Lost Girl (Aston Creek High 2)

A flashlight is shone down here before a flurry of movement as they get back in their vehicles and haul ass down to the river bank. Headlights hit us just moments before the ambulance comes to a screeching stop on the pebbled shore.

“Help her,” I beg as tears stream down my face. I can’t lose her.

Too much time has passed.

The EMT’s come tearing toward me as four police cars fill the space around. Someone tries to barge me out of the way, wanting to take over but I won’t let him. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I beg. “I can’t stop. She’ll die.”

Her lips are blue. Why are her fucking lips blue?

“It’s okay. We’re here now,” someone responds way too calmly. What the fuck is that about? My girl is dying and they’re worried about trying to calm me?

“Don’t touch me.”

When I don’t move, a cop pushes down in front of me and tackles me out of the way. I scramble, trying to get back to my girl and when he clutches onto me, trying to hold me down, I nail him in the fucking jaw.

Two more cops rush in, trying to keep me pinned as Skylah is placed onto a stretcher and rushed away. I keep my eyes on her, refusing to look away as I focus on her chest, waiting anxiously for her to take a breath and cough up all the water drowning her lungs.

“LET ME GO. I NEED TO BE WITH HER.”

I kick at the guy holding me down and send an elbow back into the guy who’s attempting to restrain me. I scramble to my feet and rush after the EMTs, my eyes locked on the lifeless body on the stretcher.

Why won’t she breathe?

Sky is put up in the back of the ambulance and a guy instantly climbs on top of her, continuing chest compressions as the other works on strapping her down and making it safe.

They rush as fast as humanly possible and by the time I reach the back of the ambulance, the doors are being slammed shut in my face, locking me out as my girl fights for her life on the other side.

I grab the door and violently shake them as the tears continue staining my cheeks. “LET ME IN.”

The cops reach me and instantly take me down, jamming a knee against my spine as my hands are cuffed behind my back. “Calm down, Cruz,” someone from above me says, not surprisingly knowing my name. “It’s going to be alright, but you have to calm down.”

“I need to be with her.”

“We’ll take you to her, but you need to let them do their work,” the cop tells me as the ambulance pulls away. “We’ll follow behind. She’s getting the help she needs.”

My whole body sags, feeling completely useless as her lifeless body flashes in my mind, her empty eyes as the oxygen left her body, her desperate fight as she frantically tried to get free.

The trauma of the last fifteen minutes instantly catches up to me and my body sags against the cop as he tries to bring me to my feet. Sobs come tearing viciously from my throat and I know deep in my heart that I’ve lost her.

My girl is dead and it’s all my fault.

I couldn’t save her and that face is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.

The cops get me into the back of their cruiser and as the door closes, my head falls into my hands. She’s gone. She suffered through hell and she found her downfall just when she thought she was free.

The cops pile into the car and pull away, sirens on as the driver races after the ambulance. Someone leans over to me and unlocks the cuffs around my wrist. “There’s still hope, son. That girl is a fighter. She’s not gone yet.”

I don’t know if he’s right. I fucking hope he is, but I lost faith in a greater good years ago. How could she possibly come back from that?

I put the thought to the back of my mind. I can’t allow myself to have hope as when I realize that my worst nightmare is a reality, it’s only going to hurt that much more.

I have to prepare myself for the worst. When we get to that hospital, they’re going to tell me either one of two things. One, she didn’t make it, or two, she’s the fucking fighter that she keeps proving herself to be.

There are absolutely no guarantees right now except for one…

The next time I come face to face with Lucien Valentine, I’m going to fucking kill him and I don’t care if it costs me my life.