We have a special

Today on slightly used trucks

Thanks, Target shoppers

MY SON ASCLEPIUS ONCE explained the purpose of physical shock to me.

He said it’s a safety mechanism for coping with trauma. When the human brain experiences something too violent and frightening to process, it just stops recording. Minutes, hours, even days can be a complete blank in the victim’s memory.

Perhaps this explained why I had no recollection of the Chevy crashing. After hurtling through the guardrail, the next thing I remembered was stumbling around the parking lot of a Target store, pushing a three-wheeled shopping cart filled with Meg. I was muttering the lyrics to “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” Meg, semiconscious, was listlessly waving one hand, trying to conduct.

My cart bumped into a steaming crumpled heap of metal—a red Chevy Silverado with its tires popped, its windshield broken, and its air bags deployed. Some inconsiderate driver had plummeted from the heavens and landed right on top of the cart return, smashing a dozen shopping carts beneath the weight of the pickup.

Who would do such a thing?

Wait…

I heard growling. A few car-lengths away, two metal greyhounds stood protectively over their wounded master, keeping a small crowd of spectators at bay. A young woman in maroon and gold (Right, I remembered her! She liked to laugh at me!) was propped on her elbows, grimacing mightily, her left leg bent at an unnatural angle. Her face was the same color as the asphalt.

“Reyna!” I wedged Meg’s shopping cart against the truck and ran to help the praetor. Aurum and Argentum let me through.

“Oh. Oh. Oh.” I couldn’t seem to say anything else. I should’ve known what to do. I was a healer. But that break in the leg—yikes.

“I’m alive,” Reyna said through gritted teeth. “Meg?”

“She’s conducting,” I said.

One of the Target shoppers inched forward, braving the fury of the dogs. “I called nine-one-one. Is there anything else I can do?”

“She’ll be fine!” I yelped. “Thank you! I—I’m a doctor?”

The mortal woman blinked. “Are you asking me?”

“No. I’m a doctor!”

“Hey,” said a second shopper. “Your other friend is rolling away.”

“ACK!” I ran after Meg, who was muttering “Whee” as she picked up steam in her red plastic cart. I grabbed the handles and navigated her back to Reyna’s side.

The praetor tried to move but choked on the pain. “I might…black out.”

“No, no, no.” Think, Apollo, think. Should I wait for the mortal paramedics, who knew nothing of ambrosia and nectar? Should I check for more first-aid supplies in Meg’s gardening belt?

A familiar voice from across the parking lot yelled, “Thank you, everybody! We’ll take it from here!”

Lavinia Asimov jogged toward us, a dozen naiads and fauns in her wake, many of whom I recognized from People’s Park. Most were dressed in camouflage, covered with vines and branches like they had just arrived via beanstalk. Lavinia wore pink camo pants and a green tank top, her manubalista clanking against her shoulder. With her spiky pink hair and pink eyebrows, her jaw working furiously on a wad of bubblegum, she just radiated authority figure.

“This is now an active investigation scene!” she announced to the mortals. “Thank you, Target shoppers. Please move along!”

Either the tone of her voice or the barking of the greyhounds finally convinced the onlookers to disperse. Nevertheless, sirens were blaring in the distance. Soon we’d be surrounded by paramedics, or the highway patrol, or both. Mortals weren’t nearly as used to vehicles hurtling off highway overpasses as I was.

I stared at our pink-haired friend. “Lavinia, what are you doing here?”

“Secret mission,” she announced.

“That’s cacaseca,” Reyna grumbled. “You left your post. You’re in so much trouble.”

Lavinia’s nature-spirit friends looked jumpy, like they were on the verge of scattering, but their pink-frosted leader calmed them with a glance. Reyna’s greyhounds didn’t snarl or attack, which I guessed meant they’d detected no lies from Lavinia.

“All due respect, Praetor,” she said, “but it looks like you’re in more trouble than I am at the moment. Harold, Felipe—stabilize her leg and let’s get her out of this parking lot before more mortals arrive. Reginald, push Meg’s cart. Lotoya, retrieve whatever supplies they have in the truck, please. I’ll help Apollo. We make for those woods. Now!”

Lavinia’s definition of woods was generous. I would’ve called it a gulley where shopping carts went to die. Still, her People’s Park platoon worked with surprising efficiency. In a matter of minutes, they had us all safely hidden in the ditch among the broken carts and trash-festooned trees, just as emergency vehicles came wailing into the parking lot.

Harold and Felipe splinted Reyna’s leg—which only caused her to scream and throw up a little. Two other fauns constructed a stretcher for her out of branches and old clothing while Aurum and Argentum tried to help by bringing them sticks…or perhaps they just wanted to play fetch. Reginald extricated Meg from her shopping cart and revived her with hand-fed bits of ambrosia.

A couple of dryads checked me for injuries—meaning even more injuries than I’d had before—but there wasn’t much they could do. They didn’t like the look of my zombie-infected face, or the way the undead infection made me smell. Unfortunately, my condition was beyond any nature-spirit healing.

As they moved off, one muttered to her friend, “Once it gets fully dark…”

“I know,” said her friend. “With a blood moon tonight? Poor guy…”

I decided to ignore them. It seemed the best way to avoid bursting into tears.

Lotoya—who must have been a redwood dryad, judging from her burgundy complexion and impressive size—crouched next to me and deposited all the supplies she’d retrieved from the truck. I grabbed frantically—not for my bow and quiver, or even for my ukulele, but for my backpack. I almost fainted with relief when I found the Smucker’s jar inside, still intact.

“Thank you,” I told her.

She nodded somberly. “A good jelly jar is hard to find.”

Reyna struggled to sit up among the fauns fussing over her. “We’re wasting time. We have to get back to camp!”

Lavinia arched her pink eyebrows. “You’re not going anywhere with that leg, Praetor. Even if you could, you wouldn’t be much help. We can heal you faster if you just relax—”

“Relax? The legion needs me! It needs you too, Lavinia! How could you desert?”

“Okay, first, I didn’t desert. You don’t know all the facts.”

“You left camp without leave. You—” Reyna leaned forward too fast and gasped in agony. The fauns took her shoulders. They helped her to sit back, easing her onto the new stretcher with its lovely padding of moss, trash, and old tie-dyed T-shirts.

“You left your comrades,” Reyna croaked. “Your friends.”

“I’m right here,” Lavinia said. “I’m going to ask Felipe to lull you to sleep now so you can rest and heal.”