I stood up and removed my hospital gown in the bathroom, replacing it with my sooty, torn couture masterpiece. Oh well. I walked with purpose out the double doors and into the lobby.
One foot in front of the other one, I deliberately avoided eye contact with the lobby and burst through the front doors of the ER. Just when my stomach was settling the worry Tom would find me, I heard his voice, making my heart jump into my throat.
“January?” he asked groggily. Not a word from me, brother.
I hailed a passing cab but he didn’t stop. Jerk.
“January, are you okay?” he asked.
I sighed. Loudly. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking,” I told him, an arm raised for an oncoming cab.
“Where are you going?” he asked, confused.
“As far away from you as I can get.”
“Shit,” he said under his breath. “January, please just hear me out. I-I’m an idiot.”
o;I don’t know! Help me find her!”
“I got out pretty early,” he told me as we weaved our way back through the gathering. “I didn’t see her come out, Tom.” His own voice was struck with fear she hadn’t come out.
“She’s here,” I told him confidently, desperately. “She has to be here.” I was trying so hard to hold on to that. My blood began to run cold as we reached the edge of people with no sign of January. “She’s here. She’s here.” I repeated over and over.
“Okay, okay,” Jason said, pacing the outside of the crowd. “We must have missed her. We had to have.”
My body began to shake in trepidation, in terror. I noticed a police cruiser nearby and ran to it. The back doors were open and I noticed a bullhorn sitting on the floorboard in front. I ran to the passenger’s side and opened the door, grabbing the horn. My trembling hands fumbled with the on switch and I numbly tried to work the buttons. I leaped onto the hood of the car and peered over the crowd.
“January!” I yelled as everyone’s shocked expressions turned my direction. “January MacLochlainn, are you there?!”
People began to search around themselves, searching for the name I’d just called out, but there was no answer and the dread began to run icy in my veins.
“January?” I asked them. “Please,” I begged as horror slowly thread through my words. “January, please. Please, answer me.”
But nothing.
My eyes searched rapidly but my body shuddered at the realization that she wasn’t there. The bullhorn slipped from my fingers, tumbling to the cobblestone below. Women surrounding the car drank in my shaking body and knew what the silent response meant. Many of their hands went to their mouths, a recognition of my supposed loss. The sight of their conclusions made me want to vomit. I jumped from the hood and ran smack into Jason who stood there, drawing the same conclusion of those around me.
“She just couldn’t hear me,” I told him.
“Of course,” he said, but his glassy eyes betrayed his words.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “She’s here. She’s here.”
“Tom,” he said quietly, placing his hand on my shoulder.
“No!” I said, throwing it off, but my body shut down and I was forced to drop to my knees. “She’s here. She’s got to be. She’s got to be.”
An ambulance blew by and the hope that’d been dying in my chest roared back to life.
“The hospital,” I told the ground.
“Come on,” Jason said, dragging me to my feet.
We ran up the block and hailed a passing cab. Jason told the driver to take us to the nearest hospital using his pocket translator. I was relieved we were moving but no matter how fast we were moving, it still wasn’t fast enough for me and I sat at the edge of my seat, hunched over the window, staring at the traffic ahead. My knee bounced at an ungodly pace.
I examined Jason’s face quickly, noting that neither of us seemed to have inhaled any smoke. Our mouths and noses were clear of black unlike a few I saw back at the club. I thanked God for small favors.
“She’s going to be there,” Jason said, reassuring me.