Page 63 of Prophet
It all got so loud, it sounded like a full out war happening beneath me.
Looking up, I saw the large twenty foot high Cotton Candy sign falling as it crashed sideways. The boom from its landing added to the rest of the deafening noise and behind that, the club itself was nothing but a massive pile of glass and burning metal.
I simply sat there, numb. He’d blown the whole fucking place up. It couldn’t be real I thought as I shook my head. No, it just couldn’t.
It took a minute or two, or maybe forever as I realized it. My Jewel was gone. My dad too. I admit, my mind couldn’t accept it. My heart wouldn’t. How could this have happened? I felt so sure that God was on my side, that evil couldn’t win here. But it had and my life was now shit.
I felt lost, as my will, my energy and my mind seemed to float away. I knew I didn’t want to be in this world without them as I stared listlessly at the smoke. It swirled everywhere like a living thing, like death. I blinked my eyes as something moved slowly out of the thick smoky wall.
A man, tall and familiar came forward, carrying a woman in his arms.
My breath left me and my heart nearly stopped as I stared. I knew my mind was gone now as I couldn’t believe what my eyes told me.
My father, his face smeared with ash and blood as he carried my Jewel in his arms.
I tried to stand but I fell back down as if my body wasn’t under my own control, nothing was. I felt afraid that I had lost my mind. This all wasn’t real.
He came all the way up to where I sat on the cracked asphalt and said softly, “Son, she’s barely alive, help me.”
The world seemed to turn on its axis again as I shot up and stepped over to him. Looking down at her pale face, I felt more fear than ever in my life. “Jewel,” I whispered as I tucked my arms under her and gently took her from him. Her body felt light and limp in my arms, so small yet she had become the largest most important person in my world. I stilled for a minute and asked him with a mutter, “Is she breathing?”
“Yes boy, she is,” my dad answered. “But she’s in real trouble.”
Light seemed to return around me, despite the smoke as sound seemed to come back to my muffled world too, as I heard sirens blaring from close by. I could do nothing though, except to stare down at her face.
“Zed!” Redemption exclaimed from next to me.
“She needs medical help, Prophet,” Talon said as he grabbed my elbow. “An ambulance just arrived. Come on man.”
I had been lost in shock while staring at her beautiful face. Now, I looked up and over to see the ambulance. I turned and carried her toward it just as it hit its brakes and came to a stop.
EMTs jumped out and were right up on me. “You need to set her down sir,” one of them said.
I shook my head, “Open the back!” No fucking way would I be setting her down on this broken lot covered in metal and glass.
They went to the back of the ambulance and opened the doors.
Climbing in with her still in my arms, I saw a gurney and even though I didn’t want to let her go ever...I laid her down on it. That was when I saw how bloody her clothes were. Where had it all come from? I reached down to see if she was bleeding from somewhere.
One of the EMTs jumped in and moved over to her.
Moving back, I nearly collapsed but then I righted myself as I kept my gaze solely on her. “She’s got blood all over her,” I whispered to the EMT.
Nodding he replied, “Give me a minute.” He proceeded to check her vitals as he yelled out, “Henson, get moving!” His hands moved along her shirt then under it and he seemed to be checking her skin all the way down to her waist. “I can’t find any injury.”
The doors shut and a few seconds or so later, the ambulance was moving, its siren blaring. The man checked her pulse and said, “It’s there but slow.” Placing an oxygen mask on her face with one hand, he reached over with the other to a small white box and flipped it open to grab something. Tearing a small package open, he now held a plastic bag full of liquid. He attached a small line to the bag, turned and grabbed her hand, inserting the needle into the line. She now had an IV.
This all happened so fast, my eyes and brain could barely keep up.
The EMT peeled one of her eyelids back and paused then he said, “Damn…”
I heard it but I didn’t ask questions. He’d said she had a pulse and she was breathing. For now, that was all that mattered.
Next, he touched her forehead and pushed her hair back.
Leaning over, I saw the huge cut there and my gut clenched. Rage and fury possessed me all over again. With my body quaking, I looked up at the man who was literally attempting to save her.
The EMT now held a small bottle within his fingers and used a syringe to draw out the liquid in it. Pausing to look along the small line, he held it and injected the syringe into it at a juncture. He tossed the syringe into a small container on the floor. Carefully, he reached for the straps on the gurney and buckled her in, just as the ambulance stopped.
