Chenford Story

24

1 month later

Lucy's POV

I had done it. I was free. It had been one entire month just riding around the country. I went to New York, Chicago, a few days touring around Florida, A week in Texas, even saw the rams play a game. They were always Time favourite team. I tooks photos everywhere I went, to commemorate everything I had done on my own. Saving them in a box in my backpack that I practically guarded with my life. I was having fun. Being a free spirit for once in my life.

Now I was completing the tour. Dallas to Vancouver, no major stops except San Francisco and Seattle. It would take a few days. A few motels. Nothing I hadn't done before. The worst part would be driving through LA. Up the west coast was the easiest way to do it though.

In the days after I left I saw bulletins and a few news reports about me. *Officer missing* they made it sound worse than it was. They were quieting down now. Probably thinking I was dead, or way to far away to be found from local bulletins. At least they didn't know my secret. If they did the posters would be wanted posters, out for my arrest.

I was just passing back through LA when it happened. I saw a car coming at me from, it slowly swerved into my lane. The other driver seemed terrified and she was desperately trying to turn the steering wheel but it seemed stuck. We were the only two cars on the road.

I swerved and tried to break. I heard the crash of metal on metal and felt myself being flung around. I opened my eyes after a minute. I was upsidedown in a flipped car. Great. Just great. I looked down at myself. Cuts were coving every inch of skin, I would be bruised for a week after. Small fragments of glass were in my skin, arms, hands, face probably. The windscreen was shattered and most of it was in my body at different points. A shard of glass was lodged at least an inch into my thigh. Fuck that was going to hurt once the adrenaline wore off. That was going to hurt like hell to pull out. Another was stuck in my forehead, luckily no where near as deep and my skull seemed intact.

Slowly I pried myself from the wreckage.
Luckily by now my bullet wound had mostly closed. I needed to go. The police would be coming soon. Why did this have to happen in LA? The one place where people knew me?!

I grabbed my unzipped bag and ran. As I did I pulled the glass shard out of my leg and screamed from the pain. I clearly looked awful and was slowly feeling more faint. I threw up the second I stood up, drops of blood. Not good. But only a little blood. I would monitor the situation. The woman in the other car tried to stop me, saying it was entirely her fault (which it was) and that she would pay my medical bills, that it was her boyfriends car and was faulty. I didn't stop. I continued running until I found a pharmacy.

I looked around for bandages. I walked past the feminine care aisle and realised. Shit. I haven't had my period in two months. I brought a pregnancy test to be sure. Even if I had been pregnant, there will little chance the baby survived the crash. Then I saw the liquor store across the road. I bought the strongest vodka they had and soaked the bandages in it before putting them on.
I stuffed everything in my bag and walked to a car rental for the second time.

Tim's POV

I was called to a car accident halfway into my shift. I attended it without a second thought. "7-adam-100 show us responding"
Angela and I had been riding together since Lucy's disappearance. We had spent days pouring over the CCTV footage from the hospital. Nothing showed she was being taken against her will. Nothing showed anything about her whereabouts.
We arrived at the scene.
A woman rushed out of the less damaged car.
"Officers I'm so sorry, the steering and brakes on my car failed. The other driver left before I could get her information though"
That was odd. If this woman was willing to admit full responsibility then why did the other driver leave?
"She seemed badly injured, she pulled this out of her leg"
The woman pointed to a shard of glass.
"Um.." I looked at Angela
Angela looked back at me.
The shard was massive, about the size of a phone. And a third of it was covered in blood and possibly small pieces of bone.
"Whoever pulled that out of their leg had better be first aid trained or they're going to bleed out in the next half hour"
I called all local hospitals to check if anyone had come in with that type of injury. No one.
I checked my watch.
So in about twenty minutes we would be dealing with a dead body somewhere in LA but we had no idea where.
I searched the flipped car. Nothing in the door, glovebox, on the seat, in the boot /trunk.
I checked under the seat. A single Polaroid. Great how was this going to-
I practically collapsed.
"Angela!"
My partner appeared over my shoulder and had the same reaction. It was Lucy.
More specifically a photo of Lucy and I the day I asker her to be my girlfriend.
Lucy was in LA.
More importantly she wasn't dead.
Then I remembered.
Shit. Lucy was probably bleeding out somewhere in LA.
"Angela... She's going to die if she doesn't get to a hospital in the next few minutes."