Just dance with me

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Looking down he couldn’t help but notice how small and frail she looked; to him, she’d always seemed strong, independent and often invincible, right now; however, she seemed the complete opposite. His hands were massive compared to the rest of her head as he rested it on his lap; she was beginning to regain consciousness, and he watched her face scrunch in pain as she stirred slightly. The ambulance was almost here now, he could hear it; though it would never come soon enough, he wanted her to be out of the pain she felt as soon as possible.

In a moment the ambulance crew had arrived; someone had taken over his job of holding her head and he was being told that he would be going with her and his mother in the ambulance where they would meet her parents at the hospital. As she was being carried out on a long, narrow stretcher, he felt a hand grab his and tug him to one side.

“Look after her, I can’t believe one little bitch has caused all of this trouble” Sarah scowled at the blond bombshell of a girl who was currently being yelled at by ma’am for her actions. “I’ll see you two at HMS Raleigh, tonight, hopefully. Your mothers taking you two isn’t she?!” He’d never seen Sarah looking so worried, and to be fair, she couldn’t think of a time where she had ever felt so worried, Amelia had been her best friend for as long as she could remember and she was like a sister to her; seeing her family hurt was not something that she ever wanted to become accustomed to.

Staring out of the dirty window of the mess deck, she watched Jamie get into the ambulance with ma’am who was calmer following her rant, PO Williams climbed into her car and followed behind the ambulance as it blared it sirens and drove off down the road.

Turning around, her stomach churned at the amount of blood that was pooled on the floor where Amelia had previously been lying in a semi-conscious state. PO Harris came in with a bucket of water and a mop, attempting to make the room look less like the site of a murder and more like a mess deck- in truth, she nor any other of the staff could quite fathom what had gone on; she’d heard countless accounts from cadets all saying the same thing: that Katie Fords had punched Amelia twice in a completely unprovoked attack, and Amelia did not fight back. Which was difficult to understand, sure, Amelia was a nice girl, but she was twice the height of Katie- sure she was stick thin, but not in an anorexic way; she was extremely fit, and though she was an extremely patient and kind cadet, any other time she would have put all bets on her winning a fight between the two of them, not just not fight back.

All the cadets were silent; a rare phenomenon for a bunch of hyperactive 10-18 year olds; but none of them could bear to discuss what had gone on.

“Right kiddos, the trailer and the two vans are loaded, so off you pop” Chief Moss shooed the cadets into the two different mini busses that were parked up outside the unit; Sarah moved to the back of the new bus, in between Josh and little Katie, the mood began to lighten and there was discussions about each other’s winnings at the competition earlier, Jess and Laura were even plotting with Sarah new ways to get different cadets together. Well, that was until Connor and Katie Fords came towards the bus- then everything fell silent, the cheery mood all but gone as they climbed in to sit next to each other on the pair of seats by the door.

****

Normally the journey to HMS Raleigh was fun; embarrassing pictures of sleeping cadets always ending up on Facebook, this journey was certainly different, however, with many of the cadets plotting revenge on Connor and Katie for hurting one of the nicest cadets at the unit.

“How about we call Tracey and tell her to bring her snake- that would be fun to leave in her bed!” Jess laughed as they sat in a booth at the service station scoffing the chips that PO Harris had bought for them.

“You mean Tracey Grant? PO Grants daughter?” PO questioned as she poked her head over the wall, Jess nodded, PO grinned.

“Good idea, I’ll text her now” They were all joking, though all were secretly wishing they could, none more than Sarah, who hadn’t said a word since Connor and Sarah had sat down on the bus more than 2 hours ago.

She sat silently in the corner of the booth that they all shared, not touching the bag of chips that sat on the table in front of her, she was sick to her stomach thanks to the site from earlier, and was using every ounce of her strength not to go over to Katie and slam her head off a wall- actually she wanted to do the same to Connor as well.

Pulling out her phone from her pocket she saw she had a text from Jamie.

From: Jamie Williams J

Hey Sarah,

Just thought I’d update you on the situation. Amelia has had several stitches, scans and a lot of pain relief, all is well except a nicely forming black eye and a probable scar above her eye. She’s as high as a kite at the moment thanks to the fact they’ve given her enough morphine to knock out a horse, luckily it’s Amelia and so she’s very much awake and currently fascinated by the fact that she has hands! Will be there later tonight, have you thought of a suitable plan of revenge yet?!

 After reading Jamie’s usually long essay style text, the relief that washed over her was immense, of course she was alright; how could she not have been, it was Amelia after all, she was invincible as always!

She sent a quick reply before showing Josh the text and watched him visibly laugh and almost crack a smile- a sign of relief if ever she saw one. Though she knew none of them would be completely at ease until they saw her.

To: Jamie Williams

Heyya Jamie, so glad to hear she’s doing okay, can’t wait to see you guys and finish devising a suitable plan for revenge!

Picking up his phone, Jamie smiled as he read the text from Sarah, no doubt none of them would get any sleep tonight until they arrived.

“Jamie, they’re discharging Amelia, because since you’ll be staying on a Navy base, there will plenty of people to keep an eye on her” He looked up from Amelia to where her mother stood by the end of her bed and smiled slightly. He was so glad she was alright but couldn’t help blaming himself for what had happened, he should’ve been quicker to defend her, but it all happened so fast. “It’s not your fault hon, it was that stupid bitch and that weak arsehole of a boy- not you” She put her hand on his shoulder, a somewhat comforting gesture.

“I should’ve intervened before she had a chance to hit her” She shook her head.

“You shouldn’t have had to, and anyway, normally you wouldn’t need to; Amelia would’ve floored the girl” She smiled at her daughters distant face; the amount of medication they’d given her had put her in a drunken state. “The main thing is, she’s alright; and you never know, it might’ve knocked some sense into her, next time she might go for you rather than some other toss-pot like that Connor boy” By the time he’d registered what she’d just said to him, she’d left to go and sign the paper work to get Amelia discharged.