Page 84 of From the Ashes
“I’m okay,” I muttered, noticing the intense worry on Nix’s face. “Really.”
“You sure?”
“Y-Yeah.”
The SUV began to move again and I could see the ice cream shop less than a block away. However, we were only halfway through the intersection when I saw Nix’s eyes go wide. With lightning like reflexes, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me away from the window. For a moment, I didn’t know what to think as my head came to rest against his chest. It was a strange way to be affectionate.
But a single heartbeat later, the SUV was rocked violently as my door was crushed inward, the glass shattering and bouncing off my skin.
“Fuck!” Tony yelled from the front seat. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Are you guys okay?” Patrick asked from the back, he and Tyler both leaning over to Nix and I. “That guy didn’t even fucking stop!”
“Charlie?” Nix asked, pulling back so he could get a look at me. “Are you alright?”
I stared up at him, my eyes wide and my heart beating a million times a second. My mouth opened as I tried to answer him, but no words came out. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t take a breath. I was so preoccupied by the memories flashing through my head, that I could focus on nothing else. I watch in my mind’s eye as the tire exploded, the SUV flipped, we skidded toward the side of the mountain, and finally went over the edge. Those final moments of my mother’s life, watching her pressing her arm over my chest, still tryingto protect me as we careened down the mountain… those were the memories I’d been trying to forget for the past six years.
But the moment the other car hit us, something was jarred loose in my brain. Suddenly I wasn’t sure if I was sitting next to Nix or sitting next to my mother once more, reliving the crash forrealthis time, as if it had never happened.
“Charlie!”
Nix’s voice seemed distant and the world around me began to spin. Darkness crept in at the edges.
“Charlie! Breathe!”
But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried, my lungs wouldn’t listen. Instead, the world around me went dark and the last thing I remembered was lifted a trembling hand to Nix’s face before it all fell away.
CHAPTER 35
Phoenix
The first thing I noticed was the smell of sterility. Like a hospital. However, the second thing, and far worse than the first, was the beeping. Incessant, constant, rhythmic, never-ending beeping. And that was what spurred me to move. Before I even opened my eyes, I was trying to escape, to smash the alarm that wouldn’t stop. I wanted to run away before it could capture me there again and keep me in the darkness, forever driving me insane with the incessant noise.
“Charlie!” a voice said as a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders. “Charlie stop! You’ll hurt yourself!”
I knew that voice. It was Nix. It had to be.
“Look at me Charlie!”
To my great surprise, my eyes opened with little effort and I found myself face to face with Nix.
“N-Nix?” I said, my voice raspy.
“I’m here, Charlie. I’ve got you.”
But before he could pull me into a hug, my brain zeroed in on the beeping once more. I glanced around, finding myself sitting in the back of an ambulance on a gurney. There was a heart monitor on my finger and a paramedic prepping to put an IV in the back of my hand.
All at once, my past came rushing back to me. For a brief moment I was no longer in an ambulance, but back in the hospital. I recalled my months of being poked and prodded at all hours of the day and night, never getting a moment’s peace. Every waking minute was an anxiety attack waiting to happen, and I always knew that the nurses would drug me instead of trying to help me through it. They said they feared for my safety, but I didn’t believe them. I knew how much of a burden I was in my constant state of panic. They were drugging me so they didn’t have to deal with me. And this paramedic… I had no doubt he would do it too.
“We should take you in,” he said, noticing my stare. “Just to make sure you don’t have a concussion or anything.”
“No,” I growled, tearing the heart monitor off my finger and throwing it at him. “You aren’t getting me anywhere near that fucking place again.”
“Charlie, it’s okay–”
“Shut up!” I yelled at Nix, turning on him in an instant. “You don’t know shit!”
I could see the hurt in his eyes, but I didn’t care. Tearing myself out of his arms, I slid off the gurney and out of the ambulance, walking as fast as I could to get away from it all. Off to my left I noticed the two vehicles still sitting in the intersection, steam rising from the one that had hit us. Several police were talking with the driver and everyone else in our group. They looked my way, but I didn’t acknowledge them. I had to get away.