Settling Ashes: A New Adult/College Romance (The Ashes Series Book 2) (10 page)

Ten

Clay

I’ve heard people say that life began to move in slow motion, but I’d never really understood it until after that car smashed into the side of my own. Because at that moment, life slowed to a crawl, taking its time in moving from one minute to the next. The world as I knew it faded to a dim gray, and a new reality began to take shape, to my horror, right in front of my disbelieving eyes.

The breath was knocked out of me after the initial impact, and I heard nothing as my SUV was lifted off its tires. It seemed to hang suspended in the air before finally tilting, tilting, and flipping over on its roof. It rolled again twice more before finally settling comfortably on its top, and everything was dark and silent.

Too dark.

Too silent.

The silence was the soul-chilling part. I expected to hear an abundance of sound, not an absence of it. I never lost consciousness, although I felt my shoulder knock repeatedly against the driver’s side door as we rolled.

When we stopped and the screeching of metal against asphalt halted, there was just nothing. The car radio wasn’t blaring, the engine wasn’t running, and Paige wasn’t talking.

Paige.
Oh, God.

“Paige,” I croaked. I didn’t recognize my voice as my own, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere very far away, like the bottom of a well, or the end of a tunnel far beneath the sea.

“Paige, baby,” I said again, panic overtaking my frenzied brain. I reached down for my seatbelt and tried to engage the unlocking mechanism. Nothing happened. I winced as the blood rushing to my head began pulsing in my ears. We were upside down; I looked out my window and saw only blackness. The sound of a siren rose in the distance.

That was good. Sirens were good because it meant someone was coming who could cut me out of this damn seatbelt so I could get to Paige.

I reached out for her, grabbing handfuls of empty, black air.

“Oh, God,” I groaned, needles of pain slicing through my shoulder as I stretched. “Paige? Baby!”

Then I remembered something, and the thought almost stole my consciousness where the accident was unable to.

Had she gotten her seatbelt back on in time?

I reached. As far as I could, wincing from a searing pain in my chest I hadn’t before registered, straining for the opposite end of the car where Paige’s seatbelt should have been. It was engaged, and in the process of reaching for it, I found her soft flesh underneath my fingers.

I grabbed a hold of whatever part of her I could find, which happened to be her hand. I squeezed it frantically, screaming her name.

“Paige! Paige! Wake up, baby!”

No response. She didn’t squeeze my hand; I couldn’t hear anything from her at all.

I fumbled with my seatbelt again, this time tugging it frantically with my remaining strength. It snapped loose, and I was free. My body dropped a few inches and I landed on my head with a thud.

I crawled around Paige’s hanging legs, and discovered that on her side of the car there wasn’t such an absence of light. A streetlamp somewhere above just illuminated her form, and I glanced up at her face.

Covered in blood.

Paige’s face was covered in rivulets of blood dribbling from a gash that was leaking profusely on her head, just over her left eye.

“Oh, God,” I breathed.

A decidedly flat calm came rushing to the surface beneath the icy-cold fear fighting hard to drag me under. “I’m going to work on your seat belt, Paige, so I can get you out of here. Then I’m going to have to break a window, so we can get free.”

She didn’t answer. I hadn’t really expected her, but the tendrils of fear that threatened my calm stretched a little closer to the surface.

I opened the glove compartment and pulled out the pocketknife I kept amidst fast food napkins and my driver’s manual. I flicked it open and began to saw the fabric of the seatbelt. I hyper-focused on it until the fabric began to fray, and then I cut more furiously. I was surgically careful not to touch Paige with the blade, and soon the seatbelt was sliced in two pieces. I untangled her from the strap and pulled her into my arms before she could drop. Cradling her to my chest, I began kicking at the passenger side window, which already had a web of cracks running over it from the crash.

Then I was breathing cold night air and crawling out through the window into tall, frozen grass. I reached back in and pulled Paige out with me, careful to avoid scraping her with the jagged shards of window glass.

Mere moments had passed since all the fragile pieces of our world came crashing down around us.

I cradled her to my chest once again, and carried her up a slight embankment. My SUV had hit the side of it and rolled down into the shallow ravine beyond when we crashed. I climbed up until my feet met gravel, and laid Paige down gently.

The sirens that had been crying in the distance now wailed right next to my ear, and an ambulance skidded to a stop a few yards ahead of where I knelt next to my unconscious girlfriend.

It was too dark for me to assess her. I couldn’t tell where else she was hurt, but the fact that she couldn’t talk to me finally caused the crazy I’d been pushing down to take over. I screamed toward the paramedics now rushing in my direction; again, life was set to slow motion.

“Help her! Help my girlfriend! She’s not talking to me!” I put both hands to my head, pushing my hair back and letting the breakdown I’d prevented in the car to finally break free.

The first one reached us, shoving me out of the way as he knelt next to Paige, checking her vital signs.

“What happened?” the second man said, jerking me out of my transfixed stare.

“We…we were hit by someone who ran the light,” I explained, my voice raspy with terror. “She’s…she’s not…is she going to be okay?”

I tired to move back to Paige’s side but the paramedic trying to obtain information stopped me.

“What’s her name?” the paramedic working on Paige asked urgently.

“Paige. Her name is Paige Hill. She’s twenty, and she’s my girlfriend. Help her, please.”

They worked together to load her onto a stretcher.

“Is she breathing?” I asked frantically.

“We have a weak pulse and very shallow breathing. We want to get her into the ambulance now so we can assess her situation on the way to the hospital.”

“I’m going with her,” I stated, daring them with a glare to argue with me.

“Let’s go then, sir.” The paramedics hauled Paige onto the ambulance and held the doors open so I could climb in after them. I did, and the most terrifying hour of my life began.

~**~

I stared into the tiny window of the hospital room where doctors and nurses stood all around Paige. Some were checking vitals on a computer; some were working furiously over her still-unconscious form to coax life back into her.

An unresponsive Paige almost broke me back at the accident scene, but seeing her now, like this, almost pulled the strength from my legs and caused me to melt to the floor in unbridled panic. The only thing stopping that from happening was the fact that I refused to break visual contact with her. I needed to see her, because I couldn’t feel her right now.

I wasn’t even sure if my Paige was inside that still form anymore.

The elevator doors down the hallway opened and my parents stepped out.

“Clay?” my dad called, and he began striding down the hallway toward me.

“Dad,” I muttered numbly, never allowing my eyes to leave Paige. “Dad. I can’t help her, Dad. She’s….she’s…” my voice choked off as he grabbed me and pulled me into a bear hug.

“I’m so sorry, son,” he said in a disbelieving voice. “We got the call about you from the hospital, and I had no idea whether you were…and I didn’t know Paige was…” he choked off just as I had, pulling back from me and staring into the room where Paige lay so still.

“She’s going to be okay, right, Dad?” I asked him, my voice reverting back to the little boy I used to be. “I can’t lose her. She hasn’t been through this much only to leave me now, right?”

My dad hesitated, silently watching the team who worked on Paige.

My mother finally spoke from where she’d been standing silently by the window.

“Where are her parents?”

I glanced at her, just realizing she was there. “She doesn’t have any. They died in a fire. She’s only just recovered from all of that. And now this.”

“Oh, man,” said my father. “We’re here for you, son. We’re here for you and for Paige.”

I nodded, staring into the hospital room.

The elevator doors opened again, and Gillian shot out like a bullet, followed closely by Drew, Rob, and Tima.

“Clay?” Gillian screamed. “Where is she?”

I glanced at her wordlessly, because she was able to see where Paige was as soon as she reached the window.

“Oh, God,” Gillian choked. “Is she going to be okay?”

Drew reached out for her, but she batted his hand away and faced me. “Have they said anything?”

“No,” I whispered. “They’ve just been in there…working on her.”

A nurse glanced up and noticed the now-growing crowd peering in and snatched a heavy curtain around to cover the window.

Breaking the only contact I had with the girl I loved.

That act stole the remaining strength right out of me, and I began to slide to the floor, just before Rob and Drew reached out and pulled me against them.

“Easy, bro,” Drew said softly. “We got you.”

They led me to the small waiting area across the hall, where we all took a seat on the intended-to-be-comfortable upholstered chairs lined up against the walls. There was a small coffee table in the middle littered with magazines I was sure no one ever bothered to pretend to read.

I let my head fall back against the wall, closing my eyes. But when I did, all I could see were images of the horrible accident I’d just endured, so I opened them again. Surveying the room and the weary, somber expressions on everyone’s faces made my stomach roll.

Thirty minutes dragged past, and then an hour, and still no one had said anything to us about Paige. I don’t think any of us would be able to speak until we knew one way or another what was going to happen to her.

And then the elevator doors opened again as Beau came racing down the hallway. He stopped outside the waiting room, and Gillian looked up at him with eyes determinedly absent of tears.

“Beau,” she said in greeting.

“Thanks for calling me,” he replied, looking painfully at Gillian. “Any word yet?”

She shook her head, and leaned her head against Tima’s shoulder. I stared back and forth between the two of them.

Beau’s eyes shot to mine. “Get out here, Forbes. Now.”

“Now, wait a minute,” my dad began, standing.

I pressed his shoulder until he sank back down into his seat.

“I got this, Dad,” I assured him.

I walked into the hallway where Beau had begun walking further away. I was sure he wanted to get out of range of the waiting room.

After a few feet, he whirled on me. “What the hell happened?”

“Beau,” I said wearily. “It was a car accident. What do you think happened?”

“I think you failed, once again, to take care of her like you’re supposed to.”

I felt no amount of surprise at his assessment, and I wasn’t angry, either. He was simply stating out loud the sentiments I’d already admitted to myself.

“I know,” I whispered roughly, closing my eyes.

“If she dies, so do you,” he warned in a hard voice.

“We’re not going to talk like that,” I snapped. “She’s not going to die. She’s the strongest person I know.”

He nodded, all the anger draining from his expression. “Yeah, she is.”

At that point, I had to walk away. I couldn’t stand there and watch the pain arching across his face. It mirrored mine too closely, and I wasn’t sure what to do with that.

We walked back to the waiting room, where Beau took a seat next to Rob.

A nurse entered the room a few minutes later, and we all rose to our feet in anticipation.

She eyed me warily. “Were you in the accident with Paige Hill?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding.

“Well, why don’t you come on back to an exam room with me so I can check you out?”

“Hell, no,” I snapped. “I’m fine. I’m not going anywhere.”

She looked pointedly at my bloody shirt and the limp way I was carrying my shoulder.

“Clay,” my mother said. “You need an exam. Go get one. If anything happens while you’re gone, we’ll come and get you.”

“No,
” I said through my teeth. “I’m not leaving this room until I hear about Paige. Then I’ll go get checked out.”

I looked at the nurse. “I swear I’m not going to pass out or anything. I’m fine. Just a sore shoulder. Most of this is…Paige’s blood.”

Gillian gasped and stared at me.

“What happened, Clay?” she asked as the nurse shrugged and walked back to her station.