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“LORI? LORI! DAMN IT, FRANK, be careful. I don’t need you hurt, too. Lori, can you hear me?”
Lori ignored Ben’s voice and concentrated on trying not to throw up. Her head was rolling. Then again, her body was moving pretty uncertainly, too. She felt whoever was carrying her slide in slow motion, then catch himself before falling. Though she thought about being worried, she couldn’t summon the will.
Eventually, the world steadied around her. Heat soaked into her back and she felt concrete against her skin. Her front sidewalk, all warm and cozy in the afternoon sun, just like it had been after she’d run through the sprinkler as a little girl. She was sighing with pleasure when a hand gripped hers and set bone scraping against bone.
“Ah!” she screamed. “Fuck!” The words hurt her head, and Lori was suddenly furious. “Let go!”
“Lori,” Ben’s voice murmured, warm with relief. “Thank God. What happened?”
“My hand,” she groaned, and the fingers let her go.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. The ambulance should be here any minute.”
“Don’t need an ambulance.”
“Quiet.”
An extraordinarily annoying mosquito began to buzz in her ear. She tried to brush at it before it got louder and turned into a siren. Too many people surrounded her. Something cold slid under the neckline of her dress. A metallic snick rang in her ears.
“What the hell?” she cursed, struggling to sit up.
“Lori,” Ben Lawsons’s voice cut in. “They need to get the dress off you or the oil could hurt your skin.”
She looked down at herself, at the strange sight of her new dress paired with steel-toed boots, like a candid peek into her recent life. But now her beautiful blue dress was soaked with grease and cut at the neckline and even the boots looked ruined.
“Fine. Just get me a blanket, would you?”
The paramedics handed her a blanket and Ben moved away to talk on the phone. Her blood pressure was measured, her neck braced, her hand splinted. More lights flashed as she lay staring at the overhang of her house. These lights weren’t like the others. They were orange.
“Who’s that?” she asked no one, not expecting a reply, but Ben answered from somewhere behind her.
“It’s the county. They’re calling up the EPA to monitor the spill.”
“Oh, son of a bitch. This is just great.”
“Can you tell me what happened before they cart you off to the hospital?”
She gave him the short version. Heck, there wasn’t much to tell.
“Were you at Quinn’s all night?”
Her neck didn’t budge when she tried to nod. “Yeah.”
And then Molly was there, crying and holding Lori’s unbroken hand, and it was such a relief to watch someone cry for her that Lori felt better even though her head was pounding. “Hey, Moll,” she murmured. “Say something funny.”
Molly shook her head, but relented in the same moment. “Don’t go toward the light,” she sobbed.
Even Lori herself couldn’t believe it when she managed a laugh. “Deal. I’ll tell my dad to go take a flying leap if I see him beckoning.”
With a loud, wet sniff, Molly nodded. “Okay. Good.” She flipped open her phone, but kept a hold on Lori with her free hand. “I’ll call Quinn.”
“No! Why?”
“He should be here.”
“He should not. He’s not my boyfriend. And anyway, he’s on his way out of town today.”
Molly just looked at her, phone still menacingly open.
