tape a protective cover over her eye to prevent further damage. Cut off the bottom of a plastic cup …”
“What about tape?” I ask.
“Don't need it.”
I hear a rip.
Olivia is tearing some strips off her T-shirt.
Becca is rocking slightly to punch through the pain.
She shivers. I grab Jess's beach towel and drape it over her shoulders like a cape-a cape with a gigantic red-and-blue Budman plastered on it, the superhero of beer drinkers everywhere.
Katie returns from the cooler. “Here's some ice.”
“Danny? I need that cup,” Olivia says while she picks crud off Becca's cheek.
I race up to the cooler where we have a stack of Solo cups.
“The EMS guys are on the way,” Jess says and closes his phone.
“Hey, Jess?” I shout.
“Yeah?”
“You and Mook head up to the street. Flag down the ambulance.”
“Right.”
“You should go after those fucking kids who did this!” Mook screams at me. His floppy hat is glowing. They tagged him with a headshot.
“Come on!” Jess gives Mook a shove and they run as best as they can with feet slip-sliding on sand.
“Here you go.” I've managed to tear the cup bottom away from the sides pretty neatly, if I do say so myself.
“Owww.”
Olivia spreads Becca's eye open, spotlights it, checks for debris. The eyeball's iris is purple on the bottom.
Olivia places my plastic circle over the injured eye like a pirate's eye patch. Katie hands her a strip of fabric and she ties a knot behind Becca's head.
I look at my friends and realize we look pretty ridiculous, like we've got some kind of glowing, yellow-green skin rash-the Neon Plague.
• • •
Jess meets the rescue squad ambulance up on the street. He sends the paramedics down to the beach to go get Becca.
“Where's Mook?” I ask.
“Off chasing the bad guys.”
“You saw who did it?”
“No. Mook just ran up the road screaming, ‘Come back, you motherfuckers.’ ”
“Yeah. That usually works.”
“What seems to be the problem, fellas?” This bald guy stands in a driveway near the ambulance. He's what cops call a looky-lou-wants to take a look at whatever brought swirling roof lights to his street at twelve fifteen A.M. “Is somebody hurt?”
“Minor beach accident,” I say.
“Friend of yours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, try to keep down the noise.” The guy is probably fortysome-thing. Balding. He's wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. With socks. He's one of those dads who have to wake up in five or six hours when his kids start heaving Cheerios at each other. He shuffles back toward his rented beach house. “Some people are trying to sleep around here!”
Yes, and other people are trying not to go blind.
Jess and I hurry back down to the beach.
Becca lies down on the stretcher. The two burly guys from the rescue squad get ready to carry her away.
“I feel like Cleopatra.” She notices the one paramedic's muscles. “What's your name?” she asks, half sitting up.
“Becca?” says Katie. “Down, girl.”
The patient obeys. Olivia takes one hand. Katie grabs the other.
“And don't touch your eye,” says Olivia.
“It hurts,” Becca moans.
“I know, honey.”
“You're going to be okay,” Katie says. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Happy Toasted Marshmallow Day, everybody.”
“Should we go find Mook?” I ask Jess.
“Fuck Mook,” he replies.
“Better you than me,” Becca groans. We all trudge slowly up the sand to the sea grass and the dunes and the pressure-treated boards that lead down to the dead end of Tangerine Street.
“Danny?”
It's Ceepak. He climbs off his eighteen-speed trail bike.
“I heard the call come in. Heard Becca's name.”
“Hi, Ceepak.” Becca sounds woozier.
Ceepak has a police scanner in his apartment. It's his favorite form of entertainment when he's not watching
“Is she badly injured?” he asks.
“Eye trauma,” Olivia says. “Possible hyphema.”
Ceepak nods. “You noted a reservoir of blood in the anterior chamber?”
Olivia nods back.
“She needs to see an ophthalmologist. Stat.”
Ceepak turns to the paramedics who have just secured Becca inside the back of their boxy ambulance.
“Guys? Light ‘em up.”
“Will do, Ceepak,” says the muscle man. I think everybody in town who wears any kind of uniform or badge has heard about Ceepak. Knows he's a standup guy.
Ceepak gives them one of his famous two-finger salutes. “Appreciate it.”
The paramedics hop in, spin their flashers, and race away.
I dig into my shorts for the van keys.
“We should follow.”
A cop car crawls down Tangerine Street. No lights. No siren. Just the soft crunch of seashells under tires.
“Danny,” says Olivia, “maybe you should stay here. Tell the police what happened.”
“Yeah.” I turn to Jess. “You good to drive?”
“Yeah.” Jess never gets plotzed. Besides, the paintball incident was pretty sobering. I toss him the keys. They all hop into my van and take off after the ambulance. Ceepak and I will hang here because we speak Cop.
Well, Ceepak speaks it better than me, but I want to make sure we nail whoever the hell did this to my friends.
CHAPTER THREE
