Third In Line

Chapter Thirty - Aftermath

"Oh like you know anything about it."

"Shut up, ass"

Her sister was grinning after that, which had to be good. She couldn't tell how bad her sister was hurt, but knew any sort of distraction would help and that sisterly banter was as good a distraction as any.

With her arm clutched against her stomach as if it was in a sling, Ellie started making her way along the bottom of the ditch. There must have been an overnight rain that she hadn't noticed, because most of the ground around her feet was mud, protected from the sun by the huge amount of trees that were densely packed around them. It made her legs unsteady, even more unsteady than she already was. One slip and she knew she'd have a face full of mud and likely be in even more pain.

She took a moment to gather herself on a small patch of dried ground, one of the few around her that was getting any sunlight. Every step seemed to be draining her of what little energy she had left, whilst a sick and unsettling feeling was growing in her stomach. It was becoming more and more obvious that there was something other than her wrist that was messed up.

She looked up at the steep incline beside her, almost five times her height from the edge of the road they had been on to where she'd landed at the bottom. Beyond the ditch was another edge to fall from, with thorns and brambles to land in.

It could have been much worse.

Around the bend she found a way to get back up the slope without having to grab a hold of something, luckily not having to walk very far to find it. She was sure that any more walking would have her on her knees and throwing up, or worse. Her head was pounding by the time she reached the road again, with a tightness around her neck that made her feel like she was suffocating.

Your helmet, you idiot

With just a little trouble she was able to unbuckle her helmet and remove it with one hand, tiredly dropping it on the ground behind her as she made her way back to Alex.

"Is it still bleeding?" she asked as she tiredly fell on her knees in front of her sister, whose hand was tightly covering her knee. There was a dark red wet patch beneath her hand, with trickles of what was obviously blood running down her leg and staining through her jeans.

Alex tilted her hand up to quickly check her knee, made a disgusted gagging noise and then looked away. "Yep" she said as she covered her knee was more, wincing.

Ellie knew it was bad, that her sister wasn't exaggerating anything. She was desperate to think of a solution, something to help, but her mind was all over the place and struggling to focus on anything.

"Mum and Dad are going to be really angry with us huh?" Alex asked, even if they both knew the answer.

"Yeah, we're not gonna be..." Ellie began, but her words trailed off, her thoughts finally focusing on Mum, on what Mum might be thinking and what she might be doing.

Does loads of events, charities, goes out a lot, sports, adventure... scouts!

"Riding quadbikes" she mumbled the rest of her sentence, her mind still distracted. "Give me your sock!"

Alex just stared at her blankly and confused, so Ellie went ahead and took off her sister's sock herself. The pale pink material was a little bloody from what had gone down her sister's leg, but no matter, it was going to get a lot bloodier.

"I need that" Alex complained, but Ellie wasn't listening.

"You won't be walking on this anyway, now move your hand out of the way."

Alex's red stained hand moved away from her knee, revealing the full extent of her injury. The cut was about an inch and a bit long, just touching her knee cap and it was really, really deep.