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getting even closer than before. “You see anyone around your car tonight or notice anything out of the ordinary?”
    It was hard to think straight with the mounting stress and activity going on. “I was… I was inside the hospital all night. Wait, I did see someone… in the parking lot. I don’t know. It could have been anyone. It was too dark and he was too far away for me to get a good look at him.”
    His eyes narrowed, almost scolding me. “Were you alone?”
    I didn’t care for his assumption. “No. I wasn’t.”
    “Good. You recall if he was white? Black? Hispanic?”
    “Didn’t get that good of a look. He was definitely male.”
    He nodded. “Sounds like you probably got there right before he attempted to steal your car. Surprised he swapped the plate.” That realization seemed to confound him further. He flashed his light toward the rear of my car and then down the driver side door and up the seals around the door windows. “Not a seasoned pro, taking that much time.” He leaned past me, shining his flashlight on the dash. “This has a pushbutton start. Huh. Why the false call to dispatch?”
    I followed the path of the flashlight as he scanned the inside of my car again, trying not to allow my imagination to roam too far from his extreme closeness or his alluring scent. “What do you mean?”
    “You have a theft tracking system in this car?”
    I wished I knew what that meant exactly. Did I? I recalled hearing words like “anti-theft” during the sales pitch I got from Dan at my dad’s dealership, but did it have a tracking system ? I had no idea. Having a decent paying job meant that I could finally afford a new car lease and not drive around in the trade-in clunkers my dad affectionately referred to as “life lessons.” Being stumped by the dash clock was as far as I’d gotten.
    Car headlights swept around the end of the street, flashing a bright beam of light across Officer Trent’s back.
    The SUV locked its brakes, screeched to a halt, and then gunned it in reverse. The explosion happened an instant after that. I ducked down and cringed from the earsplitting noise, catching only the blur of a large delivery truck before it plowed into another car, and then another.
    “What the fuck?” one of the cops shouted.
    Oh God!
    Metal flew through the air and littered the intersection, creating more sounds I’d never want to hear again, followed by the constant blare of one of the vehicle’s horns.

 
     
     
     
    I DIDN’T REALIZE what she was doing at first when she took off running down the street without me. I ran after her, my legs pumping on pure instinct and unfettered adrenaline.
    I needed to stop her before she got too close to any of the vehicles, shield her from impending danger and what was surely going to be an unsightly scene with fatalities. She didn’t need to see that level of brutality trapped within the confines of crushed metal. No one did.
    She pulled out of my grip when I caught up to her.
    “Let go,” she shouted at me, no longer a shackled, trembling mess. No, now she was all business, demanding that I follow her through the mangled debris and broken glass scattered all over the road.
    The pungent scents of battery acid and radiator fluid wafted through the air, assaulting my nose, as we wove through the wreckage. The familiar smells of spilled gasoline and diesel fuel twisted my gut into a sickening knot.
    I pushed through it, making a conscious effort not to let it drag me down. I already had too many years of horrendous memories plaguing my mind, and now this? More unnecessary death wrapped up in crushed metal to add to the pile, creating an endless loop of fucked-up shit rattling around in my already fucked-up skull.
    I’d been down this dead-end road before. It was why I jumped at the chance to join the ATTF when it came up, to get off regular patrol and being first on the scene.
    Most people didn’t understand this special hell. They had no clue what