Nick Fury is my Uncle -COMPLETED-

Chapter Five: My First Near-Death Experience

Chapter Five: My First Near-Death Experience

Tony Stark: [regaining consciousness] What just happened? Please tell me nobody kissed me.

-From the Avengers

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I could taste blood. I was choking on it. Pain vibrated in every nerve and pure heat burned through my veins. I couldn’t think. The only thing I could do was feel.

There was a flash of blue light that burst across my vision and a familiar dizziness came over me. I was falling, far and fast. Terror crowded out every other sensation, screaming at me that I was going to die.

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I woke up with a terrible pain in my head and the retreating sense of something forgotten. I rubbed my eyes, disoriented. That’s when I realized I was hanging upside down.

I tasted blood on my lips and tenderly touched my nose, which hurt too. Everything hurt, actually. But it was the nose I was worried about. Ryder had such a nice nose. It would be a shame if it got broken.

Yes, I was a little out of it, but you would be too.

I glanced around. The car was, as I stated before, upside down. Leaves and branches had pushed past the broken window. A deflated airbag was inches from my face.

It took me a moment to realize that I was in the driver’s seat. Elation ran through me. I held my hand in front of my face, and it actually was my hand, slender fingers, chipped nail polish, and all.

I hurriedly unclipped my belt and tumbled onto the roof of the car. Devin would not be happy about this. I hoped he had insurance. The fall hurt my already aching body, but I had much bigger things to worry about.

I turned toward Ryder. He was dangling from his seatbelt, still unconscious, head lolling to one side. There was a jagged cut running from his eyebrow to his ear, it looked deep. Blood was still trickling down his face.

I chewed on a nail fretfully. What was I supposed to do? I had heard somewhere that moving an injured person without knowing the extent of their injuries could paralyze them for life.

I crawled forward and gingerly felt for a pulse in Ryder’s neck. There was none. Feeling surprisingly calm, I decided that Ryder would rather be paralyzed and alive than dead. I reached for his belt, but it wouldn’t come undone.

Still calm, I spotted Ryder’s backpack in the back seat. I maneuvered to get to it and started searching it. Ryder must have brought it along for a reason, not just to finish schoolwork. I found what I was looking for in the front pocket, a deathly sharp switchblade.

I moved back to Ryder and sawed through the seatbelt. Ryder came down like a sack of potatoes, hitting the ceiling with a sickening thump.

I winced, but crawled over his prostate body and through the broken window. My knee caught on a jagged piece of glass and I felt a pinch of pain as blood ran down my leg. I ignored it.

Then I reached in and pulled Ryder out, avoiding as much of the broken glass as possible. I stared at his prostate body for a moment, wondering what to do.

If there was no breath or heartbeat, CPR should be done. One problem: I had never learned the proper way to do it. I had seen it done in movies and knew the general gist, but I had a feeling that it would do more harm than good.

“What are you supposed to do then, Amber? Let him die?” Panic was rising up in my chest. Still looking at Ryder, I made another decision for him. He would rather have me save his life than fret nervously and watch him fade before my eyes.

The calm settled over me again, and I leaned over Ryder. I placed my hand in the middle of his chest and interlaced the fingers of my other hand through my first. Then I pressed down and continued to do so about thirty times at a decently quick pace.

After this, feeling strangely confident, I placed one hand on his forehead and applied firm backward pressure with my palm. Ryder’s head tilted backward. With the fingers of my other hand, I pressed under his jaw, hard but not too hard. His teeth clicked together.

Then I pinched his nose shut with one hand and made a seal with my mouth over his. I breathed enough air to make his chest rise, and then waited for it to fall. After that, I administered the second breath and began chest compressions again.

There was no fear in me, only the same deadly calm that I didn’t recognize as mine. I continued to administer CPR, repeating the chest compressions and breaths about five times for about two minutes.

Desperation started creeping in toward the end of the last cycle. I finished and checked for breathing, pulse, anything at all. There was nothing. I knew internally that I couldn’t call the hospital. Like Ryder had said before, the people after us would find out and come for us.

I felt tears start to surface, but I blinked them away and began chest compressions again. Halfway through the second cycle of breaths, Ryder started to stir. His eyes fluttered open.