Hit & Run

Chapter Sixteen: Gone

Piper Belle-Harwood.

Gone

.Twenty Years Ago.

“You killed him!” I screamed, tears running down my face as Fleur cried next to me.

“Piper, Fleur, I…” Dad looked at a loss for words and I screamed again and Fleur started to cry harder.

“Piper, Fleur,” Mom spoke up from behind us.  She kneeled down next to me and put a soothing hand on my lower back. “Why don’t you two come with me-”

“We’re not leaving him!” I screamed out every word in-between the sobs that were wracking my body. “Daddy killed Rocket and now he’s gone!” I threw myself over the dog that my father had accidently just run over after Rocket had run into the driveway. Fleur was grasping at Rocket’s neck and crying into his fur.

“Darlings, Rocket was getting old anyway-”

“Rocket was going to live forever!” I cried and my father looked completely depressed by the situation while my mother looked simply stressed out.

Fleur and I didn’t leave Rocket until our mother forcefully pulled us away from the dog.

Rocket was Fleur and my first experience with loss and from the way we refused to talk to anyone but each other for a few days after Rocket’s passing, it was safe to assume that we didn’t handle death well.

xx

xx

.Present Day.

xx

xx

Blank walls. A flatscreen TV in the corner. Needles in my arm. A beeping machine.

The minute I opened my eyes and silently took in my surroundings, it was obvious that I was in the hospital.

My room was small but I noticed there were no other patients in the room with me, which meant that my parents must have gotten me a private room.

My throat felt irritated and within seconds of opening my eyes, I felt my nose start to wrinkle and I prepared myself in the moments I had before I finally released the sneeze.

“Piper!” I jumped and looked over into the right hand corner of my room.

Fleur’s grey eyes were surrounded by puffy redness and her dark hair was pulled back into a low ponytail as she stared at me. She was in the same clothes I saw her leave for work in and her skin and pasty pale.

I frowned.

“Fleur, hi. What am I-”

She rushed over to my and flung her arms around me.

“You have a cold and you were knocked out, but it’s amazing that you’re alive at all, Piper,” Fleur rushed, already crying into my neck. “They said…they said that if Alex hadn’t been as huge and strong as he was…if he hadn’t protected you…you would have…you would have…” 

I wrapped my arms around Fleur as she continued to sob and listening to her made my own tears start to fall.

“Fleur, did they…” I sniffled a bit as Fleur pulled away from me. “Did they catch him?”

“Who?” She asked, wiping at her nose.

“Michael? He was driving the car and-”

“Michael?” Fleur looked about ready to fall over and planted a hand on the side of my bed to steady herself. “Wh-he was driving? Are you sure? They-”