Across the Music (Across the Ocean Book 2) (28 page)

I can't move, can't pull back from this and can't call for help as the reality of what has just happened mixes with the horrible memories from my childhood.

Every piece of my body and soul seems to be screaming in agony; a mixture of physical and mental anguish. My injuries hurt, but as I stare at the limp body, I'm transported back to Evan, and everything in front of my eyes blurs as my mind takes me back to that horrible evening when he died in my arms.

I hadn't seen the car coming. I just ran ignorantly across the street; not a care in the world. Dad had forgotten to pick me up from school, so I ended up walking to Evan's work at the local pizza place. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time this had happened. When Mum passed away, Evan and I quickly had to become familiar with Dad being flaky and out of sort; we were constantly having to pick up the slack.

Evan had tried to call Dad to get him to pick me up, but Dad wasn't picking up the phone. Without any other ideas, Evan sat me down at a booth near the back and told me to take care of my homework, that he would keep trying to call Dad, and that I might have to stay with him until his shift ends in a few hours. By the end of his shift, it was dark out and both him and I were irritable with each other. There was no word from Dad, and I was just a young teenager who wanted to play on the few arcade games in the pizza shop, and do whatever I want. Evan wasn't amused, what with trying to do his job. We both walked separately out of the pizza shop when it was time to go, quiet in ourselves in our annoyance with each other.

I hear Evan on the large, chunky cellular phone once more behind me, exasperation in his voice while he yells at Dad's voicemail message as I begin to skip and run carelessly across the street towards Evan's car. I'm completely thrown off guard when I hear a loud exclamation from Evan and my body is forcibly shoved the remaining distance across the street, my feet lifting off the ground with the force of the push and causing me to fall to the ground near the curb.

I hear a loud car horn sound behind me and I scramble to face the street again. Time warps and everything crawls before my eyes in slow motion as I see the red car that had obviously been speeding, plow into my brother who had pushed me out of the way. I'd never seen anybody get hit by a car before. I'll never forget how he looked; his limbs as limp and lifeless as a rag doll's, his body flipping over itself with the force of the blow from the hood of the car as though his body weighed nothing. He eventually lands not so far from me, head hitting the curb as his body lands with a terrifying cracking of bones onto the asphalt.

I remember the car squealing it's tires as it scrambles to get out of here before someone catches notice. The streets are fairly quiet around us, and only the street lights up above us show me what's really going on. This road isn't normally a busy one, being a side-street anyways. At this moment, though, I can only see Evan with his body looking broken in many places. His right leg is bent back at the knee, the lower part sticking out unnaturally to the right while the knee is turned in.

I crawl quickly along the asphalt, heedless and unaware of the scrapes from the ground that appear on the palms of my hands and on my knees. Rocks imprint themselves painfully into my skin but I pay them no mind as I finally reach Evan, who has yet to move since landing on the ground. I reach a shaking hand out to touch his face tentatively, and he's terribly cold. Panic is gurgling in my throat, threatening to overtake me as my heart thuds crazily in my chest like a war drum that surely the whole town can hear.

"Evan?" I whisper, but there is no response. The silence around me deafening, my ears appear to be covered in cups, the whooshing sound of my blood in them hardly allowing me to hear anything else. His eyes are closed, and his breathing is shallow.

"Please wake up, Evan." I plead with a high shrill of desperation. I lift his head up and place it gently into my lap, smoothing the hair from his face as I look quickly over the rest of his body. There appears to be a rib poking out of the skin, the broken bone protruding in such a grotesque way that my thirteen year old mind can't fully comprehend what it's seeing. Terrified hysterics are threatening to burst out of me, and I cannot control the tears that won't stop pouring down my face to drip off of my chin in a continuous stream onto the ground.

Evan's eyelids fluttered open with obvious difficulty; the pupils of his eyes so large as to almost take over the iris. A thread of hope creeps through me; maybe he'll be okay after all. Waking up is a good sign, right?

"Evan, it's alright. It's me, Sophie. I'm here with you. I'm so sorry, this is all my fault!" My voice is wavering and rising in volume as I try to keep the crazy locked up inside of me to appear strong for him. My hands continue to soothe over his hair, and his eyes look around unseeing before they vaguely focus on me.

"Are you alright?" His voice sounds like gravel; low and coarse. I nod enthusiastically, plastering a smile to my face even as the tears continue to fall.

"Don't worry about me, I'm right as rain." His eyes close and he releases a breath he was apparently painfully holding in his chest, coughing lightly from the pain. I realize that his arms and legs aren't moving, and I know that can't be a good sign. Crap, crap crap. I have never felt so helpless before; my whole body is shaking badly from shock, fright, and trauma.

"Oh my god, should I call 111?" I whip my head around to see a kindly looking older man wearing an expression of shock as he looks at Evan. His expression doesn't make me feel any better, but I simply nod my head frantically and he turns on his heel to walk away. I turn my own attention back to Evan, not seeing where the man goes.

"Sophie, things aren't looking very good. Dad is going to be pissed. Just remember that this is not your fault," he pauses in an attempt to cough that is weak and pitiful "this is not your fault." He repeats for emphasis, his eyes trying to stare into mine although they seem to almost be seeing something beyond me.

"Okay, Evan." A single sob escapes me before I'm able to get control over myself. "I'm so sorry I was reckless. I'm sorry I didn't look where I was going." I know he said it wasn't my fault, but I know it was and that he is just trying to make me feel better. He makes a soft shushing sound at me and attempts to give me a smile.

What does he mean by 'things aren't looking very good?' I can't think about this, can't think of anything other than what will happen after we get home and he recovers. He has to. He's my rock, my anchor, my guiding light that holds my hand in the darkness.

Evan left me, though. The darkness took over after that, enclosing me within it; the guilt whispering and eating away at my thirteen year old self. He died in my arms, and he only cared that I didn't feel responsible. He must have been in so much pain, but he held on as long as he could; strong and brave in my eyes as the light faded from his.

My eyes slowly come back into focus as I try to remember what's really going on; Loki on the street, his head bent at a terrible angle. There's a yell behind me to my left, but I stay where I am, staring at Loki with my hands poised to touch him, yet afraid to follow through. Wrenching, wracking sobs have taken over my body.

"Sophie!" A familiar male voice behind me breaks through the cloud of my own terror and anguish.
Gunnar
.

I had left the bar with a huge smile on my face, completely unprepared for what would greet me shortly after leaving the building. I could not have expected this.

Sophie and Loki are on the ground, Loki in a terribly painful and worrying position as Sophie sobs over his fallen form. There is blood and obvious damage to his face from being hit, and I can only assume that Loki has somehow gotten himself into another one of his bar fights. I can feel the pinch of panic that snakes through me as I rush forward to grab an obviously incoherent and traumatized Sophie. I pull her with difficulty into my arms hearing her cry out in pain as I make an effort to pull my phone out of my pocket and dial 112.

After I'm able to hang up with the dispatcher, I pull Sophie even closer to me and tilt her face up to meet my eyes. I don't even know if she can see me, but her eyes are swollen, red and crying; her nose running and an expression I've never seen on her face that scares me clear down to my bones.

"Sophie! Snap out of it! What happened?" Her weeping is loud and heartbreaking; I've never heard anyone cry with such utter desperation and anguish before. I've never experienced true anguish or desperation before.

"He's, he's...
dead.
" Her voice drops to a whisper when she says the word 'dead' and she glances over at Loki before burying her head in my chest. I look over at Loki again, seeing the rise and fall of his chest with his breathing, reassured that he's not actually dead, but realizing that this is a trigger point for Sophie. She's absolutely freaking out, and it must have something to do with her brother. My arms tighten around her quaking frame, offering her my warmth and support until the ambulance arrives.

"He's not dead," I murmur in her ear, feeling her shake her head earnestly in denial at my statement. I've never felt more protective over anyone or anything in my entire life, and the feeling to keep her in my arms so nothing can ever hurt her again is overwhelming. "He's not dead." I repeat to her, not only for her sake though. I hope Loki will come out of this one.

I can hear the ambulance heading in our direction, and I feel so relieved that this moment in our life can pass, and we can hopefully move on to a better one. I'm scared that Sophie might leave us after this, and it would be so incredibly terrible if she did. I didn't even get to share the good news. If something were to happen to Loki... no. He'll be fine.

The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, and they rushed to put Loki on a gurney, placing a large orange square head and neck piece to keep the area safe while they move him. After quite a bit of whispering encouragement, I'm able to find out that Sophie was kicked and hit. The paramedic suggests that I take her to the hospital to make sure she's alright, so I walk her to the nearest taxi and push her gently inside to take care of my girl.

The hospital is only a few minutes away, but Sophie and I don't talk. She clings to me for support, and that's the only comfort I get out of this situation; she feels I am a sign of comfort. I have something to offer her. I pay the taxi driver and escort her into the emergency room, hearing a commotion as I'm sure Loki arrived a few minutes before us, and these types of tragic events aren't very common or frequent in Iceland.

"Is he here?" She asks tentatively, her voice thick and raspy from crying and yelling.

"Yes, he's in good hands." I say to be assuring. I help her fill out the paperwork for the doctor to examine her, and we are guided by a nurse into an orange curtained corner. "Everything will be okay, alright?" I attempt to smile at her, but she doesn't return it, only shrugging in response. I flip my phone out of my pocket and send a few text messages to people who need to know that Loki and Sophie are in the hospital before sliding it back into my pocket and grabbing her ice-cold hands in mine.

"Are you in a lot of pain?" I ask. She shrugs again, apparently unwilling to talk about it yet.

"I...he... Evan," She stops suddenly, shrugging again.

"Is this similar to what happened to Evan?" I question, hoping that it'll help her loosen up and talk. She needs to get all of this out of her.

"Yes." She whispers, looking me straight in the eye as though to beg me to take the pain away from her with this knowledge. I swallow heavily, my heart hurting with her pain.

"Tell me what you can."

"The moment I knew he was gone, I became a zombie. I refused to leave his side, and I was forcibly pulled away from him, never to see him in person again. The funeral was a gray, foggy blur in my mind. My father couldn't handle an open casket, and I don't think I would have been able to recover after seeing his dead body again.

I remember when I finally was at home much later that night after the accident; standing in the bathroom with the intentions of cleaning the blood off my hands and arms. I stared at myself in the mirror, honestly considering never washing his blood off of me. It's him, how could I wash the blood of my brother down the drain as though he means nothing? If I wash away the blood, and I washing away Evan? " She never breaks eye contact with me as she shares this insight, her hands lifting up to her neck to wrap around it as though she wishes to rip the pain right out of her throat. Her red-rimmed eyes are welled up with tears she is obviously trying to hold back. Her lower lip trembles as she takes a deep breath and continues.

"My father took the choice from me, grabbing my arm and scrubbing my arms and hands forcibly with a washcloth as I screamed and cried about how I couldn't bear to lose any more of Evan." My own heart clenches with this story; imagining a young Sophie in this position. I can't even fathom what it must be like to experience this kind of tragedy. And her mother had passed away just a few years before. That's just so much weight to place upon a kid.