Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
There is just human life and love and pain.
My world blinks past me and the right side, my side, slams into the concrete median with a violent bang. My body wrenches forward against my seatbelt. A crack steals my breath away. Hot tears slip out of the corners of my eyes—I can’t breathe.
And then, the car flips.
6
FARROW KEENE
Everything is eerily motionless except for the ping ping ping of rain hitting the underside of the car. The smell of rain on metal overpowers my senses, and slowly, I gather my bearings.
I’m upside down.
We all are, but I’m the first to barrel through disorientation. My earpiece dangles on a cord down my chest, my radio cracked. Every airbag blew, every window shattered, and the greatest impact was on…no.
“Maximoff,” I call out, my voice hoarse.
His car door is crushed against the concrete median. Charlie’s door is also smashed but not as badly.
I cough a few times, my pulse spiking. I can’t see Maximoff that well. Winona’s hair cascades down and shields him from view.
He’s fine.
I try to pretend.
He’s fine.
Winona blinks a few times, then inhales a sharp breath. In shock.
“Winona, you’re okay. Just breathe,” I say, drawing her attention while I also feel for my seatbelt buckle. I know her sister Sulli better than I know her, but within the security team, the Meadows girls are known for being tough.
Wide-eyed, Winona nods slowly to me. A gash runs down the corner of her lips. She needs stitches.
“Does anything hurt?” I ask. “Your neck, back, legs?” I unbuckle myself and gradually lower to the bottom of the car. Really, the roof. My boots crunch the glass, and I try to open my door.
It’s jammed.
“No,” Winona answers in a short breath. “No, I think…I think I’m okay.”
I crouch and I look up at an upside-down Maximoff. He blinks like his world is still spinning. I sweep him rapidly. What I can see: a clavicle fracture, blood trickling from his nose, shallow breathing.
He’s not okay.
I need to lift up his shirt, but I hear my boyfriend in the back of my fucking head. Screaming at me to check on his cousins first.
“Maximoff? Talk to me,” I say, but he’s still coming to.
It takes the greatest amount of effort and force to tear away from him and focus and triage. I open my mouth to call his name again, but I stop myself. My heart is being shred to fucking pieces.
Winona’s eyes dart to the front. “Ben?” Fear pitches her voice.
He groans from the driver’s seat.
“Ben, Charlie, how do you feel?” I ask, moving closer. I examine both in a long glance.
Blood drips down a small laceration at Ben’s hairline. Tiny cuts prick his face from the glass shards.
“Huh…” he says groggily.
“Help my brother,” Charlie winces while he clutches his extremely fractured leg.
I’d like a backboard and a neck brace for Ben, but the longer we stay inside a demolished car, the more dangerous and potentially life-threatening.
Get them out.
“Ben,” I call while I shift back to my door. “What’s your birthday?” I peek beneath the deflated side airbag. The window is punched out and large enough that a body could crawl through.
Winona all of a sudden unbuckles herself, and I catch her shoulders so she won’t fall on her neck. She squats like me.
“Ben, what’s your birthday?” I repeat.
“Uh…” he groans. “Huh…?”
I start unbuttoning my black shirt. “Maximoff?” I call out, but my boyfriend is still disoriented. Unresponsive.
Come on, wolf scout.
I breathe hot breath through my nose and pass my shirt to Winona. “Put this against your lip.”
She presses the fabric to the corner of her mouth.
“Ben,” I call loudly, “what day is it?”
“Huh…?” he mumbles.
“REDFORD!”
I’ve never been happier to hear my middle name. I flip up the deflated side airbag. Rain soaks Oscar as he crouches, curly pieces of his hair stuck to his forehead.
He’s assessing me.
“I’m fine! Take Winona!” I call through the roaring storm. “Charlie has a fractured leg in the passenger seat! Ben may have a concussion!”
“Ambulance won’t be here for a while!” Oscar shouts back while I help Winona near the window. “Maybe thirty minutes! Most are in use because of the storm!”
I carry the weight of this shit situation in my eyes.
Oscar nods back and tries to rub water off his face. “I know! You’re it, Redford!”
Meaning, no one else on site has this level of medical training. Oscar has some experience from studying sports therapy at Yale, but it’s not exactly the same.
Oscar yells over a crack of lightning, “We should get them out fast!”
I nod, agreeing. Oscar grips Winona by the armpits and pulls her out through the window. She’s still in a slight fog or else she’d most likely want to stay with Ben.
Once Oscar has her, I call out, “Maximoff!”
He’s more coherent and currently trying to unbuckle himself. But he can’t move his right arm.