best thing that's ever been mine - a Kaylor story

Chapter 17

There's a buzzing sound, a distant whisper of something Karlie can't quite grasp.

Something is dripping onto her forehead and Karlie can't understand why something would drip onto her forehead. Where is she anyway?

She attempts to move her arm up to her forehead to find out what it is that is dripping, but the movement causes a sharp pain to flare out from her shoulder down her arm, while it feels like she's being stabbed in the chest with every breath, and she stops, wondering why everything hurts.

"Karlie?" she hears a voice yell in the distance. "KARLIE?" and she feels a hand grabbing onto her leg, not quite shaking it to elicit a response, but pinching it urgently, yet lightly at the same time. She tries moving her head to see who it is, but the pain forces her to stay still and she closes her eyes as she tries to get her brain to stop screaming at her.

"Karlie, can you hear me?" she hears again and she opens her eyes again, her green eyes finding a pair of blue ones to focus on.

Taylor!

"Tay..." she whispers and smiles, or at least attempts to, she's not quite sure of what's happening here. Her eyes latch onto the smear of deep red that's soiling Taylor's otherwise blonde hair and Karlie frowns. Blood?

"Why are you bleeding?" she asks, feeling confused and scared now.

"Karlie, do you know where you are?" Taylor asks, completely ignoring Karlie's question. Her voice is shrill and frantic, and there's a shiver in it that Karlie normally doesn't hear. "Can you move?"

Karlie thinks about it for a split second. "No," she responds, "it hurts too much." She looks at Taylor in bewilderment. Why does it hurt? "What happened?" she asks, tears pressing on her eyes now as the situation starts to dawn on her.

"We were forced off the road," Taylor says, "but I'm not sure how the car ended up like this, I was out for a while." Taylor changes position and winces, and Karlie suddenly realizes she's supporting her left arm with her right one, holding it up against her chest.

"Your arm..." Karlie says, her voice shaky now.

"It's okay, sunshine," Taylor says in a hushed tone, "it will be okay. Now, Karlie, listen to me carefully. I'm not going to attempt to move you in any direction, I've seen too many episodes of Grey's Anatomy for that, but tell me what you feel."

"Pain," Karlie just replies as she feels her head spin a little from the magnitude of it all.

"Yes, but all ten fingers and toes as well?"

Karlie nervously wiggles her toes and fingers, wincing as the movement of her hand sends another round of sharp pain through her body. "Yes," she says finally and she hears Taylor letting out a sigh of relief.

Karlie is suddenly aware of the myriad of voices coming from outside. She can hear sirens coming closer and closer towards them. "Who is that outside?" she asks Taylor quietly, still not quite grasping the situation.

"I think the bigger question is who isn't outside. They all arrived after us, stopped their cars and came running from their yards." Taylor speaks quietly, a tiredness interwoven with every word.

"What about Kevin and Jeff?" Karlie asks, suddenly remembering their entourage.

"They're okay," Taylor says, "some cuts and bruises, but they are currently out there doing more than I would ever expect of them."

The sound of the sirens almost deafens them for a second before they are turned off, the ambulances stopping right outside. Taylor crawls out as carefully as she can to meet the ambulance personnel.