Spades and Angels

Kidnapped or Running Away?

Maddox

Waking up feels odd. And not in a good way. Not like when I hadn't remembered Lo and I making up weeks ago. Not like when I hadn't remembered the nights we spent together where we woke up with missing parts. Some that even now we can't remember fully.

No this was a bad odd feeling.

The first thing I hear is the storm. The raging, howling winds sound like they're trying to uproot the trees where they stand. The thundering rain battered the road. Hitting my skin like knives and sounding like tapping on a tin drum over head. The next is someone screaming. More than one person. I want to go to them, help them, but I can't move. Can't open my eyes, no matter how hard I try. I'm just trapped. Having to hear it but not able to move.

"MADS! MADS!" Someone keeps calling for me but just like when I tried to open my eyes I can't speak either. My jaw feels bolted shut when I try. Now beyond being a little scared, I try to blink. To move. To do anything other than lie - or sit - wherever I was without being able to move. "MADS, WHERE ARE YOU?! MADS, PLEASE. WHERE ARE YOU?! MADS WHERE-OH MY GOD I FOUND HIM."

"YOU FOUND HIM? WHERE?'' Unlike before, when I'd been unable to figure out who was shouting for me I'd recognise the voice of one of my two best friends instantly. "WHERE IS HE MAL? I...WE COULDN'T FIND HIM BEFORE.'' The voice edges closer but between the rain and the wind, the storm does a pretty good job of making it almost impossible for me to figure out which one it is. "Mal?" the voice gets closer still, the distance closing making it a little easier but not enough. "Mal, where is...MADS!"

I try again to move. To do anything besides whatever had happened to me but it wasn't enough. Not yet. I was still too trapped in the darkness behind my eyes. I try and I try but it's hard. It's hard to keep pushing toward waking from the darkness when I know this is....this is the easy part. The pain on the other side, the pain waiting for me when I wake up, that'll be harder. But I try. The panic of whoever is near me, shaking me, making me fight harder. Harder and harder until...

I wake up coughing, the dizzying starbursts behind my eyes not disappearing for a few minutes. Next to me, I see Ash and Mal give relieved sighs when I blink once but don't manage to move. Coughing again I looked to see that I'd ended up stuck when the car I'd been in with Lo tipped over and I got crushed underneath it. Somehow not dead, luckily, but still in pain. Sure that something was broken. Taking a breath to brace myself I push against whatever was in front of me for as long as I can before the pain gets too much and I have to stop. My hand shaking where the pain was getting to be too much, even if just for a second. Blinking away the dizzy spots I noticed Ash trying to help Michael on my other side as the three of us managed to push off what had kept me trapped so I could somehow crawl out. Only realised when I was sitting on the road that the car was on its roof. The weight of it having seen what pinned me so I was lucky to even be alive.

"Are you ok?" Pey taps me on the shoulder and I shrug, slowly and painfully, in response. "Hey, you ok, seriously?" I didn't answer her with words then, surveying the wreckage of the four cars we'd been driving. Two of which look to be on fire and two smoking wrecks of metal that won't be driven again. Seeing who else was here.

Glancing over I count Mir, Michael, Mal, Pey, Ash, Hali and me but...but no...LO!

I jump to my feet then, a little wobbly from pain but otherwise ok. Pey offers me an odd expression but I don't deter from what I'd been looking for. Combing from top to bottom the space where we'd all crashed - either that or been run off the road by vengeful Spades - but I still can't find her. Still don't see her. Hear her. Still, I checked a second time. A third. It's four tries before I admit to myself that Lo isn't where she should be. Until I admit I can't find her.