The Wrong Girl

Chapter 39: The Accident (part 2)

The air was heavy with the stench mixed of blood, smoke, fire and something that Nina could only decipher as horror. Nina just couldn't shake the feeling that she was caught in the middle of a nightmare or maybe even a horror movie. She was seeing horror, smelling it, sensing it. Nina didn't feel her steps as her legs took slow and stalking steps toward the empty streets as Aaron and Kyle moved past her towards the first two cars.

Three cars scorching with heat evoked gray smoke and polluted the clear weather of the day. For a second, Nina's brain stopped working. She just couldn't comprehend that there had been a terrible accident and there was a reason Rebecca was pulling at the crushed door of the car farthest away from her. Nina didn't understand it but without identifying the reasons for it, she moved toward the third car without so much a glance at the other cars or other people. For that ever-stretching second, Nina found it funny that a skinny blonde as Rebecca was actually trying to pull away such messed up pieces of steel with her fragile hands.

But the second passed, too slowly as far as Nina was concerned and the impulse to laugh turned to dread, dread turned to horror, and finally horror turned to frenzy. The same frenzy took control of mentally shaken Nina, and she found herself running as if death was chasing her, as if she was running for her life. What she didn't understand then was that death was actually running with her, trying to beat her to her destination.

Evan's head was bobbed and looked inexpressibly awkward, stuck between the two mashed up doors trying to meet each other. There was blood everywhere. Rebecca wailing in frustration, didn't even notice Nina, Aaron and Kyle joining her side. She was trying desperately to pull the door that was pushing Evan in an unmovable position.

"Pull it out... Pull this fucking door out! It's plunged into his ribs. His lungs... his breathing level... his pulse is dropping. Pull it out!" Rebecca yelled as Kyle tried to stop her.

Evan's eyes were closed. His pale skin was smeared with the most appalling shade of blood-red. The slimy liquid was drying and the hues of colors were different, all over his face. And part of it was scary because only the blood was seen, there were no wounds visible. Somewhere the color seemed brighter red as if it was Satan trying to form itself in his face and somewhere the shade was black as if the blood itself had done its deed and lost all its life and purposes.

The neighbors who had heard the noises from the accident were quickly gathering around. When Nina turned around to see what was actually happening, she noticed that the police had already arrived. It wasn't until a cop, hunching moved toward the second car, she realized that the cops were also the part of the accident. From what Nina could tell, Evan was the only one hurt- seriously hurt.

Cops after handcuffing the robber, and making sure he wasn't able to run away at all, came to help Rebecca's mission. The two cops, Aaron and Kyle together pulled the door out. Rebecca and Nina remained close enough to hold Evan whose frail body was relying on the crushed piece.

As Nina grasped every part of Evan reachable to her, she couldn't distinguish if the moment was terrifying or pure candid in its miraculous ways. Nina's hand went around Evan's shoulders and she grasped at them as if she was drowning and Evan was her life jacket. Everyone seemed to be moving but Nina's eyes were set on Evan's chest. And there it was. It was subtle, it was ignorable but it was there. His chest raised and fell... he was breathing. And Nina knew the moment was a blessing of its kind. Evan was alive and he would fight. He's not the kind who'd go without a fight. He's fighter, Nina chanted the words in her mind.

The police squad arrived seconds later and immediately started extinguishing the slowly blazing fire in all the vehicles. The crowd was instructed to move farther away from the scene but Nina, Kyle, Aaron and Rebecca simply refused to leave Evan's side. They were all in a shock and were fixed at the scene as if they were immovable stones.

Rebecca got over the shock as she realized the paramedics were running late. Kyle started calling people. All the calls sounded official and they reminded her that she wasn't fully helpless. She was a doctor... a damn life-saving doctor. She couldn't just sit there with tearful eyes like a child. She was a doctor. She had to do something... anything. She got down on her knees and slowly but with precise movements started the only thing that was running on her mind - Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation. Evan must breathe... he's gonna make it... he can't die because of me... he has to fucking live! Rebecca yelled in her mind while unknowingly chanting it to herself out loud.

Rebecca lost herself completely that day. A good fifteen minutes, Becky practiced CPR on Evan's cataleptic body. No one dared stopped her. Every single person present inside the invisible line dividing them from the strangers was shocked out of their mind. They silently thought whatever Rebecca was doing couldn't hurt Evan more than he already was.

Meanwhile Nina was leaning on Aaron, simply because without him she would have collapsed. Evan, her brother, her friend and her family was there in front of her looking as lifeless as she'd never dreamed possible. And then... only then the thought of clueless Elena had occurred in her mind. Aaron's arms were around her waist, and Nina realized that he was as scared as she was.

"Ely... Elena... we have to call her. Aaron we have to call her." Nina started with a whisper and ended up yelling.

"I've been calling her. I thought Becky could use her sister right now. She's not picking up." Kyle replied as he walked up after a long conversation with the local cops.

"The paramedics will be here any minute... I'll call her when..."

Kyle didn't complete his sentence. Nina and Aaron shared a look that Kyle simply couldn't understand. But Kyle had no mind to investigate Elena at the moment so he simply let it slide by what Nina said next.

"He doesn't understand Aaron. Call her," Nina pleaded with such desperation that Kyle was the one who pulled his phone out. Nina had never sounded gentler to him before. He had always found her bossy ways interesting but at that particular moment she seemed fragile, almost vulnerable, almost hurt - almost innocent.

"I'm on it..." Aaron replied as he put his phone to his ears.

Kyle sensed he was missing something there. Something important but he had no time for that. Kyle was frustrated with the late paramedics. Kyle was worried about Becky too. But Kyle was the only one calm enough to actually think clearly. He ran inside Becky's home, grabbed her coat and shoes and ran back outside to the garden. Kyle found the spare keys under the third flower-pot (as she had confessed during one drunken night with him) and locked up her house making sure everything was safe.

Becky was still in the same frenzy. She was crying but without tears. Kyle made her stand up but Becky didn't walk away. She simply stood looking at her best friend. She was so guilty, for so many reasons. It was because of her the accident happened. She should've never called Evan over. One stupid question could've been answered over the phone. It was all her fault. And now he was... he was dying.

Becky was a doctor. She had seen bodies more damaged than Evan's before. It wasn't his wounds that scared her. It was the guilt. She had never felt the full-blown effect of remorse before. And she had never appreciated Evan before. Evan had been wonderful, been helpful, been everything she had needed and she had completely ignored him when he needed her. He had broken his own heart to protect her sister and now he was dying because of her. And now she was losing him.

Becky's chain of thought broke into million little pieces as sirens blared from far away. The paramedics had finally arrived. But every instinct in Becky's mind told her Evan wasn't going to make it. It was too late.

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So the doctor in the house thinks, she is not going to make it. What do you think? This chapter was very difficult to write for some personal reasons. Anyway, I hope you guys like it!

Love all your comments.