Where Are You

Chapter 14

In the darkness that had swallowed me I saw: I saw fire behind my eyes and I couldn't escape it. I could see Jared laying on the ground, I jumped over the beam and landed on the other side of it. I leaned down and felt for a pulse on Jared's neck but I couldn't find one. I began to panic and I ran my hands towards his wrist and waited for any sign of life, but there were none.

"Jared, can you hear me?" I asked.

I waited for his eyes to flutter open but nothing happened. He was dead. I got to my feet and ran out of the building with tears streaming down my face, I had lost him.

I woke up from the ending of my continuous dream to find a Doctor Branch attending to my ribs. It was the first time that I had ever finished the dream. I looked around the room and I found Kathy waiting in the doorway with Will. I tried to sit up but the nurse helping Doctor Branch pushed me down with my shoulder. I was curious to know what he was doing to me, I could hear as he unwound something and I could feel his could hands on my side.

"What are you going?" I croaked my question to Doctor Branch.

"Fixing your ribs, you took quite a beating from Turner," he replied.

I looked over his shoulder to Will. "Are they dead?"

Will nodded. "You're lucky that Kathy and I cleared everything up with the cops. They wanted to put you away and it took a lot of reasoning to get them to agree that you did a brave thing."

"Thank you," I whispered.

I closed my eyes and I let Doctor Branch continue wrapping me up. Once he was finished I opened my eyes to see that Kathy and the nurse were gone. Will walked over and sat down on the bed next to me, he took my hand in his and I could see that he was worried. There was another emotion in his eyes that I couldn't place.

"How are you?" he asked.

"Groggy," I replied.

"The morphine will cause that," Doctor Branch mumbled.

I looked up to see that Doctor Branch had the same expression. There could only be one reason behind their expressions, if it hadn't been on the doctors face then I wouldn't have figured it out sooner. They were sad and they were keeping something from me. I turned to look at Will and I could see that he knew that something was up.

"What happened to Jared?" I asked.

I knew that I shouldn't have cared but my heart ached at the thought of him being hurt. Doctor Branch looked away and I saw the tear slide down his face. I sat up and tried to ignore the pain coming from my ribs.

"Is he okay?" I demanded.

No one replied.

"What aren't you telling me? I can handle it, I just watched Turner kill the people closest to me," I continued.

"Do you really want to know?" Will asked, his voice was bitter.

"Yes," I whispered.

Will looked at Doctor Branch and then back at me. "Jared's dead."

It didn't take long for the word's to hit me. It felt as if I had the wind knocked out of me and it took me forever to get my breath back. I lifted my arms to my face and sobbed hysterically. Doctor Branch began crying again and a tear slid down Will's face.

"He can't be dead," I said through sobs.

"I'm sorry Alexis but he is," Will replied.

"Hug me," I whispered.

Will wrapped his arms around me and let me sob softly. It hurt me to cry as my ribs had to put up with me sobbing and heaving breaths in. I had lost Eliza, Mark, Emma, Steph, Haley and now Jared. He may have been the enemy but he did protect me.