The sudden groaning roar of the ambulance caused Lillian to jump. The vehicle leapt to life with a slight jolt. Buzzing, it began accelerating, swaying as it sharply swerved around the plentiful corners of the twisting road. Rocking slightly as the spinning tires hopped in and out of pot holes.
Lillian fidgeted with the tattered end of her muddied jumper. She wondered what would happen when she told her mother what happened, how upset would her mother be. Will I make her cry again?
Lillian didn’t want to do that to her mother again. She went to reach for her phone, but it wasn’t in her pocket. She looked around, panicked.
“What happened to my phone?” She breathed, directing the question more to herself than either of the men.
Blake suddenly remembered the phone weighing down his pocket. He grimaced as he slowly took it out, recalling its newly cracked screen.
He sucked in a breath before reluctantly saying “I used it to call the ambulance and…” he bit his lip awkwardly “I kind of dropped it.”
He handed her the broken device, not looking at her.
Lillian swore very audibly. Blake recoiled, shoving his hands back into the pockets of his hoodie, awaiting her impending anger.
She wiped the screen with her sleeve before clicking it to life. She let out a sigh of relief, covering up her vulgar language with a falsified smile.
“I’m sorry” Blake muttered guiltily.
Lillian just scoffed. “Its fine, this brick was on its way out anyway,” she smiled at him again. Swallowing her irritation, mentally cursing at the dark haired boy. Don’t show your anger Lillian, don’t show your weakness, don’t show it, just don’t––don’t.
Blake just stared, bemused. She turned back to her phone. A notification flashed across her screen, catching her eye. Four missed calls, all from her mother. Oh god someone must have told her I never arrived at school…crap.
A wad of guilt jumped through her chest. She fumbled her words but managed to spit out “Do you mind if I call my mum? She doesn’t know where I am and I don’t want to worry her…”
Edwards just nodded, crossing his arms.
Blake watched as her delicate fingers danced over the phones cracked screen. A bit of him wondered if his dad was looking for him. He swiftly dismissed that brain wave.
When Lillian found what she was looking for she tapped the screen several times––swearing under her breath as tiny shards of glass stuck into her finger. Eventually the dial tone rang audibly. She tilted her head as she lifted the device to her ear, swiping her copper hair to the side. She brought her finger to her mouth and teased out the glass with her teeth as she waited for her mother to pick up. When she was satisfied that the glass was now in her mouth, not her finger she gazed across the vehicle. Her eyes fell on Blake as she waited. She flashed him a reassuring, toothy grin before resigning to a more appropriate frown as a voice sounded from her phone.
Blake looked away swiftly, not wanting to seem impolite. Truly he was listening in on the conversation and he knew that Edwards was too.
The person on the other end of the line was a frantic jumble of words. They barely gave Lillian the chance to speak a shred of explanation. Once Lillian’s mother had quieted enough for her daughter to give a very speedy account of the events that had unfolded it had been almost three, eon extending minuets––during which Lillian just chewed on the inside of her mouth looking disinterested. But finally she had the chance to lay out a brief, sugar-coated report. The conversation ended with an agreement to meet at hospital.
As Lillian dropped the phone to her lap, hanging up she sighed. “I love her but sometimes…” Chuckling slightly she shook her head. Then slipped her phone deep into her pocket.
“Shouldn’t you call your parents?” This was directed to Blake.
“I don’t have my phone,” he said flatly “I’ll call him at the hospital.”
“You sure? You can use mine” Lillian offered in a friendly chirp.
“No, its fine. Thanks” he muttered before changing the subject. He perked up his sullen tone “I’m sorry, I never introduced myself,” Blake dusted his voice with charm that he did not possess “I’m Blake Fox.” A crooked smile lifted at the corner of his mouth.
“I’m Lillian Seika. You can call me Lilli for short if you want.” she extended a hand to him “It’s nice to meet you Blake, even under these circumstances” her tone was friendly, inviting even––as if they had met in an ordinary situation rather than the mess they were still wading through.
Blake leaned towards her, outstretching his hand to bridge the distance between them. The gap was just a little too far. He arched his back to reach out to her. Lillian did the same.
A sharp pain fractured Blake’s body. He yelped, clutching at his chest. His breath shortened, becoming crushing pants. He crumpled into himself.
Blake whined as Edwards rushed over to him, straitening him up against the side of the ambulance. Prodding at him, brows furrowed.
“Do you remember where they hit him? Was there an impact to his chest?” This was directed at Lillian.
“Um...I...” Lillian stumbled out her words. “I recorded it all,” She grabbed her phone out of her pocketed “I’ll check…” Her eyes bore into the phone screen “…yeah he was kicked in the chest.” she squeaked.
Edwards cursed, grabbing a microphone and snapping into it. “We have an emergency, collapsed lung.”
Blake kept his eyes clamped shut, moaning as the ambulance accelerated. His face had become a deathly, pallid, and blue-white.
Hands pressed against his shoulders again, but these were smaller, colder. His head fell forward but someone was supporting him, pressing his weight against the ambulance wall.
His brain screamed at him for oxygen. But each breath he gasped sent an abrading pain through his body. He tried to open his eyes.
The world swam, a blurry mess of greys and blues. Then a smudge of rust coloured his vision. He attempted to focus his eyes. Lillian filled his view, her face distorted with fright.
Lillian’s eyes darted between Blake’s agonised, twisting face and Edwards’s swift moving form. His back was to them. Rummaging through packets upon packets he had pulled down from the wall, they were now laying on the gurney, rough hands stretched and tore open the tinted plastic.
“Here,” Edwards growled “Put this on him.”
Edwards handed Lillian an oxygen mask, connecting it to a tank secured to the vehicles wall.
Lillian gently pressed the mask over Blake’s mouth and nose, securing the elastic behind his ears. She brushed his sweat curled hair out of his face, holding his head in her hands, leaning her face into his.
“Blake,” she ordered calmly “Blake look at me!”
He blinked slowly, clearing his fuzzy vision, his lungs taking short gasps of the oxygen. It felt like he could only exhale, something was putting so much pressure on his chest that he felt like he was going to sink. He was drowning. Another wave of pain clattered through his chest.
Her cold hands were warm against his even colder cheeks. Blake watched as Lillian closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. Collecting herself.
“I’m sorry Blake,” she spoke almost with apologetic poise “If I had stepped sooner you wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I’m so sorry”
The oxygen mask fogged up as his short puffs of breath became shallower. He struggled to keep his eyes open. Blots of shadow flooded the corners of his vision. His head lolled forward, but he remained conscious. Just about.
“Keep talking to him” Edwards ordered, making his way over to them
“Blake,” Lillian kept her voice even and well-spaced, not knowing what to say she said the first thing in her head “Do you want to know why those boys didn’t notice me?” she fortified her words with fiend enthusiasm.
Blake attempted to tune in on Lillian’s voice. Pointing his vague eyes at her twitching smile.
“When I was little I spent most of my time in that woods. I used to try sneak up on the deer and rabbits,” Lillian spoke to him as you would a child whose attention you were trying to capture. It was alluring, calming and enticing.
“And I got so good that I even managed to touch a deer’s leg once!”
Blake smiled weakly.
Lillian looked to Edwards who was holding an oversized needle. Lillian’s eyes widened. She opening her mouth to object but Edwards cut her off.
“Lift his shirt,” he bade. “Keep talking.”
Lillian continued her convoluted story of her childhood, shooting Edwards a barbed glare. She frightfully eyed the needle. Its shiny point glistening in the white light of the ambulance.
Blake felt his t-shirt being raised, the fabric folding on its self to reveal pale skin. Edwards wiped something frigid over an area on the side of Blake’s rib cage.
She stopped speaking as Edwards plunged the needle into Blake’s side.
He lurched as the cold metal pierced him. The needle drove its way into him causing a new freezing pain to form a cavern beneath his skin.
Lillian, not knowing how else to help grabbed his hand, squeezing tightly. Blake held on feebly, intertwining his long fingers with hers.
Blake gasped as Edwards pulled the plunger of the needle towards himself. A sickly red liquid was pulled from Blake’s lung. He sputtered. Lillian yanked the mask off his face as he spat out part of the vile liquid flooding lungs.
Blake swayed limply as Edwards removed the needle from his side. He could breathe easier now, but there was a searing pain stabbing at his tired body.
Blake’s eyes were still clamped shut. He felt Lillian place the mask back over his face; a bizarre weightlessness tingled in him. It felt like an elephant had been lifted from his chest as he took short, sweet breaths of the life-providing oxygen. Blake let himself fall back into his seat, attempting to lengthen his breath.
However, Edwards interrupted his momentary piece by unbuckling him and gently lifting him on to the gurney with ease, strapping him in with blinding orange straps. He groaned as his bones shifted, sending dull ripples of pain through him.
Blake winced slightly as Edwards pushed an IV needle beneath is pale skin. Something cold flowed through his veins. He shivered. Edwards was speaking to Lillian now but Blake didn’t bother listening. All he wanted to do was sleep. His whole body felt heavy, sinking into the uncomfortable hunk of metal and plastic he lay on. His thoughts stumbled like a drunk, fumbling in his mind. His world, in a splatter of cloaking ink went dark and silent.
The ambulance slowed and halted. The world became a whirl wind of noise and frantic movement. Edwards dragged out the gurney and Blake with it. Several more uniformed people surrounded the gurney, wheeling it swiftly through the hospital doors.
Lillian stepped down from the ambulance, suddenly alone.
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