The Sisters of Castle Stone

#9: Mr Teen Surf

Shock and sadness filled the atmosphere as Bethany began to blink. As she looked around, all that greeted her was destruction and shame. What had she done? Barely old enough to drink, yet still too young to drive, she knew she'd been stupid. She lay in the driver's seat, her head in the soft airbag. Blood dripped from a gash on her head, and covered the bag in a river of the red trail. Tiny fragments of glass littered her surroundings. She looked across at Charlotte. The young girl's head was back, her eyes stared up at the car's ceiling, and blood ran down her face from a deep gash above her eye.

"Charlotte... Charlotte..." Bethany spoke, her voice quieter than usual.

She reached forward and tapped her sister on the shoulder in a desperate attempt to wake her, but nothing. She placed her fingers against Charlotte's skin, but nothing. Her younger sister began to feel cold, getting closer by the minute. Bethany pulled off her denim jacket and wrapped it around her. She grabbed her phone and dialled 999. No way was she going to stay and watch the young girl's life just slip away. Charlotte was going to get through this, Charlotte had to get through this, she just had to.

"Come on, Char, open your eyes... Come on... stay with me. Stay with me..."

Charlotte's eyelids flickered

"Hey, sis..."

Charlotte let out a moan, but before long her eyes gradually began to close and darkness clouded her vision once more...

***

For several hours the girl slept, bleeping machines by her side desperately trying to keep her alive. Charlotte's eyes didn't flicker and her chest barely rose and fell. She lay in a hospital bed, a tube ran from her nose that kept her alive. Inside her weakened and silent body, her mind was awake with the most incredible dreams filling her subconscious. In her dream, she was at home, her real home back in Cambridgeshire, her family by her side and her friends all around her. She dreams of Christmas, a time usually spent half with her family, opening gifts and laughing at Dad's awful singing, and the evening, after Christmas dinner, at a friend's party.

Emily threw the most glorious Christmas parties at her foster father's house. They'd always have the biggest real Christmas tree almost ten feet high, decorated from trunk to tip in luxurious golden tinsel, huge glass baubles and pretty delicate hanging ornaments. Underneath presents galore, most of them wrapped in pinkish tones with the odd one or two in traditional paper, for John and Tom, Emily's foster fathers. Charlotte thought back to the previous party. She remembered her parents became stranded abroad during the festive week due to storms in the states, where they were visiting friends.

Mum and Dad were supposed to return by the eleventh of December, but by the twelfth, the storms had become life-threatening so the advice was to stay where they were for the rest of the week. Charlotte and her sisters remained in England with their grandmother, Dorothy and while she slept in the afternoon, the youngest of the Greyson girls was desperate for fun. She packed a small overnight bag and with Nana fast asleep, she hurried out of the house as the night fell. She ran down the road, her heavy bag banging against her back. She could see the glow and the flashing lights from inside her friend's house. Charlotte knocked on the door, but a tall young man about her age opened it. She looked at his chiselled jawline, and deep into his azure blue eyes. He ran his hand through his thick dark brown hair, sending shivers down her young spine.

"Hello?" He said as he looked down at the giggling girl standing on the doorstep.

"H, h, hi," Charlotte stammered, "is Emily in? I mean this is her house but you're not her. I mean, of course, you're hot... I mean you're not. You're a guy."

"Chad," the boy replied, "I'm Chad, Emily's boyfriend."

Boyfriend? Well, that was the first time Charlotte had heard any mention of him from her best friend. They weren't that close.