Joel and Ria
He might not have been quick enough to keep her from an injury, but his reflexes weren’t shit. Joel had unholstered his gun and put a bullet in the shuffler before it could do more damage than it had already done, then he took off his button down for a makeshift tourniquet.
“Take this,” he commanded, muscling back through the small crowd between them to get to the doctor. He had basic first aid knowledge, but she was obviously the professional, she’d know what to do. “We’ll fix it up better in the car.” Joel assessed the doc quickly, it was just the one bite, but it looked pretty nasty, and he knew the risk of bloodloss.
“Can you make it on your own?” he asked her, a probing question to see if it might be better if he took her weight and sped up their pace to his squad car.
The zombie that had been trying to make her lunch dropped like a sack of potatoes, but Ria didn’t have much time to process what had just happened before Joel was by her side again, shoving a shirt into her hands and asked her if she could make it to the car on her own. “I think so,” she answered hesitantly while she fashioned a tourniquet out of his shirt.
Ria could feel the early stages of shock threatening to overwhelm her, paired with the adrenaline inside of her, it was an interesting mix. Her wound was bad, but not nearly as bad as her first bite had been and not nearly to the point that she might drop dead. She hadn’t had to move much the first time she had been bitten, so in truth she didn’t know exactly what her body’s reaction might be, didn’t know if at any one moment she might freeze up or pass out. But all she had to do was stay with the police chief...
All she had to do was keep up, right?
“Maybe just to be safe you should help me.” Ria could feel shock dancing near the edges of her consciousness, the sort of shock that came with a traumatic event, something not even she as a emergency room doctor, one who saw her fair share of frightening things, could fend off.
“You mind being carried?” Joel asked after another quick assessment of their surroundings. She was slight enough that he thought he could carry her over one shoulder and still have access to a weapon if it came to needing one.
It only took Ria a split second to decide what her answer would be. “No, not if it gets us out of here quicker,” She could already tell that the blood loss was making her dizzy and she wasn’t about to endanger the police chief further just to protect her pride. “As long as you don’t drop me, that is.” Ria added with a little smirk and teasing tone, one that she hoped he would pick up and realize she was teasing -- Joel looked like a man who wouldn’t struggle in the least when it came to carrying her.
“I won’t,” Joel replied with an entertained bend to one side of his mouth. He respected the kind of bravery the doc exhibited. There weren’t many people he knew that could joke through a serious injury. With very little fanfare and no further discussion, he picked her up and kept moving through the crowd.
“Are you going to take me to quarantine? Because I’ll tell you right now I’m already immune, this happened to me back in June as well.” Ria wasn’t necessarily against quarantine, per say, but she also wasn’t jumping at the chance to be stuck in a small room for ten days either.
“Protocol is protocol, doctor,” he reminded. She worked in the medical realm, more than likely she knew the rules better than he did. “Immunity or not.” From his experience they hadn’t learned enough about the mechanics to take one time immunity as a definite.
Once at the squad car Joel set her back on her feet so he could pop the door open. Then he offered her a hand while she climbed inside.
“I won’t frog march you in, but I’ll drive you there.”