The Disbanders

Chapter 23: Shattered

"Evie! Evie!", calls Hayden, immediately bending down to where she fell. "We need to pull her out! Why hasn't she come up yet?". He's panicking, although so are we. Alexa is the first to step on the ice, only to immediately feel that it's too unstable.

"We can't walk on it!", she exclaims. I reach my hand into the icy rapids. I need to solve the mystery of depth. Sure enough, my hand touches the bottom. It's only about two feet deep.

"Oh no, there's rocks on the bottom!" I cup my hand and pull it out, revealing the colour of the water. There's a tint of red in it.

For the water to be moving this quickly, and for there to still be red, she must've hit her head. I don't say a thing, as no words can escape my lips out of shock. A nausea enters my stomach.

"We need to find her!", yells Hayden. He hasn't processed the connection to the blood––unless he's in denial. I stand up.    

"She's going to be halfway down this river by now!", I exclaim. I still haven't fully absorbed this either. I don't want to.

Hayden moves past us to step further on the ice, only to be stopped by Chuck.

"Hayden! We can't!", exclaims Chuck. "It's too unsafe! We can't get to her!" Hayden proceeds to remove himself from Chuck's strong grasp and proceeds to hit him out of the way. Chuck falls to the ground aggressively.

"Hayden, no! We can't do it, he's right!", says Alexa. "We can figure something else out!" I know she's lying, but Hayden needs to be calmed down. "She's too far away!" Hayden remains on his knees, which have been soaked from the cracked ice. Tears begin to cloud my vision, but I can see them in everyone else's eyes. Except Hayden's.

He gets up and tries with one last effort to make his way on the ice, but Chuck, Will, and Alexa all manage to get a grip on him. I latch on too, not knowing why. Every fibre of my soul is telling me to sprint onto that ice, jump in and bring her up, recovering her injury. It's taking everything I have to resist it. We can't go after her. I can't save her. It's a wound that can't be fixed. Her coat is weighing her down in the freezing water, and she's hit her head. She would've drowned by now. Eventually, we let go of Hayden as he falls to his knees.

My ears begin to ring, as it silences the world around me, leaving me only with horrid visuals. I can just slightly hear a scream in agony coming from Hayden. This is far different than any I've ever heard before.

It is far worse than the scream I heard when Hayden was laying on the ground, with his chest open and wounded. He was so close to death, and yet, he still didn't holler as he does now. The tears continue to cloud my vision as I let them build up, not knowing what to do with myself.

Evie is gone.

I'm brought back once I see Hayden stand up, where we all actually see his face for the first time.

"Why'd you do that, man?", he yells at Chuck. "We could've saved her!" Hayden punches Chuck smack in the mouth. I see Chuck shut his eyes in agony as tears stream down his face, but I know it has nothing to do with his lip. Hayden then begins to break down. He returns to his knees and slumps down, burying his face in the snow. I hear another muffled scream through the powdered white. Suddenly, I feel Will's arms around me, as I collapse into them.

"This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real," mutters Hayden. "She can't be gone! She was here sixty seconds ago," he screams. I look over at Alexa, who seems the least emotional out of us all. She is sitting on the ground in mere shock, with tears in her eyes, but none on her face. She doesn't say a word, nor does she blink. Hayden gets up and turns to Chuck. "You stopped me! We could've saved her!" Chuck continues to tear up.