That’s wheneverything went black.
***
It was the drone of approaching the sirens that pulled me up into consciousness.
One cheek pressed to thecool pavement, I cracked open an eye and looked skyward. Two girls, both wearing too much makeup and clothed in identical painted-on dresses, were staring back at me with worried expressions on their faces. At least, I thought they looked worried – it was a little hard to tell, beneath all that foundation and bronzer.
From the looks of it, they were standing guard– in their platform pumps, no less – over my prone form. Apparently, they’d also called the police and an ambulance.
“Are you okay?” one of the girls asked, her eyes wide as they scanned down my body, coming to rest on the once glorious Dress, which was now in tatters. I ignored the questions in her eyes.
Was Iokay? No.
I was horrified, traumatized, stunned –she could pick her poison.
I didn’t know if I’d ever beokayagain.
“Yes,” I croaked out, with a cough. My throat felt raw, whether from screaming or sprinting, I didn’t know.
“The ambulance is on its way,” the other girl informed me, as if I couldn’t hear the ever-increasing wail of the siren. “We didn’t know what else to do.”
They looked uncertain, asthough they thought I might be angry with them for calling in the cavalry.
“You did the right thing. Thank you,” I whispered, in a tone I hoped conveyed how appreciative I was. “Really.”
I didn’t get to tell them anythingelse or even ask their names, because the ambulance had arrived and, all at once, I was surrounded by a sea of paramedics and police officers.
Withquiet efficiency, the paramedics rolled me over onto my back and examined my scraped legs and arms. None of the wounds were deep enough to require stitches, so they applied a stinging antiseptic and wrapped the worst of them tightly in white gauze. I think they tried to tell me some things or maybe ask what had happened to me, but I was adrift in my own private bubble; their voices sounded far away, muffled as though they were speaking to me through a clear Plexiglas wall.
I tuned in enough to catch a word every once in a while.
“……in shock…….possible head trauma…….multiple contusions…”
Afterthey’d checked my pupils by shining a glaringly bright pen light directly into each eye, there was more muffled conferencing between paramedics. Something they’d seen in my pupils’ response must’ve worried them, because in no time at all, they’d wheeled over a stretcher and gently lifted me onto it.
“…Jane Doe….attacked…..concussion….”
When my back gently hit the cushion,I automatically looked up to the stars.
Andromeda.
Pisces.
Aquarius.
Pegasus.
I closed my eyes and tried to shutthem out, to turn off the images that seeing them had triggered, but it was too late.
A door slams. It’s dark, so dark I can’teven see my hand in front of my face. Utterly quiet, hopelessly alone. My hand touches a foreign chest. His bruising grip on my shoulders. Tight, so tight. I gasp in pain. Screams no one can hear echo in the night. I’m cornered. I’m helpless. I’m going to die.
The sounds of a struggle snapped me back into the present. My eyes followed the loud voices, until I found him in the crowd. He looked frantic to get to me, his face flushed red and his deep blue eyes flashing dangerously as he screamed at the duo of police officers restraining him. He was gesturing toward me, clearly trying to explain something to the officers, when his eyes locked on mine and he realized that I was conscious.
“Bee!” Finn screamed, his voice cracking, broken. “Tell them to let me through, Bee. Tell them, princess. They won’t let me get to you.”
Still floating in the numbness of my aftershock,I stared at him, mesmerized by the haunted look on his face. He appeared nearly unhinged with worry at my condition, as though the strain of what had happened to me was more than he could bear. He almost looked as if he’d been the one alone in that alleyway, when a monster had slithered from the shadows.
I wanted to tell himthat it was okay – thatIwas okay. I wanted to take that tormented look out of his eyes. I didn’t do that, though. Instead, I turned my head away from him, not wanting to see that expression on his face anymore and too preoccupied with my own demons to spare any thoughts for his.