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 By Erin Russell
Copyright © 2024 by Erin Russell
Cover by Erin Russell
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or
by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who
may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or
newspaper—without permission in writing from the publisher. No portion
of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission
from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
The text and artwork of this book were entirely created by humans.
No generative AI was used.
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used
fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s
imagination.
ISBN 979-8-9899256-0-5

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 Contents

A Note on Content
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-One
32. Chapter Thirty-Two
33. Chapter Thirty-Three
34. Chapter Thirty-Four
35. Epilogue
Up Next
Savage - Sins of the Banna, Book One
About the Author

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 A Note on Content

Possum Hollow is a fictional small town in rural Missouri. All the roads and
surrounding towns mentioned are also fictional, so don’t look for them on a
map. The world was inspired by real places where I spent some of my
childhood.

The backdrop for the series is one of rural poverty. Across the series, you’ll
find common themes of drug & alcohol abuse, family violence, parental
neglect, toxic masculinity & violence, cultural homophobia and untreated
mental illness.

X
 This book features plotlines regarding military service/PTSD, domestic
violence, gang/mafia crime, death of family members, realistic medical
procedures, traumatic mutism, and on-page self injury that some readers
may find triggering.

For each book in the series, I list the most significant triggers at the front,
but if you’d prefer to read a comprehensive list that may contain spoilers for
the story, please check my website.

www.erinrussell.com/content-warnings

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 Dedicated to all my trauma-fueled, commitment-phobic emergency med
brethren. We give the best fucking advice, but run away from our own
relationships like it’s an Olympic sport.

(If you identify with anything I just said, please drink some water you
dehydrated beast. I can hear your kidneys screaming from here.)

One of the MCs in 68 Whiskey is mute, and his preferred form of

communication is American Sign Language.

ASL, like other sign languages, are not word-for-word signed versions of
spoken language. They're independent languages that have their own
grammar, sentence structure and slang, and a huge amount of meaning is
conveyed through things like body position, signing space and facial
expressions, as well as the signs themselves. ASL has a different word order
than English, so reading a transliterated version of it can be very confusing
if you're not familiar with the language.
 X

Because of this, please consider all of ASL in this book to have been
translated into English for ease of reading. In the same way that you could
write "Hello," he said to me in French, you'll see sentences like, "Hello,"
Ford signed.

This seemed like the easiest way to not interrupt the flow of the story or
require any extra knowledge on the part of the reader, but still respect the
integrity of ASL as its own language with associated culture.

While Ford speaks ASL as a primary mode of communication, he is not

deaf and has never been a part of deaf culture. This is reflected in the way
he thinks and communicates. I tried to take as sensitive and informed
approach as possible to his medical issues, trauma and communication
style, but it is not meant to reflect any kind of universal experience.
Everyone's experience of these issues is different, and this is just one
version.
 X

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 Chapter One

T heold.Egg McMuffin I’m shoveling into my mouth is at least two hours

It’s a stone-cold mess of congealed and cheese, but it’s still the best
goddamn thing I’ve put in my mouth all week.
As depressing as that is.
Eight years in the military living off MREs and chow hall slop really
gives you an appreciation for any food that doesn’t come out of a vacuum
pack. On top of that, this has been a grueling fucking shift. It’s one of those
sweltering summer nights, the kind where it feels like the humidity is trying
to drown you, and there’s no reprieve from the heat. Even at 2a.m., I was
sweating out my body weight and it's only gotten warmer since then. I’m
dehydrated and I’m fucking hungry.
Possum Hollow is a teeny, tiny little town in the middle of nowhere,
Missouri. It’s stereotypical rural poor, so working on an ambulance I see a
decent amount of action with bar brawls, overdoses, and diabetes
complications, but not a lot else. Most days, the shifts feel like a breath of
fresh air compared to all the lives I’ve lived before.
Tonight was an exception. There was a multi-car pile-up, which is not
something we see that often. My partner Cade—the EMT to my paramedic
—had to pop his solo-CPR cherry because there were too many casualties
to triage while we waited for other ambulances to be routed from nearby
counties.
 He handled it, though, and I’m pretty damn proud of him. Not that I’ll say
so. He’s been on the job a little over a year, and this is when his ego needs
to be kept in check before he gets over-confident and accidentally kills
someone.
I’m not judging. He’ll fuck up and kill someone eventually; it’s a rite of
passage for emergency med. But as the person who sucked him into this
messy-ass job by convincing him to go to EMT school, I feel obligated to
try to shield him from the worst of it as long as I can.
Right now, he’s sitting still for once in his life; his head tipped back in the
passenger’s seat and his eyes closed. Cade normally has the energy of a
golden retriever puppy trying not to trip over his own paws. Instead, with
blood and vomit on his shirt and a fresh trauma running through his mind,
the atmosphere in the cab feels heavy.
“Eat,” I say, throwing his own gelatinous egg sandwich into his lap.
The grimace I get in response tells me he’s not feeling it, but I’m not
taking no for an answer.
“Trust me. You’re going to feel like shit either way, and your body needs
the fuel. The shift ain’t over yet. The last thing you want is for us to get
called to another fucking job and you start feeling faint half-way through.”
Begrudgingly, Cade reaches for the sandwich and peels back the wrapper.
He looks pale, and it’s weird not to see the normal current of energy
running through him. I fight back the paternal sense of worry that
automatically builds in me.
More and more, I’m forced to remind myself that he’s not my kid to take
care of. I moved here to put distance between myself and the rest of the
world, not adopt every waif and stray that runs across my path. Just because
his own parents couldn’t give two shits about him and he’s the spitting
image of my little brother…
I have to get a grip.
Beep beep beep.
Of course, the sound of our motherfucking tones interrupts us.
Shoving the rest of my breakfast in my mouth like a chipmunk, I confirm
our response and then listen to dispatch rattle off the address as I try to
chew through the wad of cold food as quickly as possible. The call is for a
22yo male who’s been stabbed, which is a lot spicier than most of our calls.
I have a vague idea of where the address is, but I’ve only lived here for a
couple of years, so I don’t have the same internal GPS that Cade does.
 Which is why I look across the cab to see if he recognizes the location.
Instead of a normal response, I find him staring at me wide-eyed, all the
blood drained from his face, looking like he’s about to hurl his single bite of
food onto the dash.
“That’s Ford’s garage.” His voice quavers as he speaks.
“Fuck.”
I don’t bother with other questions. My hand flicks the switch for full
lights and sirens. I slam-reverse out of the space we were in and gun it to
the highway.
I’ve never been to the garage. The only thing I know about it is that
Cade’s buddy Ford owns it, and his boyfriend Silas works there. The love-
of-his-life, borderline-adorable-borderline-codependent, all-consuming, he-
hurts-I-hurt boyfriend that he just settled down with.
This is not good. My stomach lurches at the thought of how many ways
the next hour could play out for my partner.
I know better than anyone that the worst day of your life is never
something you see coming.
Red tendrils of dawn are licking over the horizon as I careen across town
in record time. The good thing about Possum Hollow is that it’s fucking
small. I can make it there in six or seven minutes if I disregard all safety
protocols, and fuck safety protocols right now.
There’s one corner that I take hard enough for the inside wheels to lift a
little, but apart from that, the drive is clean.
As I’m pulling up to the auto shop, I debate whether to call for back up
right away. I don’t know how objective or functional Cade is going to be
once we get inside. The kid’s had a fucked-up life, and he’s generally pretty
good at compartmentalizing, but he’s been all kinds of soft for Silas since
the day they met.
There’s no one else on duty right now, so I’d have to get someone from a
different station, which is why I ultimately decide to take a wait-and-see
approach.
We both clamber out of the ambulance at full speed. I switch my brain to
maximum work mode, and I can see by the set of Cade’s jaw that he’s
trying to do the same.
“Are you gonna be able to do this, kid?” I ask, my voice nearly drowned
out by the sound of our feet crunching across the gravel parking lot.
“If you try to make me sit outside, I’ll deck you. I swear to God.”
 Cade doesn’t get serious very often, but he has a dark side buried in there.
I haven’t seen it a lot, but he can be ferocious when he needs to be. Blame
my own lifetime of trauma, but the fact that he’s getting pissed instead of
weepy gives me more confidence in him.
“I’ll assess the scene. You will do every single thing I say, exactly as I
say, or I will bench you and deal with this myself. Understood?”
I don’t get an agreement, which makes my inner sergeant chafe at the
disrespect, but I also don’t get a “fuck you”, so I’ll take it.
There’s a police cruiser in the lot with its lights still flashing, but the
roller door at the front of the garage is pulled down, so we can’t see the
situation inside. I had let myself be optimistic and didn’t bother with a
stretcher until we get the lay of the land. Cade walks us in through the side
door like he’s been here a million times, which I guess he has, and my brain
immediately starts breaking down everything that’s going on inside.
Silas is sitting down, holding a questionably clean towel against his ribs
over what I’m assuming is his injury. He looks bright and alert, though,
even if he’s in pain, which is a good start. Cade is thundering over to him
before I get the chance to say anything, of course.
“I’m totally fine.” Silas heads us both off at the pass. “The knife glanced
off my ribs, it’s barely a graze. Please don’t freak out.”
His words do nothing to eat at the worry rolling off Cade in waves, but it
settles me a little. Silas is stoic, but he’s rational. At least about things that
aren’t to do with Cade. Confident that he’s probably not dying, I’m happy
to let Cade handle it and turn my attention to the chaos unfolding on the
other side of the shop floor.
“Full head-to-toe, make sure there aren’t any injuries the adrenaline isn’t
letting him feel. You’ve got this,” I call out to Cade as I walk past the pair
of them.
Because my attention is on the same thing as the cops are focused on,
which is the other person in the building. The two patrolmen have him
penned into the corner, and the energy coming from them is that kind of
crackling tension that spells trouble. He’s in handcuffs and he’s bleeding
from a small head laceration, but the fact that he’s not already in the back of
their cruiser makes it unclear whether he’s the perpetrator.
“What’s going on?” I’m vaguely familiar with both officers. I can’t
remember their names, but they both look like they walked straight out of
central casting for small town cops with a grudge and a power trip. “Is this
the suspect?”
“He’s my fucking boss!” Silas yells from across the room. I don’t think
I’ve ever seen him raise his voice before. He’s normally pretty shy, but right
now he looks pissed. Cade pulls his focus back to the exam, but Silas jerks
away to keep yelling. “These assholes put him in cuffs because they’re
morons. He doesn’t fucking talk. If he’s cuffed, he can’t type or sign, so
how can he give a statement? They made shitty assumptions as soon as they
walked in the door and haven’t listened to a word I’m saying.”
“That’s enough attitude out of you, son,” Officer Asshole Number One
says. “We know it’s Ford’s shop, but he’s acting erratic, and we just want to
keep everyone safe while we ascertain the truth of the situation.”
“The truth of the situation is that I got stabbed by a fucking meth head
who was trying to rob us. I called the cops and because he’s upset that his
shop was trashed, you called him ‘aggressive’ and treated him like a
criminal,” Silas calls out.
The tension in the room is rising, but I narrow my focus on the man in
question.
I’ve heard of Ford Novack, but we’ve never actually met. Apparently, he
has a reputation in this town for violence, although according to Cade, it’s
outdated.
I can see why he would put people on the defensive. The man is ferocity
in human form. I’m fucking tall at 6’3”, and he’s got at least an inch on me,
plus a lot of muscle and bulk. Long, dark hair that was probably tied back
earlier, but has come loose and is flying around his bloodied face adds
drama to the image, and underneath the blood and beard I’m pretty sure I
can see a big-ass scar running down one cheek. His pale skin makes all that
blood and hair pop, so he looks like something out of a graphic novel.
The thing that really gets me is his eyes. He has husky eyes. Light blue
and totally fucking crazed. I love it. Something about that raw, feral
intensity sparks my own crazy in response.
I don’t generally trust cops any more than I have to. I’ve seen too many
who are so shit-scared in their suburban neighborhood that they can’t
exercise a little self-control and not open fire at random. Compared to the
nineteen-year-old kids who get thrown into literal open warfare and still
manage to adhere to the rules of engagement.
 But even if I was going to side with the cops, crazy husky eyes here
would have changed my mind.
This situation is rapidly deteriorating, and I’m too exhausted and hungry
not to take charge.
“Well, if he didn’t commit a crime, I’m gonna need you to remove the
cuffs so I can give him medical attention. If you’re too piss-scared of a
random law-abiding citizen just because he’s taller than you, then give me
the keys and wait in your cruiser while the grown-ups work.”
Watching the cop’s face turn red is deeply satisfying. I’m not going to lie.
“Hey, I don’t know how things work on the east coast, but around here,
the law is in charge.”
Jesus fucking Christ, he even talks like he walked out of a bad cop movie.
“Bitch, I wouldn’t trust you to police your way out of a traffic jam.
Unlock the cuffs now, or I’ll be filing a report with your department for
unlawful detention. You may think you’re hot shit, but this is middle
America and a lot of people are willing to listen to a war veteran first
responder over some small-town schlub on a permanent power-trip.”
Apparently, that’s enough to close the issue. The cop looks pissed as hell,
but he takes the cuffs off Ford before walking away. I know making
enemies in a small town isn’t a great idea, but I’m from South Boston. If
there’s anything I know how to do, it’s hold a grudge.
Both cops retreat to take a statement from Silas, leaving me and Ford in a
tentative little bubble of peace. The amount of tension running through his
body is palpable, even from three feet away. In deference to the cops, Ford
does look like he wants to crush someone’s skull in his giant canned-ham
hands. I still think I could take him if I had to.
“Can I take a look at your head, man? You’re bleeding pretty good.”
I watch as he forces his muscles to unclench, one by one. The anger slips
out of his body and is replaced by a profound level of weariness. As he nods
his consent, he seems to sway on his feet.
“Let’s sit down.” I place a hand on his elbow, which makes him scowl,
but he lets me guide him gently until he’s sitting on some kind of toolbox. I
crouch down in front of him to take a look. I try to place my fingers on his
chin to tilt his face towards me, but this time he jerks out of my grasp
completely.
This guy seems like he’s pretty self-contained. And if you don’t talk, I
imagine most people find you difficult to read. But I make my living
looking at people’s bodies for clues. Which means I clock that his pulse
immediately starts to speed up, to the point that I can see his vein fluttering
over his throat. I see his jaw clench as his nostrils flare and his eyes widen,
all while he pulls away from me.
That’s not anger. That’s fear.
Oh, he’s just getting more interesting by the minute.
I need to grab a Telfa pad from my jump bag anyway, so I turn away as
slowly as I can, using the moment to give him a second to breathe. When I
turn back around, his chin is tilted in a little protectively, so I take a
different tack.
“You’re still bleeding, so I’m gonna hold pressure for a couple of
minutes, okay?”
I get the smallest possible nod, those bright blue eyes watching me with
the hyper intensity of someone who’s known more bad touch than good.
I’m an expert at keeping patient interactions surface-level, but something
about his expression hits me deep.
Avoiding touching him anywhere else, I press the pad against his
forehead. From a cursory glance it doesn’t look terrible, but foreheads are
vascular as fuck, so I need to stop the bleeding before I can do anything else
with it.
“What happened?”
Huffing, Ford shakes his head and rolls his eyes so hard it almost
dislodges my hand. His hands come up in front of him, clutching uselessly
at the air, and I put two and two together. He doesn’t have his phone, and
Silas said that’s how he generally communicates.
“You sign, right? Go ahead, I know ASL.”
This time when he jerks away from my hands, it’s in shock, not fear. Our
gazes collide, and he looks at me for longer than I expect, his expression
guarded.
Intensity hangs between us like the spit-trail after a really dirty kiss.
Eventually, his hands move. Slowly at first, but with more confidence as I
nod to confirm that I’m following what he’s saying. My hand is still
pressing the gauze to his forehead, which limits his ability to raise his
eyebrows, basically hamstringing him from signing properly, but there are
enough context clues for him to get his meaning across. If I miss anything,
it’s my fault for getting distracted by how nimble he manages to be despite
the obvious strength in his hands.
 “We don’t usually open until later,” he signs. “But Silas has a side project
he wanted help with, so we came in early. When we got here, three guys
were inside, ransacking the place. Meth heads, grabbing shit and breaking
shit at random. I grabbed one, but his buddy got Silas with a knife, so I let
him go to help. They all ended up running out before I could catch any of
them, but one of them hit me with a fucking wrench in the process. Then
Silas called 911 and everything just got worse.”
He looks around briefly at the shop, which is definitely trashed, and the
heartbreak is clearly written on his face. Then he turns back to me.
Narrowed eyes tell me he still isn’t convinced I understand, so I switch out
my hand for his holding the pad and sign back at him instead of talking.
“My little brother was deaf. I’m a little rusty, but I understand you.” I
lean in to whisper the next part, “Don’t tell Thing One and Thing Two over
there, though, because they’re nosy and I don’t like to talk about it.”
He fingerspells “OK” softly, like an afterthought, still holding my gaze.
The laser focus that I normally carry into a scene stutters for a second. It’s
been a long night, followed by a weird end-of-night call, and saying
anything personal about myself always sets me on edge. I feel like all the
wheels and cogs inside my work-brain are catching slightly off, and I have
to concentrate to bring my attention away from Ford’s haunting, anguished
eyes back to the scene.
“Cade, how’s your boy?” I yell across the open space once I’ve rejoined
the living.
“He’s stable; single shallow lac, but we’re taking him to hospital to get
him double-checked by a trauma doc if I have to fucking sedate him to get
him there.”
I bite back a smile. Cade may be a golden retriever most of the time, but
he’s a bulldog when he’s in protective mode, and it’s one of the things that
cemented our friendship.
“Fair,” I say, turning back to Ford. He’s still staring at me with an
inscrutable kind of intensity. “What about you? Feel like a field trip to the
ER? I can make sure you’re stable, but I’d feel a lot better about your head
if you got a CT.”
As the words came out of my mouth, I knew the answer would be a
hard no. Ford’s face shutters. In the short time I’ve been there, he’s been
constantly expressive: despairing about the shop, angry at the cops, fearful
of me, shocked that I understood him… But this is nothing. This is
totally shut down, in a way that seems familiar to him.
I inhale and exhale through my nose, long and slow, weighing the pros
and cons of arguing with him. In the end, I decide against it. We’ve built a
fragile peace after he seemed ready to tear those cops apart, and it’s not
worth ruining that over a fight I won’t win, anyway.
Instead, I let the silence fall over us. I take his vitals, checking he’s okay
before I touch him each time. I go through concussion protocol to see if I
have cause to bring him in against his will. He sits through the whole thing
like a rock, and he’s as stable as I’d hoped. The head lac has stopped
bleeding, so he lets me give it a rough-and-ready cleanup and a quick
butterfly bandage before his patience runs out.
I go through my spiel about why he shouldn’t be skipping the CT and
signs of a concussion to look out for. I tell him to have someone monitor
him, though I know he won’t, and pull out my iPad for him to sign that he’s
staying Against Medical Advice.
Leaving him alone feels wrong, but I know there’s no kind of logic or
cajoling that’s going to work against his brick wall of obstinance. By the
time I’m done, Cade and Silas are out in the ambulance, ready to go.
With a last look, I watch him sit there in silence, surrounded by the
trashed shop that he obviously loves, staring at the floor and already
pretending I don’t exist.

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 Chapter Two

I don’t know where to start.

This shop has been the center of my life since I was eight years old. My
dad built it from the ground up, and I have to take care of it now that he’s
gone.