Salvation (24 page)

Mrs. Villetti hurried her forward. “Girls, you go to the
waiting room,” she said, pointing to a sign down the hall. “I’ll ask for information at the front window.”

Beth’s gaze shot to the man behind the lined glass.
He knows. He has to know.

Ni took her best friend’s arm and pulled her down the hall, toward a sign.

Beth halted before reaching it. There were voices coming from the waiting room—voices in Spanish wrenched with sobs.

Beth could no longer walk.

Ni’s fingers tightened on her friend’s arm and pulled her through the doorway.

The sobs grew louder. A Latina woman huddled in the corner, her torso bent, grief shattering her bowed figure. A younger woman had her arms wrapped around the first, dark hair obscuring half her own face.

But that face was familiar.
Salva’s older sister.

Beth’s body went numb.

Along the wall stood Mr. Resendez. Stiff. And stalwart. There were no tears on his cheeks.

“Beth.” A hand closed on her shoulder.

She jumped, fear ripping through her chest.

Luka stood beside her. “It wasn’t him,” he said, shaking his head. “It was Char.”

Char?

“There were three of them in the convertible. Pepe, Salva, and Char. The guys are in critical—”

Then a wild scream came from the hall, the female voice shredding Beth’s fragile soul.

“No!” Pepe’s mother tore into the waiting room, her blond hair in disarray, her body vibrating. A man in a nurse’s uniform followed. He tried to pull her back, but she yanked away, screaming again, this time right at Salva’s father. “I’ll press charges! Your son killed
my
boy! Her daughter”—she pointed at the sobbing woman—“and my son! If Salva ever comes out of that ER, I’ll see he’s convicted of manslaughter!”

Mr. Resendez didn’t move. Didn’t argue. Didn’t try to apologize.

“Ma’am, please!” The nurse was begging. “These people are all suffering.”

But Beth didn’t hear what else was said. She lost her balance and sank, her back against the wall, to the floor. Her entire body began to shake as she closed her eyes.

Salva was alive.

Time had no meaning. Beth’s inner clock noted only the entrances and exits of the people in the waiting room. Pepe’s mother had gone, leaving the implications of her tirade. Mrs. Villetti entered to confirm that Salva’s condition was critical. Char’s mother departed, her trembling form sheltered by the protective arm of Lucia, who went with her.

Then Tosa arrived, sinking to the floor at Beth’s side, his eyes rimmed in red, his arms limp, his face drawn. He looked exactly as Beth felt.

“Did…did you see them tonight?” she managed.

He groaned, raising his hands to the sides of his head. “Babysitting. Didn’t see any of them.” He slumped farther down. “My mother calls that luck.” His reddened gaze looked into Beth’s, and she knew neither of them felt any gratitude for not being in that car.

After that, there was only silence between them.

He disappeared without her even noting his exit.

Her mind swam with grim questions. Had Salva’s spine been shattered? Were his organs shutting down? Was he brain-dead?

A hand gently shook her shoulder. “It’s time to go home,” said Mrs. Villetti. “You need sleep.”

Sleep?
Beth stood but only to sink onto a hard bench. She couldn’t sleep. If she did, she might wake to find Salva dead. Beth leaned her head against the wall and let Mrs. Villetti’s words roll past her.

At last the woman gave up, departing with her daughter and Luka.

Which left only the stiff, silent figure of Mr. Resendez, across the room. But Beth clung to the presence of the man who hated her. As long as he was here, she knew Salva was alive.

Strangers drifted in, no doubt with their own tragedies and concerns. They stood. They paced. They left.

Then another group of strangers. And another.

Eventually, Lucia returned. She also sat across the room, next to her father, a Bible gripped in her hands. Her lips moved, reading out loud.

Beth closed her eyes and began her own hundredth prayer.

Which her mother annihilated.

“Beth Courant!” The woman swept into the room, the ties of her shapeless cleaning uniform hanging loose, the collar flipped in the wrong direction. “It’s seven
A.M.
” Her eyes pinned her daughter’s, and her feet closed the gap. Then she seemed to
take in the fact that she had an audience.
Every
set of eyes in the room was watching. Even Mr. Resendez’s hazy stare. Ms. Courant lowered her voice. “Have you eaten anything?”

Beth hadn’t even thought about hunger.

Her mother’s voice rose. “You know I can’t afford to have you end up as a patient at this hospital.”

You think this is about money?
Beth tugged her legs up on the bench and wrapped her arms around her knees.

“Young lady, I have work in less than an hour.”

So go to work.

“I am not your own personal taxi service.”

Oh, so now you think this is about your schedule?
Beth hugged her knees tighter.

“You get up and get in that car!”

Beth wasn’t moving.

Her mother’s eyes flew toward the exit, then back. “I don’t even know who this boy—”

“I’m staying.”

Her mother reached for Beth’s wrist. “I do not have time for this. You’re getting in that car if I have to pull one of the cops from the entrance to drag you out!”

Beth stood. If her mother was determined to have this argument, they would have it. “You want to know who Salva is?!” She shook off her mother’s grip. “He’s the one person who’s been there for me all year, when Ni was too busy with her boyfriend and you were out at your meetings or taking
classes or cleaning the hotel all week so you could come back and bitch about how worthless I am.
He’s
the one who actually thinks I’m worth something. Who cares about what I want. Who thinks I deserve to go to Stanford. Who listens!” Emotion pulsed through Beth’s body at the chance of release. “So if you want to yell at me, that’s fine. But I’m not leaving until I know he’s all right!”

Her mother backed away, turned, and stumbled around a man in the doorway as she exited from the room.

A man in a long white doctor’s coat.

He stepped toward Salva’s father, who was still staring, eyebrows furrowed, at Beth.

“Mr. Resendez”—the doctor’s tone was solemn—“I need to speak with you.”

The screaming in the convertible didn’t stop. Salva’s own voice had relinquished its volume, but his ears still rang with a scream.
Pepe’s,
he realized.

He called out his best friend’s name.

Only the scream. No other response.

And Char? Why couldn’t he hear Char?

We still have to get out,
Salva thought. The pain didn’t matter. He had to get out of this car before the gasoline…

Salva knew he couldn’t put any pressure on his leg. There was just no way. But the door was open, and he didn’t have to climb to get to the ground. If he could just get past the pain.

The scream grew louder.

And that was enough. The voice. The agony.

Salva forced himself to fall.

There was nothing after that. Only the shrill fire of sensation. He had no idea how long he lay there. Before he saw the body.

A shadow. But he knew it was Char. Had to be. She must have been thrown from the vehicle.

She wasn’t screaming.

The pain that had made it impossible to move before now became nothing, a separate entity blocked off. She was fewer than six feet away. He could make that. He could crawl.

Using only his arms, he pulled himself up toward her legs. They didn’t even look injured. But she wasn’t moving.

He hauled himself toward her chest.

Still no movement. His eyes had adjusted to the dark, and he could see the insignia on her T-shirt, but no blood.

Again he hauled himself forward.

Her face—there wasn’t any blood on her face either. Maybe she was just unconscious. He propped himself on one of his elbows, then reached to touch her throat. Couldn’t find her pulse. Or hear her breath. But that didn’t mean anything. He’d barely been able to feel the door latch when he’d pulled it. His fingers slid to her cheeks and around her ears, across her hair. To the back of her head.

And then he knew. He knew she was dead.

Because he was holding her brain in his hands.

Salva woke to the headlights, burning his eyes. He flinched, and felt his mind explode. An electronic noise pulsed within his brain.
Beep, beep, beep.
It clashed with the screaming—the screams that had been Pepe’s. Until they had stopped.

The lights withdrew, turning to a single tiny bulb. Then a stranger’s voice. “Can you tell me your name?”

What a stupid question.
Salva groaned. His scalded eyes took in a long silver stand, with tubes. The hospital.
Not this nightmare as well.

A figure in a white coat was leaning over him. “Salvador, can you squeeze my hand?”

Another stupid question. It was his leg that felt like shit.

He closed his eyes, prepared for the accident to return.

Beep. Beep. Beep.
The noise refused to stop, like an ambulance backing up. He didn’t want it. Didn’t want that sound.

A second voice. “Salvador, can you tell me what year it is?”

The end.
Of everything.

“I need you to respond.”

He didn’t want to respond—didn’t have the right. He belonged in the nightmare. But the voices sliced over him.

“I don’t know. There was nothing in the CT, but I don’t like that he’s not talking.”

“You wouldn’t be talking either if you were on the drugs he’s on.”

“You don’t think we should wait?”

“How long? That leg is messed up.”

“I don’t like to put him under if he was out for concussion.”

“Not concussion. Shock. His pressure was trashed. The kid is strong. I still can’t believe he was out of that car.”

“I don’t want to take him into surgery if—”

Surgery?
The word ripped through Salva’s charred brain. They thought they were going to fix him? He didn’t deserve to be fixed.

His eyes closed, and he returned to the convertible.

The darkness locked him in. He could hear the screams, feel the blood. His hand slipped off the door latch again. Trapped.

His father’s voice interfered, a cascade of Spanish.
“Por favor, dame tu perdón.”

Why would
Papá
need forgiveness? Salva rolled his head away.

“He will not talk to me.” The voice switched to English. “We had a fight.”
A fight?
That had come before Salva had forfeited the right to speak.
Papá
continued, “Maybe his sister.”

Don’t—

They let in Lucia. Her voice flowed past Salva, around him, beyond.

Again he fell into the crash. In the dark. With the scream. Reaching for the door.

“Beth.”

The name severed the sequence.

“She’s his girlfriend,” Lucia was saying. “Maybe if she came in—”

No!
Not
her
. Of all people, Salva could never see Beth again. He forced out the word. “No.”

“That’s it,” said one of the voices. “Prep him for surgery.”

Night had fallen by the time Beth returned to the trailer. Ni had come for her and driven her home, though neither of them had much to say. Beth still didn’t know any details. The doctors spoke only to family, but Salva had been moved to intensive care. Which meant she had had to leave the hospital overnight.

His status had been upgraded from critical to guarded, and that news would have to carry her.

She opened the screen door. To darkness.

“Sit down.” The voice came from the shadows.

As her eyes adjusted, they took in a still figure on the far end of the couch. The telling sound of ice clinked against glass.

Stiffly, Beth moved to the empty end and sat.

The shape of a scotch glass lifted from the edge of the couch to Ms. Courant’s lips. “I spoke with your teacher, Ms. Mercy, today.”

Who?
Then Beth realized her mother meant the Mercenary.

Again the ice clinked. “She called to ask about you.”

A chill ran along Beth’s shoulders.

“She says this young man, Salvador, is quite extraordinary.” The ice began to rattle. “Almost worthy of dating my daughter.”

What?

“Apparently, Ms. Mercy feels you are the most exceptional student she has ever taught.”

Why are you doing this?

“She says this Salvador is taking the hardest classes at Liberty. That he is first in line to become valedictorian. And that everyone in the school is aware of how much he cares about you.” The rattling of the ice continued. “I guess if the entire school knows about your relationship, and I don’t, then…that must be my fault.” Ms. Courant offered her daughter the scotch glass.

And Beth took it, desperate to stop the rattling. She sniffed the remnants of the liquid.
Nothing.

Her mother’s voice shook. “I know I haven’t been home much
this year. That we haven’t…I haven’t been here for you. And I’d like to claim it’s because I was trying to pull things together, but the truth is…you’ve always done so well without me, I didn’t want to mess that up.”

Beth took a sip from the glass.
Water?

Her mother sighed. “My father told me a long time ago that I would never amount to anything, and I seem to have proven him right.”

Another swallow. It was
really
water.

A trembling hand stretched across the open space on the couch, then pulled back. “I should have told you,” Ms. Courant continued, “how
proud
I am of you. And if I have made you feel worthless, then that is
my
fault. Not yours. You are my
daughter
. You always put your heart into everything you do. You always put others first, and today”—the voice broke—“I should have seen…I should have seen that that’s what you were doing, but when Mrs. Villetti came over this morning and told me she had left you at the hospital, I was so scared…I wanted to hit her. Because how could she leave my daughter alone to deal with something like this? And I knew it was really my fault because
I
should have been the one who was there for you, and I didn’t know how to be.”