Colors Always Bleed Together [DUFN]

Chapter Four: The Woman in Boots

"See if you can find a phone on her." Doctor Yates calls as another paramedic checks her pockets. The small vehicle has two doctors and the driver inside. Each available one is crowding the girl.

He tosses Doctor Yates something that I'm guessing is her phone. She turns it on. She sighs when there isn't a lock on it.

She opens up the contacts and presses the first one. "Hanson, check the computer for a Nicole Aretha Benwell."

"On it." The paramedic that checked her pulse earlier grabs a tablet and gets to searching.

Doctor Yates puts the phone up go her ear. "Mister Benwell?" She starts before walking from the back and toward the front where she called Zach earlier.

I stare at my hands as they yell back and forth commands and such. With no distractions, the agony intensifies by the second.

None of them seem to notice me, bloody and broken as I am. Though, I don't really blame them. While a blinding pain in my side made it's self abundantly clear with a sharp and sudden pain - I seem to be the picture of health compared to the woman who looks as close to death as one can get.

The ride to the hospital takes ten minutes at most, possibly the worst ten minutes of my life. So far.

The doors burst open. The emergency responders rush Nicole out of the ambulance and into the building. I jump out the back. Doctor Yates escrots me through the front door. The guys are sitting in the waiting room. The hotel must have been closer to the hospital than the wreck.

"Mister Tedder," Doctor Yates starts. "We're going to do a quick examination to make sure there are no life threatening injuries. If there's not, I must ask you to sit and wait in the waiting room for a few minutes. We are under staffed and have quite a few people here tonight."

"I understand." I assure, cradling my left arm in my right.

She leads me to a room with pale walls, a single bed, a couple of cabinets, and not much more space than the ambulance. Still, it seems bigger with the absence of all the others.

I sit while I wait to be examined. The doctor runs a sink-full of water and places a few towels next to it. "I'll give you a few minutes to wash some of that blood off." She says and opens another cabinet. She hands me a washrag and a hospital gown. "I'll knock on the door in about ten minutes to see if you're finished, but take all the time you need."

I lock the door the second she leaves. The room is cold, like most hospitals tend to stay. It chills me to the bones.

It takes most of the time just to get my shirt, shoes, and pants off while using only one hand. The front of my legs burn and I'm not sure I want to know the amount of damage inflicted.

My entire left side - the leg, arm, and side itself - received the worst of it. It looks worse as well.

I dip the rag in the warm water, sending goosebumps up my arms from the touch and spreading across the rest of my body in a few seconds.

I start with my face, stopping every few seconds to rinse the rag of the little streaks of blood trapped in it and to pick tiny pieces of glass out of my skin. I'm just glad nothing went through my eye.

The water is tented a slight shade of pink when I'm finished with my head - and the counter is covered in glass I brushed out of my hair using my fingers.

There's a knock at the door. I tell the doctor that I need more time.

I touch the rag to my left arm and have to suppress a scream. Even the slightest touch shoots pain throughout my entire body. Skipping it, along with the other arm, I sit down on the bed and start on my legs. My left one has quite a few large shards of glass sticking out of it. I sit down the rag and pull them out, grunting in pain and shaking worse after every piece is removed. By that time, my hands are soaked in blood once again. I stagger back over to the sink to wash them off and wet the rag another time.