Lights | A Forever Fanfiction

Chapter Fourteen: Arrival of More Crises

The moment I arrived at school, a flock of student newspaper representatives, teachers, and school administrators swarmed around me, buzzing and chattering with a vulture-like fervor. Finally, three of the four school guidance counsellors managed to push enough of them aside to get me out of there.

I was practically hauled to the counselling office, where the ninth grade counsellor, Mr. Dartman, sat me down on the fluffy bean bag chair and gave me a cup of tea, before settling in an armchair across from me. My tenth grade counsellor was absent, apparently. The police officer who had escorted me there departed, leaving me all on my own with the counsellor.

"Miss LaVaughn," he said emotionlessly. "Your father died and your godmother got shot in the course of two days." He didn't seem to like me, or have any sympathy for the fact that two of the people I loved had been injured or killed. I glared at him, sipping my tea calmly before responding.

"I noticed," I informed him, since he was saying it as if he were delivering news to me. "Yeah, I noticed. It's hard to miss that, when you walk in on your dad when he's dead and all that."

"What did you see? What were your first thoughts?"

"What are you, a psychopath? I saw a man, dead. Shot in the head. Panic was my first emotion. What happened? was my first thought." Conveniently, my phone rang, the little tinkling jingle filling the stifling air. I smiled with vehemence and sarcasm, and picked up the phone.

"Lights, your mother," Jo wheezed into the phone. My smugness fell. "She was attacked, she's bleeding a lot-"

"Is she okay? Are you okay? You sound like you're dying! You know what? Screw this bullcrap. Counselling doesn't work very well on me, anyways. I'm coming over." I set aside my tea mug, ignoring Mr. Dartman's scowl-accompanied, half-hearted protests.

"I'm just winded. I ran here, because I heard shouting. One of the doctors got attacked too," she hiccuped. I ran out of the room, running back out the way I had come and into the sidewalk. Would it be faster to run? No, not at this time of day. I waved my arm frantically.

"Jo?"

"There's so much blood, Lights I don't think I can-"

"Keep applying pressure to the most prominent wounds!" I yelled into the phone. "She has to live. She has to! Not because I still love her, which I don't, but because I need to get answers." It was a lie. I could feel it, the weight of it stabbing through me painfully. I didn't like lying to Jo, not about things like this. But I had to.

"I'm trying," Jo responded. I clambered into a cab, and as the traffic around me thickened, desperation and panic engulfed me like a tidal wave, drowning me in hysteria.

"I'll pay you double if you get me to the hospital within the next seven minutes," I pleaded, covering the phone's microphone briefly. "Please, I just need to get to there soon."

"With this traffic, I couldn't even try, lady," the cabbie said apologetically. I sighed with frustration and opened the door, leaping out into the road. The scent of motor oil and gasoline filled the air as I weaved around the standstill of cars, making a mad dash towards the hospital.

"Okay, the doctors are here, Lights."

"Should I call Dr. Morgan?" I asked.

"He doesn't have a cell."

"How-? Nevermind. Tell me what's happening."

"The trauma surgeon is examining her. They're taking her down for surgery."

"How bad is it?" I wheezed.

"I- I don't know, it looks bad."

"Well, I'm on my way, so-" The phone went silent, before a long drone pierced the air. I pocketed the phone and ran the rest of the way to the hospital, steered onwards by the panic slipping and sliding within me. I sprinted through the lobby, getting glares and stares. The elevator took forever, each second taking what seemed to be an hour just to pass by. Finally, the elevator doors slid open, and I ran to Jo's room, where she was standing. Her breaths were heavy and burdened. A nurse was helping her get cleaned up, wiping away the blood with a cloth soaked in alcohol.

"Are you alright?" I demanded breathlessly. "And is my mother okay?"

"I am fine," Jo reassured me. "And your mother probably will be, too. This is one of the best hospitals in the state."

"Where's Dr. Morgan?" I asked quickly, not entirely sure why I wanted to know. Somehow, the insurance of his immortality made me feel a bit better. "Should someone go fetch him?"

"You could call Abe," Jo suggested as she laid back down. The nurse reinserted the IV line and departed nervously. I sat next to Jo as a fracturing feeling of hollowness weaved through me.

"Who's Abe?" I wondered.

"Oh, Henry's friend. They live together." Jo yawned as the morphine infiltrated her system once more. "I have his number in my purse, in the address book." I glanced at the black leather satchel on the chair next to me, and I rummaged inside of it, until I found the firm edge of a book. I pulled it out and hand it to Jo. She flicked through the pages, finally settling on one in the middle. She handed me the address book, and I typed in the number.

"Hello, Abe's Antiques?" a croaky voice answered.

"Yes, hello," I said. "Is Dr. Morgan - Henry - there?"

"Um, yeah, he just got back from work," the other person answered. "Do you want me to go get him?"

"Yes, please." There was a muffled thud as the phone was set down on the other end. A few moments later, it clicked as it was picked up again.

"Hello, who is this?" Dr. Morgan asked.

"Hey," I replied. "Hello. This is Lights. Um."

"Do you need something, Lights?"

"Um," I said again. "Yeah. I'm just going to come out and say it, since I can't even wrap my mind around it myself: my mother was attacked in the hospital, so... yeah. See you soon." I hung up, not waiting for a response. I saw Jo roll her eyes sarcastically.

"That was excellent," she muttered. "The perfect way to tell someone that a suspect has been attacked."

I glanced up at the clock. 2:16 in the afternoon. I started to tap my fingers together impatiently. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap. I glanced at the clock again. 2:18.

And so the waiting began.

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