4. Ever
Chapter 4
Ever
“ O h fuck,” I breathe, hands trembling on the steering wheel and heart thundering in my ears. “No, no, no. Shit. Please be dreaming.”
With a shaky hand, I fumble to unlatch my seatbelt, easing the door open and warily rounding my car. When I see the bloody heap of a man lying on the street and a sizable dent in my front bumper, I swear, my soul leaves my body.
I’m not built for prison.
“Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead,” I whisper as I creep closer, nervously reaching out to check the unconscious man’s neck for a pulse.
Those tiny little thumps against my fingertips have a massive weight falling off my shoulders, and my breath rushes out in relief. A masculine groan finally snaps me out of my shock and I yank my phone out of my jeans to call an ambulance.
Aaaaaaaand no bars. Of course there isn’t any cell service the one time I desperately need help.
“Okay, think.” I start anxiously pacing beside the car, the gravel shifting on the concrete obnoxiously loud in the dead of night. “Pretty sure I’d get in more trouble leaving him here to go find help. Police would assume it was a hit and run and I was lying about getting help because they caught me.” My footsteps falter when I see a distinct X carved into the guy’s face.
No way in hell that came from getting hit by my car.
Cautiously, I crouch beside him to get a better look. Sure, there’s some road rash and what will likely be wicked bruising, maybe a cracked rib or two, but there are also hundreds of slices that look way too perfect. Clean edges like knife slashes. And his shoulder looks like he’s been straight up stabbed.
My eyes widen as I glance from him to the woods and back. It’s two in the morning, and a guy stumbled out of the woods looking like he’s the star in a slasher film. Running towards the road like he was searching for help.
There’s someone else in the woods.
“Guess you’re coming with me to go look for help,” I whisper, heart sprinting in double time now. Opening the back door first, I grimace. “Sorry, this is probably going to hurt. But better than being murdered, so… you’re welcome, I guess.” I hook my arms under his, dragging him to the car, shooting nervous glances into the shadows dancing between the trees. Then comes the hard part.
Hefting his upper body onto the backseat, I make sure he isn’t about to slide back to the ground before running to the other side and yanking the door open. His fingers twitch as my hand brushes against his neck to grab his backpack straps, and I send up a silent thanks that he isn’t dead yet. I throw my weight backward, dragging him the rest of the way into the car with sheer panic-induced adrenaline. I slam the doors shut and dive back into the driver’s seat, mashing the lock button several times for good measure.
“This is why mankind has spent hundreds of years perfecting indoors. Everything outside wants to kill you.” With a trembling hand, I turn the car back on, sending up a silent thank you that I didn’t fuck up the engine plowing into this guy. He mumbles something and shifts slightly, and I catch a flash of silver at his hip.
I never checked him for weapons. What if he’s the serial killer running loose in the woods, and his victim fought back this time?
“If you’re a serial killer, you’re clearly not a very good one,” I say, more for my benefit than anything as I start driving. It doesn’t matter either way; I ran the guy over. If he dies, I could get slapped with vehicular manslaughter at the very least. “Just hang in there a little longer, we’re almost there. I think.”
He doesn’t reply, but talking to him is helping keep my nerves in check so I don’t completely spiral. So I ramble aimlessly for the next ten minutes until the city finally comes into view. With the scent of blood permeating the confines of my car, I hone in on the first sign directing me to the hospital, barely registering anything about the city besides traffic. I pull up right outside the emergency doors and sprint inside.
The nurse behind the desk is on her feet in an instant. “I need a gurney out here!” Rounding the desk, she looks at me like she expects me to collapse any second. “Oh, you poor thing. What happened, sweetheart?”
I follow her gaze to all the blood staining my once white t-shirt and wave her off. “Not mine. Guy in my backseat.” Three more people join us by the time we’re running out the doors. As they load him onto the gurney, I rush out, “I swear to god, I only hit him with my car. I wasn’t even going that fast because of the winding roads. Someone else worked him over before he jumped out of the woods in front of me, I promise I never stabbed him.”
The three of them exchange a loaded glance before the other two roll the gurney deeper into the hospital, leaving me alone with the nurse. “We’ll take it from here, hun. Are you sure you don’t want us to check you out as well? Hit your head or any neck pain from the impact?”
She doesn’t even get two words out before I’m shaking my head. Without health insurance, it’ll take something far more severe than a little whiplash and some bruising to see a doctor. Thankfully, the worst of it is hidden by my shirt, so she doesn’t push the issue.
“Alright, if you’re sure,” she says with a disapproving frown. “Would you mind filling this out before you leave?”
Confused, I simply nod and take the clipboard and pen she passes over. I don’t know any of the guy’s information, so I skip down to the middle, giving the abridged version of the incident that brought us in today. Cool, easy enough. But at the bottom? A section to add optional contact information. It’s… weird. And feels a hell of a lot like a test I’m being set up to fail.
If I don't put my information on here, does it count as a hit and run? Is this my golden ticket to get out of trouble?
No, that’d be shitty.
Sighing, I fill in my name and number before handing it back to the nurse behind the desk. “I better go move my car away from the doors.”
“Sure thing, hun. Let me know if you need anything.”
At a loss for why she’s being so chill about this whole thing, I slide behind the wheel and hesitate. Do I just… go? Am I supposed to wait for the police to show up at the hospital, or wait for them to call? And what about whoever’s out there that used this guy as a human pincushion?
“He couldn’t have walked too far in that condition.” I glance around the relatively empty parking lot, searching for anyone lurking in the shadows. “Whoever was trying to kill him might come back to finish the job and pin it on me. God, I’m so stupid!” I smack the dashboard, grinding my teeth as I pull into a parking space. “I’m covered in his blood, it’s in my car, and I put my name on the form. If he dies, I’m the obvious fall guy.”
This is what I get for trying to be a decent person; paperwork and guilt. Possibly prison time. No wonder people keep to themselves these days.
Yanking out my keys, I lock the car, hurrying back into the relative safety of the hospital. “Perfect timing, they should be done patching up your mate shortly,” the nurse says as she gets to her feet, smiling. “Follow me, I’ll show you to his room.”
Mate? She doesn’t sound British or Australian, but accents fade over time, I suppose . Weirdest part is her assuming I ran over my friend and they wouldn’t want a restraining order the second they woke up, honestly.
As I fall into step behind her, I swallow, sucking it up and ripping off the bandage. “So… am I being arrested now, or will the police come around to interrogate me tomorrow?”
The nurse throws her head back, her laughter bouncing along the empty hallway. She leads me to an empty room, holding the door open for me. “You can wait here, they’ll update you on his condition when they wheel him in.”
Then she simply leaves, chuckling under her breath and closing the door behind her, leaving me with more questions than answers. I don’t have long to stew in my growing anxiety though, the door opening fifteen minutes later as two more nurses wheel ‘my friend’ into the room, transferring him to the bed with a grunt. While one hooks him up to a couple of machines, the other gives me a giant bag filled with an assortment of weapons and a wallet they stripped him of when cutting off his clothes and switching him into a pale blue hospital gown. I set it down beside his backpack on the counter, screaming internally as I wonder what the hell I’ve gotten myself mixed up in.
The nurse looks to be in his early thirties, smiling like he thinks it’ll put me at ease, but woefully missing the mark. “Your mate is lucky. A couple of cracked ribs is the worst of it, so as long as he takes it easy, he should be back to normal in a couple of weeks. Showers only until the deeper cuts scab over, and there’s a prescription for painkillers in the envelope included with his personal possessions. We’d like him to stay overnight just in case, but you’ll be good to go in the morning.”
I glance over at the bed. White bandages cover him from the neck down, making the red X carved into his cheek stand out like a stark brand. “What about his face? Doesn’t that need a bandage too?”
The nurse furrows his brow, cocking his head at me. “We can’t touch that.” Without explaining further, the two of them leave, pulling the door shut behind them.
“What the hell is this town smoking, and where can I get some?”
Even for hospital workers that deal with life and death every day, these nurses are alarmingly laid back. Not to mention far too trusting. I admitted to running this guy over, and they update me like I’m his next of kin? Let me stay in the room with him unsupervised, trusting that I’m really his friend? This feels like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Shaking my head, I take advantage of the chance to really look at the man that turned my life upside down. Messy jet black hair hangs in his face, and my fingers twitch with the impulse to brush it out of his eyes. One ear is more jewelry than cartilage, a barbell through the top and ringed with several small silver rings that’s eerily a match to mine. Broad shoulders lead down to a tapered waist, and the tight bandages highlight an abundance of lean muscle, and I give myself a pat on the back for being able to haul two hundred plus pounds of solid muscled dead weight into my car. My pride is short lived though as reality creeps in.
“If they could take you, we’re totally fucked if they come back to finish the job.”
Mulling over my options, I open the bag of weapons the nurse stripped him of and pick a wicked looking hunting knife. The sheath fastens to my belt loop easily, the weight a comfort against my hip as I carry over a chair and push it against the door. I might not be able to take someone in a fair fight, but growing up in foster care, you pick up a few tricks. I can’t rig the room the way I’d like since I’m not sure how frequently a nurse will be dropping in to check on his vitals, but at least I’ll have a warning before anyone tries to get into the room.
Stolen weapon in hand, I settle into the chair and rest my head against the door, waiting for the longest night of my life to finally come to an end.