Witches & Werewolves: A Sacred Oath (6 page)

Another impact reverberates with a metallic ping. I can tell the car has pierced the guardrail as I suddenly feel weightless. It’s like when they take astronauts up in a hollowed out 747 and descend sharply to give the feel of zero G.
 

But the feeling doesn’t last long. The car crashes down against the side of the ravine, slamming into a tree.
 

The crumpled car dangles above the ravine, wedged between the tree and the cliffside. I hang upside-down by my seatbelt, and my head fills with pressure as blood rushes into my skull—my temples pounding. The mangled metal creaks and groans with each gust of wind. Through the shattered windshield I can see the bottom of the ravine hundreds of feet below. I’m afraid to move. It feels like even the slightest shift of weight could send the teetering clump of rusty metal plummeting down.
 

I unbuckle my seatbelt, dropping to the roof—the car shifts, inching closer to oblivion. I realize something even more disturbing—my left leg is pinned between the dash and the seat. Even if I could get the crinkled passenger door open, I can’t get myself out of the car.
 

My heart is racing, and I start to sweat. I can move my leg, I just can’t get my foot out. Nothing really hurts right now, and that scares me a little bit. Has my body released so much adrenaline that I just don’t feel the pain yet? Panic and I don’t get along. My body shakes and my extremities tingle. The car slips a few inches, drawing ever closer to that inevitable instant when I will feel weightless once again.
 

I don’t really like the feeling. It reminds me of those rides at amusement parks. The ones where they strap you into a seat and drop you vertically, plummeting as fast as gravity can pull you. It always felt like your heart was sucked up into your throat as you screamed forty stories to the ground below. I imagine that’s what it would feel like to jump off a building, or a cliff—except the landing wouldn’t be quite as gentle.
 

My mind races through all the possible scenarios that could happen upon impact with the bottom of the ravine. What will be the thing that kills me? Will my chest get crushed against the dash? Maybe a trauma to the head? What if I survive and lay mangled in the wreckage for days until I die of dehydration? My head starts to spin as I work myself into a frenzy obsessing about my impending demise. The rust bucket groans and squeals. I’m convinced it’s going to slide away, plummeting below any second. Suddenly, the passenger door rips open, completely torn from it’s hinges. Ethan appears, jutting his head inside the car. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“My leg,” I say.

I stare at him in shock. Did he just tear the door from it’s hinges like it was paper?
 

Ethan leans into the car and I watch in disbelief as he pries the dash away, releasing my leg. His eyes burn with that same fire I saw in him back in the forest, when he was hovering over the bodies. He extends his hand to me and the instant I clasp it he pulls me from the wreckage. I watch the rust bucket tumble end over end crashing into a heap of metal at the bottom as Ethan whisks me up to the shoulder of the road. I feel like I’ve been airlifted away. The whole thing is surreal.
 

Ethan sets me gently on the ground, brushing the hair from my face with his soft hands. I gaze into his eyes and he smiles as he cradles my face with his hand. Gone are the days where you can just bat your eyelashes at a guy. Now it seems you practically have to kill yourself just to get a smile. It’s a smile I’ll accept, none the less. But it just doesn’t seem possible. How did he get to me so fast? How did he have the strength to pry open the door and the dash? How did he scale the side of the cliff with me in his arms so effortlessly?
 

Adrenaline?
 

It has got to be adrenaline. I’ve always heard stories of people exhibiting super human strength during a crisis. The body’s fear response kicks in. The adrenal glands pump cortisol and adrenaline into the blood stream, spiking blood pressure. Surging the heart rate. Allowing people to tap into these reserves of strength. They say we normally only access 65% of our muscles’ capacity. But in times of extreme stress we can reach near 100% of our maximum because of this chemical rush. We’ve all heard those stories of the father who was able to lift a car to free his son trapped underneath. There has to be a logical explanation.

The sound of a siren echoes off the mountainside, drawing near. I peel my eyes away from Ethan’s perfect face to see the driver of the logging truck climbing out of the toppled cab. He’s a portly guy wearing a red flannel shirt and orange baseball cap. He waddles to us through the maze of spilled logs. “Oh dear God, is she okay?”

CHAPTER 8

SOMETHING IS SERIOUSLY wrong. After waiting in the ER for over an hour, the chemical rush of the moment long since past, pain decides it’s time for a visit. My chest and hips are a horrific rainbow of colors. Red and raw from abrasions and deep bruising of purple and blue, ringed by a sickly yellowish green. But that’s not the worst of it. My leg throbs with that kind of deep pain you feel in your gut, and I know it’s broken. I’m just waiting for the doc to come back with the results of the X-ray to tell me how bad. And what type of fashionable leg accessory I’ll be wearing while it heals. At least it’s not a compound fracture—the kind where the bone breaks and punctures the skin—those are grizzly. I shiver just thinking about it.
 

All things considered, I can’t complain. This whole thing could have gone so many ways of wrong that my mind just spins at the possibilities. What if Noah had been with me? The thought is mortifying. I’ll take a broken leg and some bruises any day. But I feel so stupid for getting myself in this position. If I’d have paid more attention and not forgotten my math book, this would have never happened. I should have cleaned the windshield better. I shouldn’t really have been driving in the first place with those worn out wiper blades. I don’t think I was speeding, but maybe I should have been driving slower? My brain swirls to the point of nausea as I second guess myself to no end.
 

My stomach sinks even farther. I’ve destroyed uncle Jake’s only method of transportation. As unsightly as it was, it got the job done. I wonder if he’s going to be pissed? I would be. I mean, here’s a guy who has two kids dropped in his lap that he’s got to take care of, and I don’t know how he really feels about that. I don’t know if he likes us, or hates us? Is he resentful that he’s stuck with his brother’s kids after they had a falling out? Does he feel duty bound and is just doing this out of some strange sense of obligation?

Another half hour passes. The doctor bounds in telling me the CT scan is ok, and he doesn’t see any major issues other than my fractured fibula. I’ll be wearing a boot for at least the next six weeks.
 

“Your boyfriend can come and wait in the room with you, if you’d like?” the doctor says.

“Boyfriend?” I ask.

“He’s out in the waiting room.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Oh, well, he rode in the ambulance with you. I assumed…”

“He did?”

“It’s ok,” the doctor chuckles. “You were quite dazed when they brought you in here. You were probably in a little shock. Do you want me to send him back? He’s been asking to see you?”

But before I can object, the doc darts out of the room and Ethan appears within moments, poking his head through the doorway.

“So, they tell me you’re going to live,” he says, with a sparkling smile.
 

“Well, I won’t be dancing anytime soon.”

“As long as they don’t let you drive.”
 

“Hey!” I object. “My driving is just fine.”

“Okay. If you say so,” he says.

There is an awkward silence and we just stare at each other for a moment. Then I realize that I look like a train wreck. I’m sitting here in this pale green hospital gown, the kind that you can never really fasten in the back. My hair is frazzled, my mascara is probably running. Suddenly, I feel my face flush with embarrassment, and I become self conscious.

“How did you…?” I ask.
 

“I saw the truck topple. Then I saw you do your little acrobatic trick. It was just lucky I came along when I did,” Ethan says.
 

“You ripped the door off it’s hinges.”

“Sorry. I’d offer to fix it, but—”

“I don’t care about the door. How?”

“Well, they just don’t make cars like they used too,” Ethan says.

I huff. “I suppose that’s how you were able to pry apart the dash?”

“No offense, but that car was kind of crappy. It was falling apart.”

Ugh. I’m so frustrated. He’s dodging. I know he knows what I’m getting at. “Let me see your hand.”

Ethan’s eyes squint at me. I see him contemplating this in his mind before he finally extends his arm.
 

“No. The other hand,” I say.

He raises an eyebrow and shows me his hand that I spilled the silver nitrate on. My mouth drops when I see it. It’s perfectly smooth. No discoloration like Mr. Fischer said there would be. No burn or scar, despite the fact that I heard his skin fry when the silver nitrate made contact. I stare in disbelief, taking his hand in mine, examining it. My stomach flutters ever so slightly when I touch his immaculate skin—his warm, strong grip. My hand fits in his arched palm naturally, as if it belongs there. It's comforting.

“Lemon juice,” he says. “I watched a video online. I guess I was able to wash it off before it had chance to absorb into the skin.”

I roll my eyes and give him a look. “Fine, if you want to keep playing this game, we’ll keep playing.” I let go of his hand and cross my arms.
 

“What game?” he smirks. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?”

I grit my teeth and let out a grumble. Before I can plot my next plan of inquiry, uncle Jake stumbles into the room and Noah barrels to me, almost taking out an IV stand. He wraps me in a hug so tight it’s hard to breathe.
 

“I’ll leave you alone with your family. See you at school,” Ethan says, slipping out of the room.

My mind is racing in a million different ways. I can’t get the words out to thank him before he leaves. And a simple thank you seems woefully inadequate.
 

I look at Jake, trying to read him—I’m a little nervous about how he will react. “Are you mad?”

“Hell yes! They took my beer away.” Jake immediately pulls a shiny silver flask from his back pocket and takes a swig. “They didn’t get this, though.”

“You didn’t drive with Noah drunk, did you?”

“Noah ain’t been drinking.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Maddie, how am I going to drive when my car’s at the bottom of Wolf Canyon? Dean Miller ran us down here when I got the news.”

Jake starts to rummage through the drawers and cabinets in the room.
 

“So, you’re not mad?” I ask.

“If you’d have gotten hurt, then I’d be real pissed. I made a promise to your father a long time ago that I’d look out for you if anything ever happened. I may not have much, but one thing I’ve got is my word. We’re family, and family’s gotta stick together,” Jake says.

Jake may be a drunk, but his heart’s in the right place. I can see it in his eyes, even though he tries to hide it, that having these unreconciled differences with my father has taken a toll. I don’t know what happened, but it’s clear to me that Jake has lived with this pain since their falling out. Which has been compounded by the loss of my parents and the inability to ever set things straight.
 

Drawers squeal open and slam shut. I think Jake has gone through every inch of the room.
 

“What are you looking for?” I ask.

“We’re in an emergency room. They’ve got the good stuff in here,” Jake says.

“Good stuff?”
 

“Every now and then you can score some pain meds. Maybe some morphine sulfate.”

I just shake my head. How is it that I have to be the adult here? Sometimes I think the universe sent us here to take care of uncle Jake, instead of the other way around.
 

Another few hours, and I’m finally ready to be discharged. Jake is already trying to con me out of some of the Vicodin I’ve been prescribed. Fully booted, I hobble out of the ER, and we all catch a cab back to uncle Jake’s place, or
Camelot
as he calls it. A man’s home is his castle, and all that.
 

The waxing moon cascades a bluish glow across the mountainside as we wind our way through the evergreens. It’s one of those nights where the moon is so bright, you could probably drive without headlights. A few more days and it will be full.
 

The cab drops us off at uncle Jake’s castle, and I hobble with crutches to the door. Even in my current condition, I think I can walk better than Jake, who lists from side to side as he ambles into the mobile home. I look back over my shoulder at the cab driving away, and the magnitude of my current situation hits me. My already lacking transportation options have dropped to zero. I can count on Jen for social gatherings, that’s for sure. I’m certain she’ll pick me up for school in the morning, but there is only so much that can be reasonably expected. Being my personal driver just isn’t in her job description.