Past, Present, and Future.

Chapter 17

Flash! 

Bright light.

Loud sirens.

Pain in her lower section.

Victoria experienced her black out after she had fallen down the stairs. Her vision cleared and she saw that she was in an ambulance with two techs with her. She started to panic, to which the other two started frantically saying some stuff she couldn't understand. She felt a hand squeeze hers, but she was too scared to move, even to squeeze back. She could feel a sticky substance coming from somewhere unseen.

The ride seemed to last forever, and the techs never stopped talking to each other and frantically moving from one spot to another. She still was too afraid to move, and she could tell that the hand on hers hadn't left yet either. She just stared at the ceiling and waited to arrive. Then everything went black again.

                ******************

Beep...Beep...Beep...

She scrunched up her face at the bright light over head and the annoying beeping noise that was somewhere to her right. Her head was throbbing, but on the bright side the pain was now just a dull ache. She heard soft snoring coming from somewhere to her left, probably one of the boys or her brother. She struggled to sit up what with all the needles and other tubes and wires hooked up to her. That was when she heard some frantic whispering from the other side of her door, that she knew for a fact would quickly escalate into yelling if not stopped.

"...You were supposed to protect her! that's why I backed off. That and because she actually likes you. I know that you don't care for her, but i swear on my life that if you hurt her, I will hurt you worse." That sounded like Chad.

"Oh really? I don't see you doing anything to help or protect her!" That sounded like Dallas. Why are they arguing? And over something like 'protecting' me? Victoria wondered as she sat in silence, besides the silent snores of her brother next to her. She could take care of herself, she didn't need two boys to watch after her. She sat and thought, listening to her brother's breathing.

Time passed and the boys outside continued to argue in hushed voices. She didn't want to listen to them blame each other for what happened to her any longer. Once in awhile the two would get quiet, then after a second return back to their normal volume. She took this as someone would walk past the two and once that said person was out of earshot they would raise the volume once again.

Finally after about twenty minutes of her being awake her brother woke up. She watched as he rubbed his hands across his face, and straighten up in the hard cream colored chair. He looked around the room as if trying to place where he was, then remember why he was there. Finally he looked over at her and saw her, then broke out in a warm smile. A genuine smile.

He leaned over and carefully hugged her, making sure not to pull on any of the contraptions hooked up to her. "Hey sis. How you feeling?" He asked once he was seated somewhat comfortably in the chair beside her bed.

She shrugged, not knowing what to say. "I.. uh.. there's a dull pain. But other than that I think I'm fine." Ricky made a face, and she knew instantly that something was up. "What?" She asked at the same time as the door to her room opened. A perky dark haired nurse walked in followed by the two boys that had been arguing in the hallway.

The nurse tried to make small talk with everyone in the room but Victoria wanted to know why she was in here and wasn't in the mood for talking to the nurse. The tension in the room built as the nurse checked all the machines, and wrote down on her chart. After a few minutes the poor gal left, saying that she would be back soon to check up again.

The room became silent again. Victoria motioned for Ricky to come sit on the bed with her as she gave the other two males the evil eye. "Where's mom?" She asked to Ricky.

"She... uh... went to.. celebrate." He said the last word with distaste, as if he didn't want to say it but needed to. The other boys had expressions of hatred mixed with worry.

"Why....?" Victoria asked. The woman's daughter was in the hospital for goodness sakes. And she was celebrating?

"Because of what happened to you" Chad piped up. "I told you, I hated your mother for a good reason." This earned him another scowl from her. Dallas shook his head in agreement with Chad. Weird.

"Which is exactly...? I mean why am I here? The last thing I can remember was falling down the stairs." She said as she tried to remember anything between the incident and the ambulance ride.

"Well yes, that happened." Dallas stated. "And I called 911, and then an ambulance rushed you here."

"So I'm here because of my fall?"

"Not exactly." said Chad. "Your here because of what happened to you due to the fall." She gave them all a confused look. Was Chad crying? Why did Dallas look guilty? Why couldn't her brother met her eyes?

"You...." Ricky started to talk before his voice broke.

"You lost the baby." Chad finished for him as he looked down at her now flattened stomach. It was then that he lost control and silent tears ran down his face.

It hit her full force.

And her world fell apart as everything turned black again.