Chapter 8
“There are tadpoles in the water, it can't be that polluted,” Violette says, standing at the edge of the creek.
The end of May sun is hot, and it lands on her bare shoulders in a dappled pattern as it filters through the trees. She’s got her long, wavy hair in a big ponytail, and she’s wearing an oversized Green Day tank top. I can’t help but check her out a little from behind. If she tucked it in it would show off her curves a little more. She always seems to want to cover them, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
I chuckle and point to the edge of the Elk Creek. “There are also beer cans, so yeah, it can.”
Violette wrinkles her nose. But she knows I’m right.
“Bush parties… kids come down here and party all the time,” I tell her, knowing she has never gone to one. Violette is the quiet twin compared to Jacob’s more ready for anything personality. “The town is talking about having security posted to stop the parties and the littering.”
“They should,” she says, like it genuinely bothers her. “I don’t know why the crew you run with thinks they just own everything and have the right to mess with it. These woods and this creek belong to the animals that live here,” she says in a heated tone.
In the two weeks we’ve been spending time together she’s gotten a little bolder, but I can tell sometimes she still stops herself from saying exactly how she feels.
I raise my hands in defense. “I haven’t been to one since New Year’s. I’m too busy with rugby and trying to pass bio, but I’ll be sure to note that at the next school shithead convention.”
She laughs in spite of herself, trying to maintain that pissed off, tree hugging vibe. I never noticed how pretty Violette was when she laughed before. I mean, I’ve seen her a lot, obviously, it’s not like being around her is a new thing. I practically live at her house with Jacob when I’m not playing rugby—at least, I did before he started hanging around that dumbass Max Peters all the time—but I’ve never really been alone with her before, not this often. I thought it would be weird, but it’s actually been kind of fun.
The thing I think I like the most? We always have a lot to talk about. It’s easy for us to have an actual conversation. A smart conversation, which is hard to come by at our school. Violette doesn’t care about the latest trends or what she should say, it’s like she can’t help but be herself and that makes me less afraid to be myself around her.
“Double or nothing, Elk Creek has more pollutants than Petersburg Creek.”
“You’re on,” she says, pulling a glass vial out of her backpack and filling it at the water’s edge.
We’ve been betting all afternoon on which soils and water samples would contain the most hazardous pollutants, and we’ve had to go to some pretty unsavory places. Mainly, I’ve had to. She made me take a sample from the disgusting locker room floor at the local gym. Some weird shit goes on in that locker room and I had to wait for two bare assed older men to hit the showers to get it.
“For someone who ‘ doesn’t even understand protons and electrons ,’” she says in a voice that I think is supposed to be mine, but it’s a piss poor attempt. “You’re pretty confident.” She nudges me with her elbow and I get a crazy idea.
“ When— not if—I win this bet, we’re going to see the new Annabelle movie and you’re keeping your eyes open the whole time,” I say to her.
Violette looks up at me, the smile falling from her full, pink lips.
Am I actually asking Violette on a date?
She looks up at me with those pretty eyes, and they widen in surprise. She’s Jacob’s sister and it’s possible I’m reading this whole vibe between us wrong, so maybe I should take it back, but I don’t. I just wait, curious to see if she wants to spend more time with me too.
“Why would you want that as your prize?” she asks without hesitation. I give her points for being straightforward.
I shrug and shape the brim of my hat, looking out at the water. “I don’t know.” I turn to face her. “Just thought it could be fun to hang out when we aren’t scaling the fences at the waste station or trying to locate the town’s deadliest soils, don’t you think?”
Violette shrugs but it’s like she’s searching for a response. Something about catching her off guard is appealing to me. The hot, early summer sun shines onto her face, a thin layer of sweat glimmers on her cheeks and her forehead. A vision, that I’m in no way prepared for, of Violette getting sweaty in other scenarios, runs through my mind.
“I’ll go if you win, but there’s not a chance I’ll be keeping my eyes open the whole time, Kingsley. I could barely make it through that movie you and Jacob watched last weekend.” Her words cut into my daydream of me pulling the scrunchie from her long hair and watching it fall around her shoulders.
Fuck. I blink to push it out of my head.
“ Jeepers Creepers wasn’t even scary.” I laugh, remembering her tucked into the couch like a little burrito hiding behind a pillow.
“And you have to get your own popcorn, I’m not sharing with you. You eat way too much,” she adds.
It’s true, I do eat a lot.
“In my defense, I burn a thousand calories a day,” I say, which earns another laugh from her.
“I’d love to have that problem. It would be nice to eat whatever I want and never worry about how many calories are in it. Your metabolism is enviable,” she says, turning to walk toward the parking lot as she looks down at her figure .
The fuck?
“What the hell are you talking about, Vi?” I ask, shuffling in front of her. She stops walking and gulps as I invade her space. She says nothing, she just looks up at me in question, so I continue, “I just mean…you look great.”
She laughs and starts walking again. “Thanks, but I don’t wear rose-colored glasses. I’m okay with how I look, I’ll never be stick thin like Kyleigh Miller or her crew of Barbies,” she says as we make it quickly back to my mom’s SUV that’s parked in the conservation parking area.
We climb in and I turn to face her, really wanting her to hear this, so she remembers it in case some idiot doesn’t appreciate the way she looks someday.
“Yeah, about that, just so you know, most guys want softness. Curves are a good thing, Vi.”
She looks up at me, a soft pink blush creeping up her neck to her cheeks.
“Well, thanks, that will help me sleep better at night.” She laughs, nudging me playfully with her elbow. The air thickens and I watch how she takes her plush bottom lip between her teeth whenever she’s the slightest bit nervous. I think I like that I make her nervous.
“Next up, the sewer plant,” Violette says, shifting the mood.
“My favorite way to spend a Friday,” I tell her in a laugh as I start the SUV. But the thing she doesn’t know is, this has been the most fun I’ve had in a long time. She reaches into her bag and pulls out nose plugs, holding one out to me.
“I come prepared,” she says with a laugh. “King?” she asks.
I try to answer but I can’t.
“King…stay with me,” she says, her eyes are growing concerned and her tone is off.
I try to speak but I can’t ? —
“King, keep looking at me,” I hear again but it’s no longer Violette’s voice. The light in Violette’s eyes fades as another fills my vision. The sun? I think I’m moving. My arms are over someone’s shoulders and whoever it is, is holding me, tight.
“Thank Christ he had those fire rated chaps on,” the familiar voice echoes.
“The chopper will be here anytime. Think those are seconds?”
That voice is Sup’s. He was three hundred feet away from me, how is he with me now? Seconds? As in second degree burns? The moment it registers, I feel it and howl. I try to focus on my left leg, it’s dragging along the ground as the guys pull me forward, they’re definitely taking me to the medevac site.
“My fucking leg…” I manage to get out, my teeth are chattering so fucking hard. I’m a trained medic in the off season so I know immediately that I’m in shock.
“I know, bud. Did yourself real good, but you’re so fucking lucky. Stay with me here, you passed out,” Cap says. “We’re almost to site, chopper is already inbound.”
“We got you out in less than ten seconds,” Caleb says.
It’s all coming back to me as I look down to where I can feel my calf and part of my thigh are burning. I look down at my arm, my yellow Nomex is burned through and there are blisters on my left upper arm, a fuck ton, but no black.
I let my head fall back, by the look of the burns they’re seconds, Cap is right.
“Thank fucking Christ you were right there,” I say to Caleb and Cap, and nausea washes over me with the stench of burned flesh and hair.
We make it to the site with my guys carrying me over the rocky terrain. The medic is waiting; he tells me his name, but I don’t remember because the pain is fucking terrible. I’m set down on a small stool at the medic tent. Another wave of nausea washes over me. I turn my head as my stomach lurches and I vomit.
“Just hang on bud, you’re going in real soon,” Cap says gruffly as he pats my back. Going in. To the hospital. Looking down at my arm I know I have no choice, and right now I could use some fucking pain meds. I haven’t been burned in a long time.
“Almost forgot the feeling,” I say to the part of my crew that surrounds me—just Sup, Caleb, and Cap. Everyone else continues working, because even though I’m injured the blaze doesn’t care.
The medic asks all the usual questions and gives me a shot of something for pain. “H ow did this happen, what is my pain level on a scale of one to ten?” I think I answer them. My vitals are taken. I’ve been in this game long enough to know they’re monitoring me for how badly I’m in shock. My clothes are cut from me and I’m wrapped in a Mylar blanket to conserve my body heat. Over the course of the next several minutes, the nameless medic works to gauze me as I bite down on a rag Cal hands me.
Motherfucker.
The waves of nausea continue with the pain. Being burned like this feels like you’re still on fire. Nothing and no one can stop it.
They wrap my leg and arm loosely with dry, clean gauze, my clothing hangs from me in tatters, but still in place where it isn’t cut open and soaked through with water as the inbound chopper sounds. When it lands, I watch as it’s loaded up. My medic designates Sup as my patient liaison.
I fade in and out as I’m loaded.
“Keep you posted, Tim,” Sup calls out. Tim. That’s the medic’s name.
“We’ll be there in less than fifteen. We’re going to Bakersfield,” Sup tells me reassuringly. “Seems like mostly seconds, you got a fucking horseshoe up your ass, boy,” he says.
I think I nod, but I’m not sure. The moment the pilot’s voice speaks over his comms to Bakersfield letting them know we’re on route, I close my eyes. I will myself to fall back into the sleep where Violette’s smile was all for me, and then I let the darkness take me.