Ransom (18 page)

“It’s just a few more minutes,” Shyanne yelled back.
 

My heart beat a little faster. A part of me didn’t want to know if Gabriel hadn’t made it, the other piece of me couldn’t go on another moment not knowing. Cars continued moving out of our path, like it was the parting of the Red Sea. Seeing it happen made me realize the favor that Shyanne had done for me. With traffic the way it was, there was no way that Dave and I could have kept up this kind of pace.

“You okay man?” Dave said.

 
I stared over at him. He had gone from green to sheet white, a thin film of sweat peppered his brow. I almost laughed at the concept that he looked like shit warmed over, yet he was still asking me if I was all right. I couldn’t have asked for a better friend.

“Yeah, I’m okay, I just need to get to the hospital and see Gab.”
 

My voice cracked. I swallowed a few times, doing my best to keep it together. It was a tough feat since the closer we got to the hospital the thicker the air seemed to get. Like I was running out of oxygen. I glanced down at my bloody hands. There were more splinters and cuts than I could count, but it was insignificant compared to what Gabriel had suffered.

“We’re here,” Shyanne said abruptly.
 

I peered ahead just in time to see the sign for the hospital flash into sight. “I’m going to take you through to the Emergency department since chances are that he’s still there.”

Shyanne pulled the ambulance in front of the entrance. Illuminated red letters that spelled Emergency were positioned over the sliding glass doors. Just seeing the doors that opened and closed with every person that walked in and out, set my nerves on edge. I had always hated hospitals, despised the smell of antiseptic, the stark white of the walls and floors, and especially all the equipment that reminded me of something from a high-tech torture chamber. I knew it was a juvenile fear but it didn’t make it any less true.

Shyanne was the first out, coming around to the rear of the ambulance to open the back doors. Dave sprung forward, it was the most life I had seen from him since we had begun the drive. Cool air filtered in, making me realize how stuffy the back of the ambulance had been. I followed Dave, hopping down onto the paved lane where the ambulance was parked.

“I can’t stay long, but I’ll at least help you find out more about your brother.”

As soon as we passed through the doors of the Emergency department, the smell hit me, bringing with it feelings of dread and anxiety. Even though I knew that nothing and nobody was going to hurt me, irrational fear settled in the pit of my gut. It seemed crazy that I would have felt more comfortable in a street fight, than being in a hospital.

“Take a seat over there,” Shyanne said.

She pointed to the line of mint green padded chairs that were positioned in a square, forcing all the people waiting for a doctors care, to face one another. A thirty-two inch television was mounted on the far wall. As soon as I glanced at the screen I was sorry I had. Video of the collapsed stage streamed across the television, followed by a snapshot of Gabriel. It surprised me that the accident was already news. Sitting there, watching the pictures race across the screen, made me realize how truly lucky we had been to make it out alive. From the images on the television I knew that if not for the hasty rescue by the guy with the power saw, I would not have been sitting there at all.

Without warning, Shyanne was in front of me. Her face was impassive, clearly a trick that people who dealt with life and death on a daily basis were adept at.

“I’m sorry to say that the news isn’t good.”

All the blood seemed to rush away from my head. I felt dizzy all over again.

“Is he alive?” I managed to choke out.

Shyanne nodded. I drew in a huge shuddering breath, thankful that he had at least made it to the hospital.

“But he has a collapsed lung and he arrested a few times before they arrived. They’ve put in a chest tube, so at least he’s breathing better, but he has a lot of internal damage and…”
 

I stopped listening because I had no idea what all the technical terms she was rhyming off meant, only that Gabriel was in bad shape.

I leapt to my feet. I was way beyond my limits for sensory overload.

 
“I need to see him,” I said, interrupting her spiel. I knew I was being rude, but I couldn’t listen for another minute.
 

I needed to see Gabriel. Only after I had laid eyes on him, could I possibly begin to comprehend exactly what she was telling me.
 

“It’s chaos in there, I don’t think it’s the place for you,” Shyanne started to say. I met her protests with a haughty stare. I didn’t speak because I wasn’t sure if I could trust my voice not to quiver with emotion.
 

She studied me for a few moments, the pity in her gaze was undeniable. I hated every bit of it. I didn’t want her sympathy, I wanted her help.

She shook her head as if it took every bit of her will to agree.

“C’mon,” she finally said.
 

I cast a quick glance over my shoulder at Dave, who sat stiffly in a chair. His color had returned and he looked almost back to normal. I could tell by the expression of dread on his face that there was no way he wanted to come with me.
 

“You stay here, okay?” I said, letting him off the hook. He nodded; there was absolute relief in his eyes.
 

It was then that another question came to my mind, one that I hadn’t wanted to ask.
 

“Is our father in there with him?” I asked.

Shyanne shook her head.
 

“No, as far as I could see it was just medical personnel…” She scratched her head. “Maybe he’s gone to get a coffee or something,” she said.

“Or something,” I said under my breath, unable to rein in the fury that Pa was M.I.A. And that there was a very strong possibility that his ass was positioned on a bar stool somewhere around town. It was what he did when the shit hit the fan, something, though I hated to admit it, that I had inherited from him.

Shyanne led the way through the closed doors that led into the emergency room. It was like any other emergency room I had been in, lots of curtains, medical equipment and every kind of healthcare worker in perpetual motion. The sheer number of people, rushing in an out of a particular curtained section told me exactly where Gabriel was.
 

It was one thing to force Shyanne to take me inside, but it was quite another to be there amongst the confusion, knowing that my little brother was so sick that he needed a dozen people to save his life.

“You sure you want to do this?”

 
I hadn’t realized that I had stopped moving until her voice brought me back.

I nodded.

Shyanne walked forward. I followed. My stomach twisted into tight knots. My throat was too constricted to swallow my own saliva, but still I managed to push forward.

Even after we had slipped behind the curtain Gabriel wasn’t in view. Medical personnel crowded every bit of space around him. I was just tall enough to catch a glimpse of him, and it was enough to make me want to vomit all over again. There were so many tubes and cords coming from his body that it was difficult to recognize my little brother, whose face was as familiar as my own.
 

His hair, platinum white and so unique was the only part of him that confirmed it was Gabriel. He was so still, like a mannequin washed of color, that I wondered if he had died and no one had realized yet. His eyes were closed with blue veins visible against the pallor of his eyelids. A thick blue corrugated tube trailed from the side of his mouth. The mechanical rise and fall of his chest and the erratic blip of his heart on the monitor next to his bed, told me that he was still with us.

Suddenly I questioned what I had been thinking when I had insisted that Shyanne take me to see him. She had been right, it was too much for me to see him like this. I knew that the trauma of the scene I was witnessing unfold, would play in my mind for an eternity. Then I was speaking without even knowing what I was saying.

“What the hell is happening to him?” I said in a voice that was thin with anxiety.
 

No one answered me.
 

I should have been thankful that they were doing everything they could for him, but I couldn’t feel grateful for much of anything. From what I saw there was a very good chance that Gabriel was going to die, and there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it.

My breath came in shallow puffs. I knew I couldn’t stay there a minute longer. I couldn’t witness Gab fighting for his life, like a fish that had been pulled from the sea and was slowly dying on the shore. Even before I cleared the Emergency room the flashbacks came, and there was nothing I could do to stop them from rushing in.

Then I was back in the hospital, the one from my past. I had needed to see Ma, to know that she was going to be fine and that all the things that had looked so scary in our house hadn’t meant anything at all. I had spotted Pa, with Gabriel tucked loosely in the crook of his arm. He had been nodding at the grim-faced doctor who was speaking to him. There had been bruises and cuts on his face as if he’d been in a fight. I raced toward them. I had been so small that they hadn’t noticed that I had slipped past them into the room.
 

Everything had loomed so huge, but nothing more than the stainless steel bed at the center. That’s where I had found her. Abandoned and alone, covered by a thin white sheet that was stained with red.

Ma.

I had crawled up onto the table, curling my body around her dead form until someone eventually found me there…

Then I was back to the present, running through the halls that led to the outside. I heard Dave call my name, but I couldn’t answer him. I needed space, and time to man up, so I could be strong for Gabriel. Time to push back the memories of Ma.

And even as the thought formed in my mind another one followed. For once in my life I couldn’t help Gabriel, I couldn’t scoop him into my arms and carry him away to safety. I was so very helpless, just like I had been when Ma had died.

Warm air that smelled of exhaust and fresh cut grass, hit me as soon as I was outside. I raced down the sidewalk, skirting the people that I found in my path. I had no idea where I was going or what I was going to do, only that I needed to be away from it all because I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough not to break. I was disgusted by the fact that for once in my life, I wanted to be as far away from Gabriel as I could. Every time I remembered how he had looked, buried in medical equipment I thought of Ma. I couldn’t do it anymore; it hurt too much to relive it all.

 
Only when I had spent all the air in my lungs did I stop running. I bent at the waist, gasping for breath, wishing that someone would take me away from it all, hold me in their arms and tell me that everything would be okay. But there was no one to do that for me, I knew there never would be again.

 
The memories of the night Ma died, grew like tumors in my mind and no matter how many times I tried to push the thoughts away, they kept coming. My mind worked to assure me that Gabriel wasn’t going to die, the past didn’t predict the future. I wasn’t going to lose the only person that meant anything to me, it just wasn’t going to happen.
 

It was then that I saw the answer to all my problems, for a little while at least. The neon sign flashed the name of my salvation, Clancy’s
 
Pub and Grill; it was exactly what I needed.

13. LEXIE

“I’m not sure about this Lexie,” Trinity said, eyeing me warily. “I just don’t like the idea of leaving you here by yourself all night. Maybe Aiden and I should stay here too…”

“No,” I said a little more abruptly than I had planned.
 

The last thing I wanted was for Aiden and Trinity to babysit me. Besides, if they stayed, there was no way that I would get a chance to go to the hospital, meaning all opportunity to see Gabriel would be lost. I visualized tossing them physically from my hotel room and into their car, thankfully I managed to stop myself from losing my cool. Trinity narrowed her eyes, staring at me with renewed suspicion. Things were rapidly going downhill. If I didn’t salvage the situation soon, I was going to be screwed and tattooed.
 

I crossed my arms over my chest, leveling my gaze on Trinity. I worked as much innocence into my expression as I could manage. It was a do or die proposition.

“Trin, you know I love you guys, but it’s been a long ride. I just need some space to deal, you know…” I cut my eyes to the thin mossy brown carpet. In my opinion I held the pose for entirely too long before Trinity finally spoke.
 

“I get it,” she said simply.
 

I brought my focus to her face. Once again I recognized the all too familiar pity that had been like a mainstay in almost every one of her looks my way since Mom’s death. I didn’t deserve it, but I accepted it, knowing it was the only way I was going to get them out and to the campground for the night.

Aiden, who had hung back during most of our discussion, looked relieved that we had settled the sleeping arrangements. He came behind Trinity, wrapping his arms around her tiny waist. Witnessing their comfortable closeness and a love that seemed to grow stronger by the moment, made my heart ache for something I knew I didn’t deserve, but still wanted. Murderers didn’t rate a happy ending, they died old and alone, having lived a life of regret and loneliness. It seemed a fitting punishment for snatching away Mom’s life.
 

Trinity moved forward, out of Aiden’s grasp. She embraced me in a way that made me feel protected and loved. She rested her cheek on the top of my head and I hugged her back, grateful that she had agreed to leave me alone. It was more than I ever could have asked for.

“We’re going to go now,” she said, after she had released me.