next to her in a large crowd and she couldn’t move. It hurt too much, and she didn’t want to even try. She heard Hannah yelling, “Cally?” She shook when someone put their hand on her back. She tried, but she couldn’t say anything. The tears were coming fast and hard, and the pain was just too much for her to deal with this time.
Mr. Damarion asked, “What’s going on?”
Hannah’s voice was shaking. “I don’t know.” Then Hannah yelled, “Savannah?” causing Cally’s already pounding head to swirl in pain even more at the loudness.
She heard her sister next to her. “What’s going on?” Savannah wasn’t talking to them. She was talking to Cally, but she couldn’t move. She just knew if she tried, she would die right there.
Mr. Damarion was closer. “What’s wrong, Cally?” Even he seemed worried, especially if he was using her first name.
She just couldn’t. She wanted to yell and scream, but nothing seemed to work—not her mouth or body or anything. The pain was the only thing that existed, the severe pain that was going to kill her right here and now! It was going to take her away from the only thing in the world that mattered. Nothing but the pain existed anymore, and nothing but the pain seemed to matter.
Hannah gasped. “There’s blood on her shirt!”
Mr. Damarion ordered, “Mr. Turner, get the nurse down here and then get to class. All of you to class, now!”
She heard someone walking away when Savannah asked her again, “Who did this?”
She just shook as the tears kept falling.
Ms. Rime was running and out of breath as she demanded, “What’s going on?”
Mr. Damarion answered, “We don’t know. She won’t say anything and she’s got blood on her shirt.”
“Honey, I need to know what happened. Can you tell me where it hurts?” Ms. Rime asked softly.
Cally felt the cold hand on her head, and all she wanted to do was scream, but nothing would come out. It hurt too much to breathe, and there was no way she could find enough air to even make a sound.
Savannah was clearly ready to fight. “Damn it, let us help you!”
She could hear Hannah, but she seemed farther away. “Answer, damn it!” And Hannah never cussed.
Mr. Damarion asked, “What are you doing?”
“Calling Dakota,” Hannah snapped.
Savannah’s sarcasm was showing. “And what good’s that going to do?”
She could tell by the tone in Hannah’s voice that she was surprised by Savannah’s question. “He’s home. He can come and get her.”
Her heart sunk with his sister’s words. No, not Dakota; he couldn’t see her like this. She couldn’t show him how bad it was. She had to be strong for him. She tried harder, but the pain was too much to bear. No matter how much she wanted to fight, she just couldn’t stop them from calling him.
Then she heard Hannah. “Dakota, Cally’s been hurt and won’t talk to us. Mr. Damarion and Ms. Rime are trying, but she won’t move.”
Savannah said the words she wished she hadn’t. “There’s more blood.” Hannah repeated it. “She’s bleeding badly. You need to get here now.”
Ms. Rime stated flatly, “It’ll take him over an hour to get here. We need to call someone else. We need to get an ambulance here now!”
Savannah said what they knew. “He’ll be here in under fifteen minutes if he’s home.”
“That’s what he said too,” Hannah confirmed.
“Cally, honey, I need to see where you’re bleeding from,” Ms. Rime tried again.
But she wasn’t moving. Hades was coming, and she would be dead soon; if from nothing else, then from this pain alone. But there was no way she was moving from this spot until then. She focused on the pain and let the voices disappear behind the black veil as she tried to escape what was coming for her.
She heard his voice as he came down the hall. It was like cold water splashing over her as Dakota demanded, “What happened?”
Mr. Damarion answered, “We don’t know. Hannah found her like that about half an hour ago. We’ve tried, but she won’t move or speak.”
Dakota ordered, “Get back!”
She didn’t know how or why, but she could feel him kneeling next to her. His warmth seemed to penetrate some cold hard barrier around her. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
His hand rested on her back just as Hannah said, “Don’t touch her, it causes her pain.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“When you touch her back or shoulder, she starts shaking. Like that,” Hannah told him as Cally started shaking from the pain of his touch.
Savannah added, “She’s bleeding, but we don’t know from where or how bad it is.”
Dakota was closer now as he said, “Cally, look at me.” She tried to sit up, but she heard a crack and another wave of pain and froze. “She can’t move without pain. What happened?”
“We don’t know, but when we find out, we will take action,” Mr. Damarion confirmed.
“Cally, I’m going to take you out of here. It’s going to hurt, but I promise I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Dakota said softly, just before she felt one of his big strong arms on her back and the other under her knees.
The movements caused so much pain, she couldn’t hold the scream back as he pulled her close to his chest. As her body shifted, the pain in her leg, arm, and ribs screamed and protested. She felt the extreme pain as her damaged side rubbed against his chest. When he stood up, the pain was so extreme that she was hit with a hard and fast blackness; as she was enveloped in its relief, she heard Hannah’s fading voice. “Oh my goodness!”
She felt the movement of the car, but the pain was still too crippling to move. She moaned as she tried to open her eyes with no luck.
“Stay still, Cally, we’re almost there,” Dakota said, trying to calm her.
She needs to see if she could move. “Cally, love, don’t move. We’re going to the hospital. It’ll be all right, I promise.”
She felt the car slow to a soft stop, and then Dakota said, “I need to get her to the hospital.”
A man asked, “Do you have her I.D.?”
“Here,” Dakota snapped.
“I’ll call ahead and let them know you’re coming,” the man said as they started moving again.
When the car stopped, she heard Dakota get out and yell, “We need a gurney!” Then she heard the door open next to her, and he was there. “Sweetheart, this is going to hurt, but I promise it’ll be better soon.”
The pain caused the blackness to come again, and she happily went into oblivion; anything was better than the pain.
The next thing she heard was a woman saying, “She’s stable. The morphine seems to be helping. Because of the extent of her injuries, we will be doing a full body C.A.T. scan. There’s a lot of damage on her left side, and we’re concerned that there’s internal bleeding and possible spinal damage. It’s always hard to tell with head traumas.”
She felt him sit on the bed on her right side and she slowly reached for him. He took her hand asking, “What happened to you?”
The pain was easing, and she managed a very weak, “I love you.”
“I love you too.” She felt him kiss her head. “You’re going to be all right. The best doctors are here, and they’ll take care