Teen Idols And Happy Meals

Mint And Antiseptic

Jacen’s POV

 Some people deserve second chances. I never considered myself one of those people. I was a perpetual mess, a liar and a cheat, already bitter at just seventeen years old. I wasn’t the kind of person who deserved a second chance. But someone upstairs must’ve thought otherwise.

 How do I know this? Because I’m alive, and by all accounts I should have died in those woods. But I didn’t. And no one is more surprised by that fact than me.

 I wasn’t even conscious for most of it. I remembered the way the pain had tapered off, had faded from hellish agony to a dull ache as the cold soaked into my bones. And I thought, this is it, I’m going. I felt my self receding into darkness, to a place where no hurt or heartbreak could ever touch me.

 And then I saw her face. And I don’t mean in my mind, I literally saw Nikki’s face. I could smell the cold sweat of her skin, feel the salt of her tears dripping down my face, hear the pitiful sobs that racked her body. And suddenly, my chest had exploded in red hot pain, and the darkness was gone.

 I don’t remember anything after that. It went black again. This was the blackness of sleep though, not death. This was a finite darkness and as my eyes closed, I knew they would open again. I was in too much pain to die. Death was supposed to be peaceful.

 This - was fucking not.

 The insistent whine of a siren woke me. The world seemed to come alive in an instant. Whereas before I’d been aware of nothing but darkness and snow, suddenly I was being bombarded with sound and light and wild activity. Someone was carrying me and with every step their shoulder knocked against my broken ribs, making them scream.

 I was in too much pain to even be impressed that someone had managed to carry me. At this point I was a hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight.

 “Put him over here!” someone shouted. A lot of people were shouting, but that one was particularly loud. It would’ve grated my eardrums but my ears, much like most of my body, were numb.

 There was more jostling and then suddenly I was lying on my back on a gurney. I groaned - not feeling partial to any motion at that point. There was fire my chest and acid in my blood as my eyes flew open, but all I could see were stars. Thousands of them, clogging the night sky like traffic on the interstate. Thousands of celestial vehicles, all going nowhere fast. As always, one star stuck out to me; the North Star. Which made me instantly long for my own true north.

 “Nikki?” I choked. My voice sounded like I’d been gargling rusty nails, or maybe deep throating a power drill.

 “Right here baby,” a voice answered, bringing my other senses back to me in a rush - like a dam had broken and now a flash flood of sound and sight had invaded my world. All of a sudden I was aware of chaotic voices, blaring lights, and a hand tightening around my numb fingers.

 I moved my eyes - my eyes being the only part of me that didn’t hurt when I moved - in the direction of the voice. There I saw Nikki, attempting to cling to my fingers despite the wall of paramedics that had swarmed around me.

 “How long ago was he shot?” one asked. They had loud, brash voices. Efficient but God were they loud. And handsy. They had already sliced my shirt open down the front, exposing my battered chest. Gloved fingers probed the bullet wound in my shoulder experimentally.

 “Felt that,” I growled between clenched teeth. Nobody seemed to hear me in the wake of the tidal wave of violent commotion and sound. Red and blue lights flashed in my peripherals.