The Beginning of The End

Chapter 2 - The Pain

THE PAIN

Well, jumping out a window should be fun. Let's do it! said no one ever.

Why couldn't they just use the front door? Oh, wait...the door with the guy that just tried to shoot Carlie? That question pretty much answered itself.

On the way down, the boy started an oddly timed conversation.

"My name's Luke!" he yelled into Carlie's ear. He had his arms wrapped around her, trying to protect her from the hard landing that would soon be coming.

"What?" Carlie wailed. When she un-buried her face from his shoulder, he saw that it was streaked with tears.

"My name is Luke," he repeated loudly. He tried to grin, but it turned out more like a grimace. "Lighten up. This isn't gonna hurt you as much as it's gonna hurt me."

She looked petrified. Perhaps speaking of pain wasn't the best thing to do when falling from the second story of a building.

The crash was all a blur. The most memorable part of it was definitely the pain. When Luke's shoulder connected with the ground, it was immediately the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced in his lifetime. That's fifteen years of nothing as bad as a broken shoulder. That's actually pretty good, looking back at all the action he had done over the years.

The second most painful thing was semi-consciously watching Carlie hit the ground next to him, and her head lolling to the side like it had snapped off and was just hanging on by the flesh. That was a miscalculation on his part. He had tried (and failed) to be a human cushion for her so she wouldn't be in as much pain as he was. Well that didn't work.

"Carlie," he whispered, but quickly bit the inside of his cheek. The pain in his side was too much to bear. He could now see why she had passed out from pain. Hopefully passed out. Not dead.

He saw two pairs of boys his age, maybe older, each pair carrying a stretcher while running over to him and Carlie. He wanted to stay on guard because he couldn't tell if they were from his organization or not, but could barely keep his eyes open.

They first focused on lifting the limp Carlie onto the stretcher, then carefully picked him up. After a lot of wincing, cursing and shooting pains up and down his side, he was settled on the stretcher and finally allowed himself to slip into a painful, restless unconsciousness.

                    ------   

When he woke, he was startled by a tan face watching over him. Carlie. Her light brown hair had been tied in a low ponytail. Her stormy grey eyes stared down at him thoughtfully. Scratches from the glass from the previous day covered her face.

"Hey, tough guy. How's the shoulder and ribs?" she asked, lightly touching his left arm. He saw a bandaged cast around her wrist.

"Good..." he winced, noticing the faraway pain. "Nevermind. But it doesn't hurt as much as it probably should."

"Yeah, they medicated you pretty good. Me as well." She peered down at her leg.

"What happened to you?" He raised an eyebrow.

Her head snapped up and she coughed. "Uh, nothing."

"Um, okay. What did they tell you while I was out?"

"They thought I was asleep, so they didn't tell me anything."

He nodded then tried to sit up. Needles spread up and down his side. He gasped. Carlie shifted her weight in an odd way and leaned over to press a button. The back of his hospital bed inclined to a forty-five degree angle. "Thanks."