Aubrey (Revolving With Axis)

102: Rafe

            There was an ambulance on scene and I loaded Aubrey into it, even though she was protesting, saying she was fine. I felt she might be delirious-- she was certainly not fine. There was a lot of blood, more blood than I'd ever seen on somebody's face that wasn't fake.

            At first she fought the ambulance, but then I put my foot down--- whispered something really tragic and got her attention.

            "But Rafe, this is gonna set us back. We're on a time schedule." But this did not come out the way I interpreted it here.

            "Stop being so ridiculous." I said to her, holding her hand, the one that wasn't strapped to the gurney, and sporting an IV. The paramedic finally sat down, after cleaning up her forehead where the worst cut was still leaking. He got it cleaned and bandaged, and then sat to work on her eye and cheek.

            I registered a slow motion thing for a moment... the lights were too yellow, too blue, the insides too close, too metal, and too shallow, I felt weird.

            Her hand was on my pulse. "Rafe, look at me. Breathe in one two three, hold it, breathe out, one two three. Breathe with me, hon, in two three, out two three, hold it."

            Her voice twirled in my brain along with music, and people, and hands and leaping, and singing, and laughing, and praying, and fearing, and feeling wooden and lethargic now that she was in my grasp, and safe--- somewhat safe.

            The medic cleaned the blood off her cheek, it was swollen, and there was a smaller cut right on her bone beneath her eye, and another on her lip. But they weren't big. Her eye was almost swollen shut. It was purple and red and streaked with yellow and green and black.

            "Rafe, stay with me, baby. In-- one two three, hold it, out-- one two three, hold it. Blow it all out, Rafe, hold on. In-- one two three..."

            The images began to fade as I told myself I needed to be here for Aubrey. Not the other way around.

            "They tried to take you from me." I said in the most peculiar voice I'd ever heard out of myself. Full of doubt and fear and-- blank-- just blank, dead.

            "But they didn't. You saved me. You saved me. You're my hero. You're my superman."

            I don't know how she could talk. But she was used to doctor shit, and ambulances, and whatever.

            "Rafe, I'm fine. It's all superficial. I didn't need to go to the hospital. This is just a precaution. I'm fine. You found me. You listened."

            I registered that and it was like my whole brain came rushing back, and everything came into focus.

            "What the f--- happened?"

            She squeezed my hand, and smiled crookedly.  "I can't talk to you unless you promise--."

            I thought I might implode. My face infused with red and I actually saw red blood through eyes rasping hard against cracked lids. A string of unsaid swear words ran through my mind and then I took that next deep breath. This was Aubrey. Aubrey. Aubrey.

            "I heard you start the song, and I was way in the back with Jake and Tim and someone else, I was talking to Bree on the phone, and then suddenly the song was playing and I had to get to you and I just took off running and I think I lost them."

            "I felt it before the song, Aubrey. You were in danger before that."

            "I don't think so. I was with the guys, talking to Bree."

            "Who is Bree?"

            "My sister, Brianna. She's a year older than me. She has seven kids."

            "Bullshit."

            "Rafe, please---."

            I hung my head. "So, you slipped the security guys and then got tangled up in the crowd and they started beating you up? That doesn't make any sense."

            "No, they started kidnapping me I think, two or three guys, Rafe, and they were trying to subdue me with sheer force, and I was too much for them, so one of them decked me a couple of times. And then you got there."

            I felt my insides reacting to her matter-of-fact words. It wasn't good. Besides rage and concern, I was feeling this really primal urge to kill somebody. And unfortunately my initial reaction was to take it out on her.

            "What were you doing out in the crowd anyway? You never, never go out there. They know you, you have to have security. You never leave the bus again."

            "What, are you gonna send me home?"

            It would have been a funny quip if she hadn't slurred it as the medic cleaned her swollen lip. I kept staring at her lip wanting to kiss it, wanting to caress it, wanting to hide it from the crazies out there.

            "I'm sorry, Rafe. I'm sorry I scared you and got the concert cancelled. That was dumb of me, and Holli is going to hate me even more."

            "No, we're never playing an open sided arena again. And in a venue that wasn't prepared? Never again. Where was f-ing Will? He's fired. Holli's fired. I can't believe we went on in that shit anyway. The stage was falling down. It was an unsecure area. Do I have to do it all myself? Will is fired. Holli is fired. Where the f--- was Allen? Somebody's head is going to roll. They are all fired."

            "Rafe, settle down---."

            "Don't you f---in' tell me to settle down, Aubrey, you could have been killed or kidnapped, and it was their fault. I knew we shouldn't have gone on. I could feel it. I knew it, and I did nothing about it. I trusted them one time too many."

            "Well you jumped into the crowd. How's that for taking a chance? And it all worked out for good. You saved me. You did. I am really, really grateful."

            I shook my head slowly, pulling on my hair. I wanted to settle down, she was doing her best to settle me down, but the adrenaline and the ADHD and the left over energy from finding her, and the scare it gave me to see her like that, all huddled on the ground, looking like she was dead was more than I could handle.

            I pounded my fist into the bedding, again, and into my own leg. It wasn't enough. I looked at her, scared.

            Aubrey stopped the medic's ministrations and gently stopped my hand. "Give me a second." She looked at the medic and in flawless Spanish, she refused care, saying she was an American doctor and she knew she was fine. She then began to take the IV out, and when she did, she expertly took care of it, and then sat all the way up and loosened the straps holding her immobile. The van stopped at the hospital and the back doors opened, but Aubrey was the first one out. And she wasn't dizzy.

            There as an initial burst of Spanish, and then she was smiling through her swelling face, and dripping lip, and with a gauze pad in one hand and her fingers on a pen, she signed herself out of hospital care. I protested, at the same time eyeing the media pulling in behind us. Lights, cameras, action--- right as Jake and Tim and Aiden pulled up between the first wave of reporters and the ambulance. My guys were a close second. Aubrey graciously thanked everyone, finished signing some papers, and stuffed something in her pocket before getting in the van by herself, as Jake held her door.

            I leaped inside as the door closed and the van pretty much started rolling instantly. We were followed, of course, but it wasn't that bad, and we got to our bus and on it without any more fanfare. There were people outside the lines warded off by bouncers, calling sympathy in broken English, and Aubrey stood on the bus step and waved to them, before Ben grabbed her arm and carefully hauled her inside.

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