Jessica Meigs - The Becoming Read Free

I’ve got my own.” Jonathan held up a sheet with a noticeably shorter list on it. “Crawling in the fucking dirt, checking the psi on the tires. This is ridiculous.”
    “Watch your language,” Theo muttered absently. He felt silly saying that to a man who was over ten years older than he, but he shook off the sensation and looked the list over one more time. He tore his eyes away from the paper and pulled the ambulance’s side door open, hauling himself inside. He was greeted by the sight of dirty gloves, used nasal cannulas, and plastic packaging littering the floor. Soiled linens were piled on the bench by the back doors, and the garbage can attached to the side of the bench was overflowing with everything from used supplies to takeout fast-food bags.
    “Fucking hell!” Theo exploded as his eyes took in the view. “What the fucking fuck is this? ”
    “And you told me to watch my language,” Jonathan joked. “Needless to say, I was less than pleased when I walked into this a few minutes ago. I figured you were going to hit the ceiling.” He tilted his head back to look up at the roof of the ambulance and made an odd snicking noise with his tongue against his teeth. “Looks like you might have left a dent in it.”
    “Who the hell left it like this?” Theo asked, bypassing Jonathan’s joke. He was already freeing his cell phone from his pants pocket to take pictures of the mess for his supervisor’s perusal later.
    “Probably the same douchebags who ran out of here the minute we showed up so they’d be gone by the time we found it like this.” Jonathan dropped out of the passenger seat and stretched, stepping into view of the side door. “Need a hand? I’m not averse to actually helping out around here. Unlike some people.” He cast a glance toward a small four-door coupe that flew out of the base’s short driveway. Theo resisted the urge to join Jonathan’s glance with a glare as he recognized one of the aforementioned douchebag coworkers. Then he snorted and turned his gaze back to the mess before him.
    “Get that stretcher out of the way and grab me the broom from the backboard cabinet. I’m going to attempt to inventory all this shit while I clean.” Theo paused and sniffed the air, his head tilted back as if he were a hunting dog scenting for prey. He wrinkled his nose. “It smells like stale french fries and piss in here. You smell that?”
    Jonathan snapped on a blue glove and circled to the ambulance’s back doors, flinging them open. He picked something up from the floor of the ambulance. It took Theo a moment to realize that Jonathan held up a used urinal. “Found your culprit.” He frowned at it and at the floor of the ambulance, which was on level with his waist. “Looks like it’s leaking too.”
    “So not only did they leave us with garbage everywhere, but they left us with a biohazard to take care of too?” To say Theo was thoroughly disgusted was an understatement. He forced himself to stop grinding his teeth and slid open one of the cabinets, pulling out a red plastic bag. “Drop it in here and tie it off. I’ll chuck it later.”
    It took Theo and Jonathan nearly two hours to scrub out and sanitize the interior of the ambulance, replace the supplies that had been used, and inventory everything in the cabinets. By the time they had finished, Theo could feel a headache niggling at the back of his head. He massaged his temples and heaved a weary sigh before he dropped into the jump seat with all the grace of a hippopotamus. “Aw hell, we’ve still got to wash the outside, don’t we?” he grumbled. “Please tell me it looks like rain so we don’t have to today.”
    Jonathan cast his eyes up toward the sky and shook his head. “Nope, sorry. Crystal-clear evening sky.” He smiled. “You know, if you don’t want to wash it, I certainly won’t be saying anything to anyone if it doesn’t get done. We could probably hold off until tomorrow morning.”
    Before Theo