43. Hendrix
Hendrix
M y ears ring as I push open my eyes, blinking heavily through darkness and twinkling dots until they fade into a mess of blurry shapes. There’s movement around me, and when I blink a few times more the blurriness clears up enough to see that it’s people.
A lot of them.
Some running, some over me, some close enough to touch.
I attempt to lift myself up, but my head is heavy with a deep throb, not specific to the ringing. This pain, it’s isolated, as if I’ve been hit by something hard.
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” a man says, the gradual clarity of his voice startling me. “It’s best if you don’t try and move.”
Ignoring him, I try pushing off the ground once more, only to collapse onto it.
Vertigo takes over, turning the world blurry again as I try to think. Breathe. Figure out what’s happening.
But my thoughts, they’re too jumbled, and my body is weakening by the second. If I had to guess, it has something to do with the warm liquid oozing steadily down the side of my head.
“What…happened?” I ask, voice a low rasp. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the parking lot of ShopSmart, and severely injured. So please don’t try to move again until paramedics arrive.”
His answer must have triggered something through the fog in my brain, because right after I can feel the cold from the ground stinging my cheek. Smell the stench of smoke wafting in the air.
Smoke.
Awareness hits like a shot of adrenaline to the heart.
The blast of heat. The necklace.
The cold. The shopping bags.
The vision of every second leading up to this moment plays on rewind, screeching to a halt then fast forwarding again to when I found my necklace on the ground.
“Carlo!” I cry as loud as my hoarse voice will allow. “Where are you?”
“Please relax,” the man insists. “Your parents are almost here.”
“I don’t want them. I need Carlo.”
“Shhhh. Everything’s going to be okay,” he promises, but there’s not an ounce of conviction, and it scares the fuck out of me even more.
I’m proven why it should when my gaze lands on Jerome’s lifeless body next to a dumpster with a bullet hole oozing from the side of his head. No sign of the new guy.
Sheer panic floods my chest, pumping my heart so wildly I think I may be having a heart attack. I call out for Carlo again, this time in Italian, on the off chance he didn’t understand me. Then burst out a sob when I get nothing in return.
I never was the religious type, but right now, my only instinct is to pray. Please, please let him be okay.
“I’m so sorry.” The level of anguish in the man’s apology is all it takes to find the strength to lift myself up to sit, wincing as several ends of what feels like glass pierces my back.
It hurts, but not as bad as knowing Carlo may be too.
So, I say “fuck you” to all of it.
The blood, the pain, the impaled skin.
It takes me a while to turn my body around enough to spot the truck, but when I do, the glass in my back becomes the least form of torture.
Everything slows, turning grayscale as I’m ripped to shreds by the sight before me. The Escalade, charred to a crisp, and in the driver seat of it is the remnants of a body.
Carlo’s body.
No.
No.
Please. Fucking. No!
There’s not a prayer powerful enough to stop what happens next. It starts with a whimper, slowly rising to a cry, then from the depths of my soul comes a high pitched sound I’ve never heard before.
I go on like this with tears cascading down my cheeks, no words, just endless screams of horror tearing at my throat.
Several people run over, some even calling my name, but I’m beyond help. My heart is broken.
Carlo’s gone.
The pain he must have felt. The fear. The family back home he loves so much, the thought of all of it consumes me.
In a matter of seconds, Carlo was stripped from the earth in the most brutal way possible.
And if it wasn’t for me stopping, I may have been too.
I realize something, and a violent wave of nausea stirs in my gut, quickly rising, turning to vomit spilling onto the pavement.
Because Carlo was right. His necklace did protect me.
And it would’ve protected him, too, if he never gave it to me.
Propped on my side, I’m flying as a ceremony of squeaky footsteps pry my eyes open, allowing the darkness to slowly fade into a bright string of lights.
Then, they’re closing.
Opening.
Closing.
With only small glimpses of clarity in between:
The smell of bleach.
Jolting. Rattling of wheels.
Beeping. So much fucking beeping.
“Jimi! Stay with me!” Saint’s voice breaks through the mental fog, and when my eyes blink open I find him still in uniform, running alongside the hospital bed. “Stay the fuck with me, baby! Please.”
“Letterman,” I mumble with tears spilling across the bridge of my nose. “Carlo…he’s…he’s…gone,” is all that comes out before darkness steals me away, the rest of the scene playing out in muddled clips.
Blink— Saint apologizing, kissing my forehead.
Blink —Saint begging me not to leave him.
Blink —Saint begging me not to leave him again.
Blink —Saint screaming at someone when he’s told to stay behind.
Blink —Saint getting tackled by two security guards.
Blink —Saint’s gone, and I’m being pushed through double doors.
The moments following are no less disjointed.
With doctors and nurses, stripping, poking, and shouting demands in frantic successions.
From what I can gather through consciousness, multiple shards are embedded in my back, blunt force trauma, and a possible something called cerebral edema.
Don’t know what the last one means, but it scares the fuck out of me enough to sober me a notch.
I look around the room and call out for the only semi-calm nurse I can find, who’s pulling supplies out of a drawer. “Please…” I croak. “I’m really scared. I need my boyfriend here.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart.” She takes hold of my arm, then proceeds to tap my inner elbow. “We’re gonna take good care of you.”
“Please…don’t let me die without Saint.”
“You are not going to die,” she responds, firm. “Not at eighteen. Not on my watch.”
More demands get thrown around above me, including the dosage and name of whatever medicine she’s flicking in a needle syringe.
“What is that?”
“Just something to put you to sleep so we can get you all fixed up.”
“Please…please don’t. Let me see Saint first.” I attempt to move, but my limbs feel boneless.
The needle gets inserted, and the nurse, who I can see now is named Christi, gives me a sympathetic smile. Which, in turn, gives me hope she’s about to honor my wishes.
I’m wrong, because seconds later Christi is ordering me to count back from ten for her, and I barely make it past “tell Saint I love him” before it’s lights out again.
And this time…with no blinking until many hours later.