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When he came for Emilie, I didn’t hesitate. I went after him like I promised I would. I went after him with all outrage, fury, and the sudden ferocious strength of the damned. I went after him with that sharp coiled spring in my hand.
But just as I made contact with him, just as I felt the coiled spring stick right in the bastard’s eye the room was suddenly filled with people. A loud crack sounded out and I was pushed back hard against the wall. I saw Emilie rushing toward me, her mouth open in a silent scream. My senses were dulled but my heart seemed to be racing. I was confused by the activity in the room, but mostly by what seemed to be happening to my body. I couldn’t feel anything. Everyone started shouting at once, but I couldn’t hear a thing. A slow stinging sensation had begun in my chest and was now turning into a hard burn. When I brought my hand up to my chest, it came back wet.
“I think, maybe I might have been shot,” I said to no one in particular while the world faded into black.
Liddy
It was beautiful, bright, and filled with hues of light. I thought that I might be inside of an opal gem. Or an iridescent bubble. Colors danced all around me, and when I reached for them, each speck burst into a kaleidoscope of light. I breathed in a deep, clean, fresh-smelling fragrance that tickled my nose and filled my lungs with healing air. There was music playing somewhere, a light lilting sound like a harp, and the bright tinkle of bells floated in the air.
Contentment, joy, and a sense of peace filled me as the sun warmed my skin and eased into my muscles. In the distance through the mist, there were hills and meadows and fields. Wildflowers filled the slopes and burst into a riot of color. There was a narrow brick lane that wove in and out like a ribbon through the meadow, and I couldn’t wait to see what was at the road’s end. I felt a strong pull on my hand holding me back for a moment, but then it was gone. The push to move forward was stronger, the promise of something wonderful moved me ahead. The way was smooth and at times I felt like I was floating, gliding over the cobblestones and bricks covered with lush moss. The tug on my hand made me stumble a few times, but I didn’t look back. There were gates and hills and rock formations ahead waiting to be explored. Sometimes the journey was easier, sometimes harder. But all the time I pushed myself forward. Forward to that beautiful mist on the hill and all the things that it seemed to promise me.
Now and then I could hear whispers along the path. Curious, excited little gasps of delight seemed to follow me. Sometimes the gaggle of happy giggles sounded in front of me, sometimes at my side. And always that strong tug, that hard pull back.
Bent Joshua trees mixed with giant redwoods while starlings and loons and mourning doves swooped down along the path. Brightly colored butterflies, fireflies, and lunar moths swarmed together to make pictures in the sky. As I crossed the footbridge of a merrily gurgling brook, three little mice were playing in the hollow of a tree while the sun shone brightly in the sky and a night owl hooted in a tree.
It was all so incongruous and lovely. And familiar.
I walked further on the path marveling at the beautiful and sometimes fearsome worlds I had created through my sketches. It was all inside of me, this enticing world of ups and downs, night and day and mysteries. The tug…the pull… continued but was getting weaker. And now when I looked behind me the path had started to dim and fall away. In sharp contrast, the way ahead brightened and beckoned with every step. Sometimes I heard my name whispered in the wind or carried to me in a breeze. I was a weary traveler. Sometimes merely tired, other times filled with deep exhaustion that saw my eyelids heavy and my legs too tired to move on. When it all became too much, I lay down in a patch of cool moss and rested.
Kid
After Liddy’s surgery, the doctor had come out to the waiting room with a long lengthy explanation of what they had done to Liddy and her prognosis. I interrupted, asked too many questions, scowled, berated, and basically didn’t give the doctor a chance to fully explain. I think he was just about to call security on me when a kindly older nurse stepped in and touched my elbow gently.
“Will you let me try to explain it to you the way they explained it to me a million years ago?” She asked.
When I nodded, she brought me over to the nurse’s station, poured us both a coffee, and then we sat at a table in the sunroom nearby.
“What your dear girl has suffered is something called bilateral pneumothoraxes which means that both her lungs have collapsed due to trauma.”
“They can fix it though, right?” I was outwardly calm and inwardly freaking right the hell out.
“Sure, they can.” She patted my hand. “What they do is poke around to make sure that the bullets have not hit the heart, the aorta and any of its branches, or the central pulmonary vessels. All that would be bad news. But lucky for that pretty little girl in there, it sounds like the two separate gunshots landed in less than half of the thorax. Think of it this way. If you were throwing at a dart game and you put a shot in the outer rim eleven and another in outer rim six. That’s okay but anywhere else near that middle, close to the bullseye and she might not have survived. Now the doctors are doing all they can do, but the rest will be up to her. Everybody reacts differently to trauma, and each soul heals in its own time.”
“Why the hell won’t she just wake up?” I asked for the millionth time to no one in particular. Because despite the nurse’s assurance, I had a bad feeling about Liddy’s prognosis.
Betty sighed and looked up from the book that she had been pretending to read. “Kid, we’ve gone over this a million times.
“And it still doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Liddy got shot. Not once but twice. That’s two bullets.” Betty snapped at me. “Her body, her brain needs time to recover from that, and god only knows what else she’s been through. What part of that is so hard for you to understand?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Betty.’ I snapped back at her. “Maybe the part where the surgery was over a fucking week ago and she’s still not awake? Her vital organs, brain waves, and all the other crap that they test and measure show every indication that she should have woken up by now, only she hasn’t. I’ve had more than enough of this crap; I’m going to find a doctor.”
“You do that, and don’t hurry back!”
I slammed the door behind me.
But although I looked, I couldn’t find one. Not a single doctor on the whole damn ward. How the hell could that be? I mean isn’t a hospital their go-to place for fuck’s sake. I might have seen one white coat duck into the restricted area when he saw me, but other than that, there was not a stethoscope-wearing motherfucker to be seen. And the nurses had pretty much banned me from their station. Those women in scrubs? I had learned not to fuck with them.
“You on your way out?” The doors to the elevator opened to reveal Deke holding a tray of coffee.
“What the fuck does it look like?” I snarled because I had had enough of him too.
Betty and Deke.
The two of them pacing around in that room sucking the air right out of it when all I really wanted to do was to spend some time alone with Liddy. Jesus. Betty fussing and hanging all over my woman all day long and Deke fussing and hanging all over Betty. It was goddamn disgusting the way my father, the opportunist, was taking advantage of the situation. Now that Henry was out of the picture, he was all over that.
All over it.
