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“LENNOX! Fucking talk to me.” The last part of my cry breaks with my desperation.
Okay, I have to be rational about this. She was on a bike, probably going faster than she should have. No doubt, she was thrown from the bike and not on it when it exploded. It’s a bike. There is nothing to keep her there.
Calming myself and forcing rational thoughts is helping. I’ve cleared my mind enough to swing out wide around the bike, looking for any clue that the accident threw her off or she has walked off. I call her name a few more times as my search comes up empty. There aren’t any streetlights here in the country and the stars are doing jack shit to help. The hazy smoke is only adding to my lack of visibility.
What if she’s hit her head or something and…? “FUCK!” I roar. She could literally be anywhere. The only thing making this slightly okay is the fact that it had to have just happened. The way she can ride, though, it is likely she could have made it home in half the time that I could.
My phone is in my pocket so I pull it out and check it, hoping for a message from her, a call, anything, but there’s nothing. I dial nine-one-one.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” I rattle off so much information about where I’m at, who’s involved, how many vehicles, if there are flames or fluids, and my name and number before it feels like my chest is going to explode. When dispatch asks if there is entrapment or if the person has been ejected, my voice catches.
“Neither. Or, I-I’m not sure. I can’t find her. From what I can tell, she’s not on her bike, which is in flames, and I can’t find her immediately around it. She isn’t responding to her name either. I-I just need some help.”
“We’re going to get you help. I need you to stay calm. Police have been dispatched and fire is on their way.”
We’re going to find her. She’s around here somewhere. I have to stay calm and positive.
After what feels like ages, sirens wail in the distance. The way the sound echoes around the fields, disturbing the still of the night, makes it seem as if there is a convoy on the way to save my girl.
We’re going to save her.
It takes a few minutes that stretch on and on of me searching endlessly, walking through the fields and down the road a way with the flashlight on my phone before the convoy finally shows, lead by the police. Soon after, an ambulance joins the fray, followed by three more police cars, a fire engine, and a brush truck. Fire fighters immediately put the blaze out when a police officer approaches me.
A medic comes to find me, offering help. I instruct them it isn’t me, that it’s my girlfriend’s bike and from the look of it, if someone else was involved, they aren’t here. They plan to hang around for a few minutes until she’s found. Hope flares but is quickly extinguished when near Nox’s bike we can see her sneaker. A lone Air Force One is melted to the asphalt from the heat of the blaze. The once white sneaker is now lashed with streaks of black soot and char marks.
So she’s running around shoeless because it’s clear there isn’t a body attached to that bike. Just a shoe. My mind is racing, running through all the possibilities and what the hell we do to solve this situation.
I’m edging on the side of numb, standing aimlessly in the middle of the road when another officer steps in front of me, flashlight in hand along with a pad of paper and a pen. He introduces himself and takes my name. Robotically, I give him Nox’s description and the clothes she’s wearing, along with her cell number, full name, and general information. He rattles off to dispatch about a B.O.L., giving them all the information I just gave the officer.
“We’ll find her, son. She couldn’t have gone far. Do you happen to have the Friend Finder on her phone? You said she was involved in an attack not too long ago.” Not even that can spark any bit of hope. Something about this situation isn’t sitting right with me.
By herself, especially injured, there is no way she could’ve gotten very far. I’ve been all over this area.
She’s not here. I just know it.
I’m frozen to my spot, but I pull myself back to the present and turn my phone on. Her location pings about a mile away. A coldness cloaks me. How the hell is her phone a mile away?
“Let’s go.” The officer escorts me to his car and once I’m in, we drive to the location. He tries to remain optimistic the entire time, but we both know it’s pointless.
When we find her phone, we get nothing but more darkness, only this time we don’t have a bike or a shoe. Hell, I haven’t even seen her helmet anywhere. Someone who is injured won’t keep that shit on. It’s as if someone tossed her phone from a moving vehicle. It’s resting in the brush on the side of the road with the screen cracked and chunks of dirt and mud on it from tumbling.
“We found blood about twenty feet from the crash site,” a static-riddled voice says over the radio on the officer’s shoulder.
“Blood…” I murmur, having heard that loud and clear. The cop has us back in his car and heading back to the accident site in a matter of seconds. First responders litter the area, spreading out wide, grim looks on all their faces. A couple are standing over the shoulder of the road where dirt is kicked up. They’re taking pictures.
My stomach roils, and a scream builds in my throat. Despite protests, I jog to where they stand, careful not to interrupt anything.
The distinct prints of an Air Force One and a stocking foot, followed by droplets of blood, are in the gravelly dirt that end abruptly.
Just like that, they disappear into nothing.
Nox is gone. She’s fucking gone. Someone got to her.
The only thing that could make this feel more final is that the first responders have been told to wrap it up. The fire is out. There’s no patient to take care of, so emergency medical staff are no longer needed. Hell, even AirCare was called off.
The next thing I know, they’re calling for a fucking wrecker to come get what’s left of her bike.
Running on my last nerve, feeling like my soul has been ripped clean from my body, I flip my phone over in my hand and dial my future father-in-law. How the hell am I going to tell him I can’t find his daughter? He’s going to murder me, and that’s exactly what I deserve. This is all my fault. I pleaded with him to let her have this night and now…
