Her skin is pale—a sickly, ashen pallor. Her eyes are wide open, glassy and unfocused, the color of burning amber and molten gold. Her auburn waves are tangled and wet, matted with blood. The tiny shorts and the thin cropped t-shirt she’s wearing look like the kind of thing a girl would wear to bed. The deep, jagged-edged wounds at either of her wrists look like something a girl would wear to end her life.
“What the fuck have you done, Chase?”
In response, a sigh slips out between her blood-flecked lips. Sounds like a death rattle if ever I’ve heard one. Stunned, mind racing, I sit back on my heels, waiting for her chest to rise again, waiting, waiting, waiting, only her ribcage doesn’t move. Not even a millimeter.
Jesus fucking Christ, Pax, what the FUCK are you doing?
I snap back to reality with a jarring thump, shaking myself into action.
“HEEEEELLLP!” The shout explodes from my mouth. I turn the girl so that she’s lying on her back—she looks like a porcelain doll. A manga character. The bloody victim of a serial killer in a gore flick. And she is so dead.
I check her pulse—not there—and get to work. Hands stacked, fingers interlocked, heel of my palm above her solar plexus, I start compressions.
I. Do. Not. Stop.
“HELP! SOMEBODY!” The cry rents the night air in two.
I can’t leave her. If I stop pumping her blood for her, even for a second, she could wind up with brain damage, and I’m not having that shit on my conscience. No fucking way.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Blood gloves my hands. There’s so much of it, all over her body, that my hands slip and slide with each compression.
“REMY, YOU FUCKER! PETE!”
They’re inside, and the door’s less than fifty feet away. They can hear me. They’re too busy ignoring me to come out and see what the hell I’m shouting about, though.
“Goddamnit, Chase. Do not die while I’ve got hands on you. I do not need your friends blaming me for this shit.”
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
They say the compressions are more important than the rescue breaths these days. That the blood holds enough oxygen in it to suffice while you’re performing CPR. I’m not sure I’m doing it right, though, so I stop a second. I tilt her head back, quickly peer inside to make sure she hasn’t swallowed her own tongue, and then I pinch her nose and plant my mouth on hers. Two hasty breaths. That’s all I give her. Then I’m back to the compressions.
“For fuck’s sake, HELP!” I taste blood and worry that I’ve torn up my throat, but then I realize with no small amount of horror that the blood on my tongue belongs to my classmate; her lips are smeared crimson red with it.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
“Come on. Come on. Come back. You can do it. You got this, Chase.It’s okay. It’s okay. You got this.” The words spill out, tumbling one after the other, not making sense. I should pray, but I don’t know how. I refused to pay attention all of those times Meredith dragged me to church. All I’ve got is this meaningless, mumbled encouragement. Not that it helps. Pres is lifeless, her head rocking left to right as I press down on her ribs.
Nothing.
No response whatsoever.
Which is not ideal, because I need this girl to fucking live.
“Come on, for fuck’s sake. Breathe. Breathe right fucking now!”
As if on command, Presley’s eyelids flutter, and her consciousness comes flooding back. She was gone, no trace of her left inside this bleeding, broken body, but I can feel her rushing back in now. It’s the weirdest sensation. She opens her eyes…and blinks…right as her ribs crack beneath my hands. Her pupils narrow to pinpricks. Her mouth opens, and she unleashes a scream so loud it rattles the stars.
Holy god damn.
I can’t imagine the pain. The terrible wounds at her wrists are bad enough, but fuck. I just broke at least two of her ribs. She must be in agony.
How many times have I seen Pres at the academy? Never in the foreground. Always just off to one side, standing a couple of feet behind her friends, always blushing, always tucking her hair back behind her ears, always staring down at her feet. Her freckles are pretty. She squeaks like a mouse when I talk to her. I know of all this about her. It isn’t until now, when she’s soaked in blood, her back arching away from the sidewalk, her eyes wide and full of pain, that I feel like I’m truly seeing the real her, though.
And she’s kind of fucking beautiful.
The CPR exhausted me. That’s what I tell myself as I sink back onto my heels, away from her, watching as she rolls her eyes, writhing on the ground. Breathing. Alive.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Wait here. I’ll get help.”
Fucking wait here? Where the hell is she gonna go, moron?
I scoot back, ready to make a run for the door, but her pale hand grabs me by the wrist, holding me with surprising strength. It has to hurt, must be agonizing actually, to hold onto me with such force, her wrists being as mangled as they are. But she holds me tight.
Her amber eyes are alive with fear.
She doesn’t speak—can’t?—but she slowly shakes her head.
No.
Please don’t go.
“It’s okay. The door’s right there. I’ll only be a second.”
Again, she shakes her head. It’s all she can manage. Her fingers uncurl, releasing me, but I hear her pleading in my head as loud as if she’d managed to get the words out.
No. Don’t go. Don’t leave me. I’m scared.
Blowing out an exasperated breath, I chew on the inside of my cheek. How the hell am I supposed to do this? I shouldn’t move her, I know that much, but her wounds seem to be limited to the slashes on the inside of her wrists. I don’t think she has internal bleeding. And I can’t leave her here, I just can’t. Not when she’s looking at me like this.
“Damn it, dude. Okay. Fine. Have it your way. Just…don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She’s light as a feather when I scoop her into my arms. Limp as a ragdoll. The only part of her that bears the faintest scrap of life are her eyes, which stay doggedly locked onto my face. I hurry toward the emergency entrance of St. August’s, and her watchful gaze burns as I bolt for the door, holding her gingerly against my chest. The tang of copper coming off her is so overpowering that it’s all I can smell. The reek of it turns my stomach.
What do I find when I reach the door but Remy, leaning against the desk, staring at his phone, thumbs tapping quickfire against the screen.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
The automatic doors don’t slide open. He’s fucking locked them.
“REMY!” I roar so loud that the guy jumps, dropping his phone. His expression is all annoyance, but it quickly turns to panic when he sees the girl in my arms, and the blood that’s coating literally everything.
“OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW!”
A flurry of activity explodes on the other side of the door. Remy hits an alarm. A loud alert sounds, blaring down the hallways. People come running. The doors slide open, letting me in at last, and a slew of doctors and nurses arrive, pawing at Pres. They take her from me, and then the questions begin.