Fractured (9 page)

A familiar scream interrupted her thoughts and she stopped short on the trail.

“Seth?” she called out, panicked.
“Seth?”

“I’m here.” He stopped next to her and reached out and touched her arm.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I’ll go check it out,” Rodney said from her opposite side.

The snow crunched under his skis, announcing that he was moving perpendicular to their path. A few moments later, Bash heard the unmistakable peal of a walkie talkie. “I need medical attention,” he was saying. He sounded far away. “I have one snowboarder down...”

One snowboarder.

Bash suddenly had a sense of dread rising within her.

“It’s Scott,” Seth said through gritted teeth. He unclipped his boots from his skis.

“I’m coming too,” Bash said, and followed suit. Seth took hold of her hand and they made their way across the slope.

Bash’s heart was pounding in her ears. What were they going to find? How badly hurt was Scott? The teenager was moaning loudly as they approached. The rest of their little group was chattering around them.

“What happened?” she asked.

It was Rick who answered. “We were just coming down when Scott went off that way and...and...”

“And hit a tree,” Maria completed for him.

“Is he going to be okay?” Bash asked. Seth must’ve been an absolute wreck at that point. She couldn’t see what was happening, but based upon Scott’s groaning, it was pretty bad. Seth’s hand had a tight grip around hers.

“Darius already left to go down to get some help,” Rick said helplessly. He sounded like he was going to be sick. “He’s going to be fine, Seth.” He didn’t sound convinced of it.

“It looks like his arm’s broken,” Rodney said, both for her benefit and to the people on the other side of his walkie talkie. “There’s bone poking through the skin.”

“Oh my God,” Bash gasped, feeling sick.

“It hurts,” Scott moaned in pain. “Hurts so...bad.”

“Hang on, bro,” Seth whispered. He let go of Bash’s hand and knelt next to his little brother.

“Hanging on” took about half an hour for an EMT on a snowmobile to meet them. The entire time, Seth was either comforting Scott or pacing about angrily. Bash tried to help whenever she could, yet there was no helping her fiancé at that moment.

“Shouldn’t have brought him along,” Seth muttered. “Not safe.”

“He’s sixteen years old, Seth,” Bash said, trying to sound comforting. She knew she sounded irritated, even though she was trying not to. “He’s capable of making his own decisions.” It was a broken arm. Bash had broken her arm years ago, and it was fine. In fact, she knew the entire procedure.

The EMT came on a snowmobile with a gurney sled. Scott was speaking by that time and kept complaining about how much it hurt. Seth wouldn’t say how bad it looked in front of him, but from everything that Bash gathered, it was pretty bad.

Strapped in securely, Scott rode down the mountain behind the EMT.

“I don’t want to go down,” Maria said. “I’m not going. Not after Scott...”

“Babe, you’ll be fine,” Rick told her. He sounded tired.

“Just follow me,” Bash offered, trying to salvage what was left. “Or...Rodney, rather. We’ll be taking the easy way down. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Seth cursed under his breath. “Maybe we should quit this trip.”

Bash’s cheeks flushed. She didn’t want this trip to end, but they might have to end it quickly.

As a group, the five of them slowly made their way down the mountain, silence settling over them. It wasn’t turning out to be the fun trip it was supposed to be.

Darius met them at the bottom of the mountain.

“Did you see...?” Seth started.

“Yes,” Darius said. “They took him to the hospital. We’ll head there now.”

Seth turned to Bash. “Listen,” he whispered, “I think I should go to the hospital,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Bash assured him. “I’ll be fine.”

Seth pressed his forehead against hers. “All right. I love you, Sheba,” he whispered.

“Love you too.”

He kissed her lips. “I’ll make it up to you,” he promised.

“No need.” She flashed what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Take care of Scott.”

Seth hurried off to the hospital with Darius, leaving her with Maria, Rick, and Lily, who was somewhere back at the lodge.

“I ain’t skiing again,” Maria told her.

Bash sighed.
Yep, this is going to be so much fun
. Even though she had only done two runs, she felt tired. Maybe it
was
time to retire for the day.

“Let’s find Lily,” she said. “It’s getting close to lunch anyways.”

*****

While Lily’s motto was that it was always six o’clock somewhere, she wasn’t at the bar trying to find a good time. Instead, she was trying to self-medicate her headache and shakes with a good dose of alcohol. The bartender seemed bewildered by her eagerness to drink so early in the day, but he complied, giving her shots of straight whiskey. By eleven-thirty, she was already drunk.

The good news? Her shakes were gone, as well as the writhing in her stomach. It felt like she was finally in control of herself.

The voice in her head, however, continued to be insistent.

Let go, Lily. Let go.

She bit back her own reply, refusing to acknowledge its presence in her mind.
Ignore it,
she told herself.

Don’t,
the voice warned, its tone ominous.

Lily felt a change in air pressure, and she winced in response to the sudden headache. The shot glass in her hand exploded, shattering shards of glass everywhere, cutting up her hand. She cried out, toppling backwards out of her barstool and landing on the floor.

She gasped for breath. The way she had fallen had knocked the wind out of her, and it didn’t help that the floor kept tilting. Her hand was bleeding from a large cut on her palm from the shot glass, and, she realized, her nose was bleeding as well.

“Miss, are you okay?”

She looked up to see the bartender looking down at her, his face a mask of mock concern. He probably thought it was her drunkenness that had caused her to fall from the bar. She saw his name tag.
Steve
, and inwardly groaned. She never met a Steve that she liked.

“I’m...fine...” she mumbled dazedly, her words slurring together. She pushed herself up to a sitting position. “Just...cut my hand...”

Ignore me, Lily, and bad things will happen
, the voice told her. She hated how smug the voice sounded. She felt...no,
knew
...that something bad had happened just then, and it wasn’t her falling off the stool.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Miss,” the bartender said. “I’m cutting you off.”

Something took control of Lily’s faculties, forcing her to glare up at him. A sharp pain rang through her head and she cried out. The bartender reacted as well, his face going slack, and he staggered back a few steps, like he’d been punched. A drop of blood dripped from his right nostril. They both regarded each other for a few moments, before the bartender stiffly went back to his duties behind the bar, Lily’s incident forgotten.

“Fuck,” Lily muttered in surprise. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand again and pushed herself onto her knees. Her hand was aching, although she couldn’t feel the extent of her injuries due to her inebriated state.

He’s yours, Lily. A pawn. Ask him for something. He’s your slave now.

She shook her head, trying to knock the voice loose. “I need a Band-Aid,” she called up to the bartender, although she knew that a single Band-Aid wouldn’t be enough to stem the bleeding. She probably needed medical help, but that would require going to the hospital, and she really didn’t want people wondering why she was drinking at 11:30 in the morning.

She held her hand out for evidence, hoping that was enough to communicate the extent of her injury. Without a word, the bartender reached below the bar, pulled out a First-Aid kit, and knelt next to her. He took her hand and started wrapping it in gauze. She watched him in awe, wondering why his entire demeanor had changed.

You know why, Lily
.
You have control over him now.

Shut up!
she screamed at the voice, shutting her eyes against it.
Just shut up! Shut up!

We can get rid of her as well
.
Now is the time.

Lily didn’t have to guess who “her” was. Did she really want her sister out of the picture? So many times in their lives, she would have given anything, fervently wished her sister disappeared. When it came down to it, did she really want her twin gone?

I love Bash. She’s my sister.

She felt a lump in her throat and a yearning in her heart for Seth. Images flashed through her head of a life without Bash. Her reconciliation with Seth, dates with him, sex with him, marriage. Hell, even having babies with him.

She clutched her uninjured hand to her side, as if she was trying to ward away all of the bad thoughts. That
was
what she wanted. Why was it so different from real life?

Wordlessly, the bartender turned away. Her hand was bandaged, much to her relief. She clenched it a few times. It didn’t seem like there was any permanent damage. Lily swallowed some courage and brought herself to wobbly feet.

A thunk announced the arrival of another shot of whiskey on the bar. Lily looked up as the bartender turned away. A free drink was it?

She grabbed it and threw it back. She was going to get rid of that voice if she had to drink herself into oblivion.

“Another one,” she commanded hoarsely.

Thunk
.

She downed it.

“Another.”

Thunk.

She shot that one too. Blackness edged into her vision, and she laid her head on the bar and closed her eyes, glad for the chance to rest her eyes.

“Hey, Lily?”

Lily looked up slowly at the sound of the voice. It was Bash. Her sister was in the bar, along with Maria and Rick. Unexpected and early, but there nonetheless. Actually...she glanced up at the clock. An hour had passed since she had laid her head down.

“Hey,” she drawled. “You’re done early.”

“Scott had an accident,” Bash said. She sounded tired and exhausted. “We quit early. I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch with us.”

Lily stilled, remembering that horrific feeling when the shot glass had exploded in her hands. She had felt something bad happened. Deep down in her gut, she knew that somehow she’d been responsible for his accident.

She swallowed back the rising fear in her throat. There was no way she was responsible. It was a coincidence, just like when Bash had her seizure at the playground. A coincidence, that was all.

She stood up and steadied herself against the bar.
Whoa, I’m drunker than I thought
, she realized. Blissfully the voice was silent.

“Sure, why not?” she drawled, putting on the air of not-caring, as she always did. “Lead the way.”

C
HAPTER SIX

Rick wasn’t sure what he thought of Bash’s sister. She seemed all right when they first met at Seth’s house, beautiful even, not that he’d ever admit that to Maria. The more he was around her, the more he realized she seemed to be off.  Bash was okay, and kind of cool to hang out with. Not Lily. Lily seemed to be off-kilter. She’d spent a long time in the bathroom the night before, to the point where he didn’t even know if she’d gone to bed. And now one of her hands was bandaged, and she wouldn’t say what had caused it.

There was also something about her that was exotic, exciting...and Rick hated to admit it,
arousing
. She was absolutely alluring on some sort of subatomic level that he couldn’t ignore.

He stayed as far away from her as he could. He wasn’t going to fuck up his relationship with Maria. Sure, h
e and Maria would argue and get into fights, b
ut there was something burning between them that Rick hadn’t found with anyone else. She was his opposite and that was what drew him to her. Were they perfect? No. But that was what kept everything fun between them.

He loved her. He knew that for certain.

They were all sitting at a small restaurant at the base of the mountain, one of those order-at-the-counter types. They’d shed their jackets and were sitting around a table trying to make small talk, and nothing was really sparking the conversation.

Not for the first time, Rick had wished they’d gone to the hospital with Darius and Seth. At least he’d know what was happening, and he wouldn’t be in Lily’s proximity.

She kept watching them with her baleful eyes. The woman was obviously drunk and it was only one o’clock. Her wild aura reminded Rick of a few crazies he’d regrettably spent a night with. Lily was one of those beauties that were good for a night or two, but were dangerous to be around for any longer than that.