As I drag my feet down the dirt road, I notice the setting sun, and I hope the boys make it to me before I'm left in the dark.
"Alright, mate," says Axel. "We're five minutes away."
"Okay," I reply.
Realising I'm still walking and I've walked quiet far, I stop, standing in the middle of the road.
"You still doing alright?" he asks me.
"Yeah, I'm good." No, I'm not. My head throbs and every part of me aches. I turn and look back the way I came.
"Are you badly injured?"
"No, I'm fine. Just a few bumps and bruises."
At that exact moment, I notice a tickling sensation trailing down my right cheek, and when I reach up to see what it is, my fingers come in contact with something wet. I pull them away and stare at the red liquid coating the end of my fingers. My hand follows the trail up my face until it hits a spot on my hairline and I flinch away, groaning into the phone at the sudden pain.
"Somehow, I don't believe you," Axel says.
Wyatt, who sounds the furthest away, asks, "Should we call you an ambulance?"
"No," I reply. "I'm fine." I place my fingers back on the wound on my head. "Just get here." I wince at contact, but I don't pull away. My fingers feel around at the lump on my head that stands out like an elephant in a tree. There's no missing it.
"We're coming," says Jonah. "But we can't put your bones back together."
"I don't need you to," I tell him. "I'm fine."
The lump feels massive. I run my fingers around it.
"How many times are you going to tell us you're fine when you're clearly not?" Axel asks and I hear one chuckle from the background, and I assume it's Jonah.
"As many times..." I stupidly push down on the lump with my finger tips, and a strong pain shoots through my skull, forcing a groan out of me. "...as it takes," I continue, leaving the lump alone, "for me to believe it."
Not wanting to be on my feet any longer, I squat down to sit on the ground, groaning the entire way down.
"We're almost there, mate. Just hold on."
"I'm not dying," I say, although it certainly feels like it.
"You sound like you are," Jonah says.
Putting my head in my free hand and leaning my elbow onto my bent knees, I reply, "I'm fine."
Jonah gives me one short laugh but when he talks, his voice holds no joy. "Alright, buddy."
A silence fills the line. While I wait, I put the phone call on speaker and sit my phone on the ground. Slowly, I lower myself back until the rocks on the road dig into my back. I stare up at the darkening sky, watching the few clouds float across, and the several birds that soar above me.
I close my eyes, wanting the ache to stop but I know I won't be able to relax with the rocks in my back.
Their quiet voices come through the phone again. "It says he should be here somewhere."
YOU ARE READING
Her Only Hero
Mystery / ThrillerA teenage bad boy, with a hatred for his family, has to chase a stranger all over town to find and save his little sister who has been kidnapped. *** When Dorian leaves one morning despite his mother's orders, it's just another simple act of rebelli...
