𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝚃𝚘𝚛𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚘| Fast & Furious

Chapter 18

I C A N ' T D R O W N M Y D E M O N S,
T H E Y K N O W H O W T O S W I M.

Sophia

My body was on fire, I was lifted up onto a gurney, withering in the waves of pain that were rolling through my body.

"What is the matter with her? Jack I swear if you don't answer me I will shoot you." I heard someone demand, I blinked a couple of times before realising that it was in fact Talia, or at least a blurry version of her.

"I think it's sepsis." My Doctor muttered "temperature of 104, shivering, sweating, fast respiratory rate at 60, low systolic pressure of 91."

What the fuck is going on?

"Shit." I think I heard him say, I couldn't be sure anymore, everything was so hazy. "I want a bed in ICU with full organ support prepared in case this gets worse, I need another full MRI and I want care medicine physicians, pulmonary specialists, infectious disease specialists and a toxicologist to meet with me to plan the best course of action."

"I'm going to throw everything we have at this. I promise you."

I sat with my back against the couch, my eyes trained on the screen but I wasn't really watching it.

Nothing felt real anymore. Everything had crumbled down to dust.

Mia was in the kitchen, trying to bury herself in baking cookies, whilst my brother was in the garage burying himself in an engine.

Mama was buried in the ground, and today we lost Dad too.

The front door opened, and something thumped on the floor.

Flicking my eyes over to the cardboard barrel that had just been deposited on the floor, and up at, Vince, the person who had apparently delivered the strange barrel.

"Hey, Dimples." Vince pulled a funny face, I just looked at him blankly, not having the energy to partake in our usual greeting. "Yeah, I understand. Where's everybody?"

"Kitchen and garage." I mumbled, staring at my feet, assuming that he would want to see either my sister, his girlfriend, or my brother.

"Good, stay there Kiddo, I'll be right back." He disappeared into the kitchen before returning seconds later with a wooden spoon.

Not going to lie, I was kind of intrigued.

Vince pulled the barrel over to me, the top reached my chest, and flipped off the lid, revealing cookie-dough ice cream. Gallons of it.

"Dig in, Dimples. It's been a long day."

Soon the tub was halfway empty and I felt sick to my stomach, eating purely ice cream after spending the afternoon throwing up was probably not a good idea. The sticky ice cream residue covered my arms and clung to my hair. Vince had managed to take down two thirds of his blue ice cream. We glanced at each other and our faces grew determined, we nodded and it was unanimously decided that we wouldn't give up so easily.

Our determination soon got us into trouble, though.

Somehow, I found myself squished face first at the bottom of the barrel, feet kicking uselessly in the air. I guess I leant too far in to grab the last spoonfuls of ice cream. It took twenty minutes to wiggle  myself out of the cardboard prison, and by that time both my siblings had come in to see what the fuss was about- and to take photos for future blackmail, of course.