reunion made for great TV. Their sympathies didn’t last long, however. As soon as the first reporter started shouting out questions, the others followed suit, running up to the two of them with the urgency of a pack of jackals.
A siren blasted behind her. Isla turned and saw an ambulance racing toward the bridge. The cop ordered her out of the way so that it could get through. Numb, she tried to locate her daughter in the crowd. She called out her name, but her voice got drowned out by the chaotic questions being shouted.
The paramedics jumped onto the pavement and pushed a stretcher past her. Her head spinning, Isla felt powerless to do anything. She saw Ray violently shoving the horde of reporters out of the way, ordering them in no uncertain terms to back the hell off. The medics pushed through the reporters and helped Katie onto the stretcher. Isla was shocked to hear Katie shriek in agony at the prospect of being separated from her father. She threw her arms up and reached for him, but he drifted back as the paramedics whisked her into the ambulance. Isla searched for Ray, only to see him running toward his pickup truck, parked on the other side of the bridge.
“Ray,” she shouted. “Ray!” But he jumped in and sped off.
By the time she turned back to the ambulance, it had traveled halfway down Thatcher Road, siren blaring and lights flashing. She returned to her minivan and followed it to the hospital.
PART TWO
KATIE
THE MAN STANDING OVER ME WANTS TO KNOW MY NAME, BUT I’M unable to speak. I’m under heavy medication, which has taken the creepy out of all this and put me at ease. He is wearing a stethoscope and is very good looking, with longish black hair. He only slightly resembles that TV doctor, Patrick Dempsey, on my favorite show. Of course that was before they killed him off in that spectacular car crash. That was one tearjerker of an episode. I remember crying like a baby after they pulled the plug keeping him alive, and looking over at my mother, only to see that she was crying, too.
My name is Katherine Denise Eaves, but the words don’t seem to come out. They refuse to leave these bloodied, cursed lips of mine.
So what happened to me? How did I end up here?
My head feels like someone drilled a hole in my skull and poured molten hot lava in it. My thinking is fuzzy and dreamlike. The drugs they’ve given me numb the pain and make me feel warm inside, although warm is the last thing I should be feeling right now.
Where’s my phone? I feel naked without it. Apple: the crutch of my generation.
Something bad happened to me, but I can’t quite remember what. Maybe I don’t want to remember. Maybe it’s best I don’t remember.
But there are certain things that I do remember. I’m almost seventeen. I go to Shepherd’s Bay High. My little brother’s name is Raisin, and he suffers from a severe form of diabetes that requires him to have a medical dog around him at all times. My father’s nickname is Swisher, and my mother owns a hair salon in the center of town that used to belong to my great-grandfather.
For some reason, I can’t talk. Is it the medication or the injuries to my head? And why is it I can’t recall certain things?
Then I remember my friend Willow, and the tears begin to flow down my bruised cheeks. What happened to her? Did I cause her any harm by something I did?
The doctor puts the stethoscope to my chest, and I freak out for no apparent reason. I scream, twisting and turning in the sheets, until one of the nurses plunges a needle in my arm and I go all sleepy.
* * *
I wake up sometime later. The room is dark. I’m not sure I like being alone, but I’m not sure I want to be around people, either. It feels safe in this room, safer than wherever I’d been. Honestly, I have no recollection of that place. My face hurts from the slightest of movements. I reach up and touch the assortment of fresh scabs and bruises around my eyes. It feels numb, if a little tender to the touch. When I get up to use the bathroom is when it really hurts. I see a pale, bruised face staring back at me in the mirror. I barely recognize the girl.