Chapter 1
We are heading home from a friend’s house on Wednesday night. Our old truck is roaring happily along. My brother and I are playing around talking about math. I’m trying to tell him about Multiplying but with him only being five he doesn’t understand. I try not to show that I’m upset that he won’t pay attention and my mom’s telling me to stop because I’m confusing him. I sigh and not for the first time I wish the old truck had a radio, but of course it doesn’t. Finally my Mom, who has a major headache, decides that we could play a game. “Hey, how about we play the silent game?” Evan looks at me and smiles. “We start…NOW!” He clamps his hands over his mouth in an attempt to stay quiet, but with my being nearly sixteen I know how to be silent. I let my eyes droop till they are almost shut. It helps my mind wonder more freely, I thought of a book I was reading, what we had talked about at dinner and my friend’s boy troubles. I open my eyes and look at my mom; she rubs her eyes then her forehead. I go to talk but Evan looks at me with a huge smile knowing that if I talk he wins. I can’t let that happen, I may be almost eleven years older than him but I’m a sore loser. I glare at him and turn my head back to the front.
Suddenly I see a red blur run out of the woods on the side of the road that heads towards the road in front of us. I figure my mom will slow down, it’s far enough away. Only, my mom doesn’t. My next thought was that she knew what she was doing. But when she never even starts to slow down and I can make out more detail about the 4-wheeler in front of us, I know something’s wrong. I scream and fling myself towards Evan to shield him as we hit the 4-wheeler and everything goes wrong.
My vision slowly comes back; my head hurts as well as the rest of me. I look at Evan still in his booster seat. He has a bloody nose and is badly bruised and cut up from the spray of glass, my mom is next to him. She moans in pain and lifts a bloody hand to her forehead. Thought comes back to me slowly, like skittish fish coming to the water’s surface. It hit me what I was seeing. My mother and Brother, the only family I really had . . . bloody, hurt, and unable to move. I pull Evan out from the truck and lay him on the ground then I go for my mom but I can’t get her out. The people on the 4-wheeler are hurt but not badly. One of them is calling the police and the ambulance. I ran back over to Evan. “Evan, please talk to me. You win, I promise you win. Please just talk to me?!” My voice is shrill and I have to force myself not to shake him. “I win?” he asks, his voice strained and thick. What a tough little five-year old. “Yes Evan, you’ve won. Please, just please don’t leave me.” I beg, tears falling down my face. “I won’t.” He smiles then starts’ crying as the pain finally registers. I force myself to stand and leave him, it’s nearly impossible.
The two people, that had been on the 4-wheeler, see me coming towards them and stop talking in whispered voices. “Please, can you help me? I can’t get my mom out. Please help me?” My voice is barely a whisper; they share a glance before nodding. One –a dark haired, pale skinned, blue eyed boy- walks towards my truck, while the other – a light brown haired, dark brown eyed, and slightly tanned boy – looks me over. “You should sit down. You’re bleeding really badly.” He says softly. I shake my head and then regret it as everything tilts and I stumble to regain my balance. He catches me and gently sets me on the ground. “What hurts?” he asks. I laugh, it sounded wrong with everything around us.
“Everything, aren’t you hurt?” I ask, realizing we had hit them not the other way around. He smiles oddly.
“I’m ok, just a little stiff.” To prove this he stretched his arms out then lets them fall to his side. “Now, tell me. What hurts the most?” I frown and close my eyes, something I had always done when I was trying to find things out. I feel pain coming from every part of me, but in one place the pain is stronger. Like something stabbing deep into me while everything else is only skin deep. I open my eyes and look at my right arm and see it badly cut and bleeding. I gasp at the sight, I hate blood, it’s turning my white long sleeve scarlet red. I hear a groan but don’t look up. Hands lift my arm up and a knife comes into view.
