Ava's Prize. Cari Lynn Webb

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СКАЧАТЬ of financial debt and possible job burnout—not exactly greener pastures or enticing.

      “Ben and I checked out Kyle’s website.” Dan polished off the last of his french fries. “We’re trying to come up with a winning invention.”

      That money, along with the potential bonus, would allow Ava to go to school and pay for her mom’s care. No naked housekeeping required. Temptation swirled through her. But she had to come up with an idea better than mood-changing hair dye. She’d need a serious, workable idea. One worth twenty-five grand. “Surely you guys have something on your list of wins from our You-Know-What-We-Need game.”

      “Nothing worthy of fifty grand,” Dan said.

      “Then it’s not such an easy, quick payout.” Like everything in life. Life was never that easy or simple. Ever.

      “You just need one idea.” Dan held up his index finger. “One.”

      “One really good idea that hasn’t been thought of already.” Ava stretched her legs out and flexed her toes inside her boots, rolled her ankles. Nothing smoothed out the sudden restlessness inside her. “An invention that can also be made into a prototype.”

      Dan scrunched up his napkin and threw it at her. “You looked into the contest, too. What is your idea?”

      “I talked to Kyle about the contest when we were there.” She’d considered the contest in a the-sky-is-always-pink-in-that-world kind of way. Putting her energy into a fantasy made her selfish like her father. She had to do what was right for her family, not only herself. Believing she could win a contest was a risk she couldn’t afford. She tapped on her phone screen to search for more job ads. “My only idea is to find a legal, non-nude, part-time job that pays well.”

      Dan tapped the steering wheel. “You have better odds with the contest or the lottery.”

      She refused to believe that. She had to be thoughtful and methodical in her job search. Entering a contest and wishing on stars wasn’t practical. “I just have to search the right job-ad website.”

      Dispatch interrupted the conversation. Codes. Location. And more details rattled over the speaker, focusing Ava.

      Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an inventor or a forward thinker. She was a paramedic who’d served her country and now took care of her mother. She tended to the wounded and sick—that was what she knew how to do. What she excelled at. Ava buckled her seat belt and left her ridiculous thoughts about inventions outside, in the gutter.

      “Time to roll.” Dan buckled his seat belt. “Told you that you should’ve eaten while we had the chance.”

      Stress had stolen her appetite. With each block closer to the victim’s location, she crammed the stress deep inside her, where it wouldn’t distract her. She couldn’t rescue her struggling finances, but she could help save another life.

      * * *

      FORTY-EIGHT HOURS after her late-night job search in the ambulance, the reality of Ava’s life crashed over her. Game night at Kyle’s place seemed like a distant memory—an imagined one.

      Her reality was a domestic fight and a victim with multiple stab wounds. An overdose. One early-morning heart attack. A stroke. Not everyone arrived at the hospital alive. Those were only the life-threatening calls during the night.

      Five hours into their shift, Ava had checked the full-moon calendar, looking for something to explain the hectic pace. The full moon was still more than eight days away. Her shift had been another routine night on the job. A routine night that had left her hollowed out and exhausted.

      Ava walked into her apartment, her legs wooden, her steps slow. Surely a few hours of sleep would right her world enough to take on the day.

      But her home life collided with her professional life, adding a bleakness everywhere she looked.

      Joann, a registered nurse and her mother’s caregiver, sat at the kitchen table, her fingers wrapped around a wide mug. Worry and exhaustion faded into the older woman’s wide brown eyes and thinned her mouth.

      The long-time nurse—and second mother to Ava—didn’t need to speak for Ava to know her mom had relapsed during the night.

      Ava worked her voice around the catch in her throat. “How is she?”

      Joann sipped her tea as if requiring the warm liquid to loosen her own words. “We made it through the night.”

      They’d never called Ava. Not that she would’ve been able to answer, given their call load. She thanked the powers that be for Joann. She’d be lost without the remarkable woman caring for her mother.

      Joann pointed to a dry-erase board on the side of the refrigerator. “Doses and times are on the board. You’ll want to repeat.”

      Ava scanned the med list and her heart rolled into her stomach. This wasn’t a mild relapse. Nothing that would resolve in the next few hours. “You need to get some rest.”

      “I’m thinking the very same thing about you.” Joann tipped her mug toward Ava; a familiar motherly scold laced her tone. “Child, you look like you’re about to drop out to that tile floor. If you dare to do it, I’m leaving you right where you fall.”

      “Can you at least cover me up?” Ava asked, a small smile in her voice.

      “Fine, but I’m not getting you a pillow.” Joann rinsed her mug in the sink and set it in the dishwasher. “Go to bed before you really do face-plant on this floor.”

      Ava hugged Joann and watched the nurse leave. Exhaustion made her feet drag down the hall. She already knew sleep would be difficult to hold on to with the worry for her mom weaving relentlessly through her. She showered and changed, and then headed out of her bedroom. Her gaze drifted over the contest flyer she’d tossed on her dresser last week.

      She tiptoed into her mom’s room and curled into the recliner beside her mother’s bed. Concern pulsed through her, making her entire body ache.

      Her mental health needed a career change and soon. She’d never really paid attention to statistics, never considered herself a number on a survey. Until recently. Statistics listed a paramedic’s burnout rate at five years. If Ava listened hard enough, she could hear that clock ticking. She hadn’t shared with Dan or her mom that her past and present intersected during any quiet moment. In those moments, memories stole her sleep and haunted her with fear-induced adrenaline rushes.

      The more she worked, the more her empathy dwindled away. Last night’s first call had been to a car accident involving a seventeen-year-old who’d been texting. The teen had cried his life was too hard with balancing school and girlfriends and expectations. He’d swerved into oncoming traffic, too absorbed by the videos on his phone to watch the road. Ava had wanted to lecture the teen that hard was having both legs blown off from an IED and living to talk about it. Hard was leaving your pregnant wife at home while you served for a year overseas and not knowing if you’d return at all. Hard was burying your child. Too soon. Too early. Because of irresponsible drivers like him. Anger warred with her compassion. But teens should be having fun and being carefree, shouldn’t they? They weren’t adults yet. And didn’t everyone deserve a second chance?

      She wanted to believe she could attend physician assistant’s school, shift into an office environment with СКАЧАТЬ