The Fast Lane

Chapter 27

On the way to the hospital, I called Harry.

"I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I should have taken you away from it all myself. I saw Joel’s car and I just…"

The sound of him sniffling made me want to cry. I gripped the wheel tighter and looked over at Joel. “It’s okay Harry, it’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

"I thought they had you. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know where to start looking."

"They did have me."

"They do??"

"No, they did."

"What? How’d you get away?"

"Please just meet me at the hospital. Joel has been stabbed and I need to get him help. We can talk when you get there."

Getting Joel into the hospital was too much of a hassle. Even though he was bleeding out of his stomach and his head, the emergency room was slow getting him help. They kept telling us that they didn’t have a room available and that someone would be here for him shortly. By the time they were actually ready for him, he was passed out on the floor. I wasn’t allowed to go back into the room with them when they operated on him, which I was kind of happy about, so I sat in the waiting room and waited for Harry to get there.

All while I waited people stared strangely at me. A nurse came up to me and asked me if I had been helped. I was completely confused, especially when Harry finally arrived with Caleb and both of them looked at me as though I were a ghost.

"Are you okay?" Harry whispered as he got closer to me. He didn’t come to hug me like I thought he might have.

"I’m fine…" I said hesitantly. "Everyone just keeps looking at me funny."

"Love, your face is covered in blood."

I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to clean my face off from the car accident. I hadn’t seen a mirror since before the race yesterday and I probably looked pretty bad from the car wreck. I ran to the nearest bathroom and looked in the mirror. Blood was dried all down the side of my face and across my eye from where my eyebrow had been split open. My bottom lip was split pretty badly too. I was embarrassed for not having cleaned up sooner and surprised that I didn’t feel the blood and cuts on my face before. I had to have been preoccupied thinking about the choice that Rich gave me. I washed off in the sink and observed some of the cuts before putting Harry’s snapback back on and walking out into the waiting room.

When Harry saw me he jumped up from his seat and pulled me into his chest like I was hoping he would do the first time he saw me. I let myself be completely engulfed in his arms and I leaned into him as I listened to his heart beat. After a few moments he pushed me back to look at my face. “What happened? Where did they take you?”

I took Harry’s hand and pulled him down in the seat next to me as I sat. “I don’t know. We woke up in this warehouse, Joel and I. It was just out a little ways from here. It wasn’t theirs though, just a place they used to talk to me I guess.”

Harry nodded and chewed his lip. “So they knocked you out? Is that what all of the cuts are from?” He began to raise his voice and his body tensed up. I squeezed his hand.

"No, no. This is from the car wreck. They hit us from the side and then used some sort of cloth to knock us out." Harry’s body relaxed but he was still upset.

"Well how did you escape?"

"They thought Joel was you and when I told them that he wasn’t you, they let us go."

"Let you go? No circumstances?"

I swallowed the tears I could feel welling up in my throat as I thought about the circumstances that Rich let me go with. “Yes.” Harry looked at me and I could tell he didn’t believe me, but I wasn’t ready to tell him about the choice that Rich gave to me to make. Thankfully, before Harry could say anything else, a nurse walked up and tapped me on the shoulder.