Flashback (19 page)

Afterwards, Dana could never say quite how or why, but she realised that her heightened emotion and tense concentration somehow clicked her into a higher awareness. She wasn’t sure how it happened, for she’d never experienced anything like it before.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness after the light and the noise from inside, she suddenly saw several things. A wave of antipathy hit her, along with unreasoning recklessness, and she saw Mick and his friend as they laughed drunkenly in his car. He reached forward and turned on the ignition, revving the engine far too much.

The sound came from her right. It was then that she realised with a jolt that she’d seen them with her mind and not her eyes. She turned, knowing where to look now, and the pieces of her own apprehension began to tilt into place with a frightful rapidity that galvanised her into action. Jenny had just made her way to the last car parked in the row by the street and was heading for the outside door, the driver’s side. She turned her hand to the floodlight’s glare, head bent, searching for the car key to unlock the door.

Mick was in the mood for excitement. The danger in him had built with the drink and the boredom, and now he was ready for some action, some kind of thrill. As he squealed out of the parking space down the street and to Jenny’s right, he saw what he could do.

Dana had divined his thought even as he thought it, and a scream of warning ripped from her throat as she leaped into a dead run from a standing still position. Her awareness fragmented into a triple awareness. She heard and felt herself, and the pull of the muscles in her legs as they responded to her punishing order. She saw Jenny’s head jerk up and turn her way, and then the other girl started to walk towards her worriedly. She saw David’s head jerk up also, though he was inside, and then he was roaring and sprinting for the door on the toes of his feet, just too far away to help. She saw and felt Mick’s assumption, a drunk’s assumption, that he was in control of the car as he shot it down the road toward Jenny. Jenny had come away clear from the car by now. Mick would give her a scare and himself a thrill, and after all, it was no big deal. Dana saw the car’s speed and knew he’d never stop it or swerve in time.

And she felt so gloriously alive, as the adrenalin pumped into her veins and heightened her awareness and speed. She felt every single breath that she sucked in, every pulse beat, every footfall on the pavement. She saw the harsh light and black darkness, and she saw David smash through the doors, making them slam against the walls, straining with everything inside of him to get to her. She saw Mick’s laughing, vivid face with her mind, saw it change into an expression of total horror as awareness hit too late. And she felt, as she raced, the utter sureness of her success.

She cannoned into Jenny with every ounce of her pelting, straining body, and shoved the other girl as violently as she could with both arms. Jenny was propelled backwards. Mick swerved to avoid them both, but he was swerving much too late, and as he had to yank the car to the left to avoid the parked cars to his right, he was bound to plough right into Dana. The metal thumped as he separated Dana from Jenny. The car didn’t stop even then, though Mick was frantically applying the brakes, and it careened into the second row of parked vehicles, scaring three badly before crunching to a stop.

And everything in the world was screaming: Dana was screaming as she knew the futility of attempting to throw herself out of the way. She’d put everything into her dash to push Jenny aside. And David was roaring with rage and terror as he watched the whole scene, so near and yet so irrevocably far away, sick with the knowledge that no matter how hard he was racing, he would never, ever be able to undo what was happening. And Jenny was screaming as the right bumper of the car knocked her stunningly away, and the car’s metal was screaming, and Mick was screaming, and it did no good as he hit Dana full on. She felt the blow right in her midsection, and it smashed the air totally out of her. She remembered that, as she tumbled through the air like a rag doll, hitting the ground with an appalling force and rolling over several times until she finally came to a halt some yards away from the scarred cars. Everything had seemed so strange as the world flashed, first the night air and then the ground and then the air and then the ground, in such a fast progression she felt as if she would never know what was down or up again.

She lay on her back, out of air and hurting inside so badly that she knew something had to be broken, somewhere. She couldn’t even moan, as she desperately tried and tried to suck in air, one arm flung helplessly out, her legs curled, head lolling to one side. She looked like a broken doll as she lay there, trying to gasp for breath. There were cries. Someone was screaming, and Dana knew it was Jenny. With a gigantic effort, she turned her head an inch or so and saw Jenny pick herself up from her fall. A solid bulk hurtled to her side. David knelt beside her, holding out both hands as if he wanted very badly to touch her but was afraid to, his face blank with shock, harsh bitten. She stared up at him, eyes wide and frightened, and something welled up in her throat to trickle down the side of her mouth, running down her cheek. She couldn’t breathe, labouring painfully.

David turned around and screamed at the people starting to run their way, his voice deep with the panic inside of him, “Someone call an ambulance! She’s very badly hurt! Damn it to hell,
hurry
!” He whirled back to Dana and touched her face with a violently trembling hand. “Oh, darling, oh, God.”

“Is she alive? Oh, please, is she?” Jenny was sobbing nearby. Dana wanted to turn her head to reassure her, but she couldn’t move anything anymore. She felt like a heavy piece of lead, like she was never going to move again.

“Yes,” he said curtly, and he started to very carefully press at her arms in order to see if either one was broken. People were shouting, crying out, and Dana vaguely realised that her mother was kneeling on her other side and saying something as Mrs. Bernstein supported her, but Dana had eyes only for David. She watched him reach up to his shoulder, a fast and impatient movement, and he ripped his shirt sleeve right off, taking the cloth and carefully wiping at the trickle of blood coming from her mouth. His fingers still trembled uncontrollably, and he knelt with his face down close to hers.

The adrenalin had stopped pumping. Something was wailing in the distance and getting louder, an inhuman sound, insistent. Dana still couldn’t breathe, but it no longer really mattered as she felt her awareness fuzz up around the edges. Her luminous eyes started to glaze. She no longer could see peripherally, but if she concentrated very hard she could still see David well enough, and the anguish in his eyes. It was ripping him apart she could see, and she knew that he was feeling her pain along with her. She knew how hellish that could be. She’d experienced it before, knew how it crippled, how it hurt. She felt herself go even fuzzier and she wondered what death would be like. She hoped it wouldn’t hurt too badly. At that thought, she remembered, for some strange reason, the dream of the knifing and smiled painfully at the memory. “You see,” she whispered soundlessly, lips moving with no air. Only he could hear her. Only he knew what she was saying. “I couldn’t save myself, either.” And out of pity for him and his tortured mind, she deliberately blocked off herself so that he wouldn’t feel any more pain, and as the awareness of what she’d done shuddered through him, she fell into darkness.

Chapter Ten

She’d been in the darkness for so long and she felt so heavy, it was time to let go. It was time to leave this heavy body. Everything was too dark and painful, she didn’t want any more pain. And so Dana pushed out of her body and started to float away. The darkness was receding, and she no longer felt pain. There was light up ahead, a gentle, golden light that made the darkness and the pain a thing of the past. She went towards that with a feeling of joy.

But then she heard someone call her from behind, from the darkness, and she automatically jerked to a halt to listen. It was a strange sort of call, a whisper really, nothing more, but it held her as surely as if it had been a manacle of steel. She resisted, straining for the light, but then she recognised the voice of the one calling her.

He was in pain, too. She grew puzzled, for she dimly remembered stopping that pain. Then she realised that it was the pain of fear and grief, and it was all for her. He was whispering a name over and over again, and with a jolt she realised that it was what her name used to be. Through the desperation ran a thread of exhaustion and hopelessness. He thought she was leaving for good. She attempted to tell him that she was not really dying but merely going to another place, but she found that she could not get him to hear. So she looked, from the light to the darkness, back and forth, in an agony of indecision. It would be so easy to slide away into that warmth and light up ahead. It would be so very easy. But she knew who was calling her now, and she remembered that she had once loved him. His pain and his grief were unnecessary. She turned her back to the light and went back down into the darkness, reluctantly. After all, she told herself, there was always time later on to go back. Someday, she knew, she would go to the light. And the darkness consumed her until she knew neither the darkness nor the light, nor anything of the man who sat by her side in a lone vigil.

When Dana opened her eyes, she became aware of two things simultaneously. She was staring up at something white, and she was covered all over with cotton. No, that wasn’t right, she thought, and she turned her head to look down at her body curiously. At least she thought she had turned her head to look at her body, but nothing had happened. She tried again and was astonished to find the simple movement of lifting her head incredibly hard. Sweat broke out on her forehead and her neck muscles strained before she was finally able to get her head off the pillow long enough to look down the length of her body.

Exhausted, she let her head fall back and pain lanced through it as she thought to herself, silly. There wasn’t any cotton down there. There were some strange lumps, but absolutely no cotton.

And someone came through the door just outside of her range of vision. She turned her head slightly to the left, and that too was such an effort that she had to close her eyes to rest. She felt her hand taken and held carefully, and the warmth of another human’s touch was such a pleasurable feeling, it made her smile. She opened her eyes and looked her love to her mother, who was bending over her with a tired, drawn face. When Denise saw her daughter look up and smile so sweetly, her eyes filled with tears, and she squeezed the hand that lay so limply in hers.

“I’m always…such a burden to you,” Dana whispered, and watched a tear fall. Her mother shook her head gently. “Jenny?”

Denise reached out and stroked her forehead with cool fingers. “Yes, Jenny’s fine. You pulled her out of the way in time.”

“Mick?”

“In jail for drunken driving and malicious conduct. Why are you asking about him? How are you feeling, darling? Are you in pain?”

Dana just smiled as she closed her eyes and the smile was one of compassion and sadness. “Poor boy…” she murmured, and slept.

Silence met her next awareness and she lay for some time with her eyes closed, drifting. Then she slid her hand over the top of the covers, feeling her fingers tremble from weakness, turning it over so that it lay with palm up, an invitation. A hand immediately closed over it, a large, calloused, masculine hand. David held hers as if it were something infinitely precious. A tear trembled at the corner of her eye and suddenly slipped away to soak into her hair. Another followed, and then another, for the cotton was no longer there, but the pain was and it jabbed throughout her whole body.

Something scraped, and David was stroking her head while lifting the hand he held and cradling it against his chest. Lips shaking, she whispered, “It would have been easier to go…”

“I know,” he whispered. “But don’t say it. You didn’t go, and now you no longer have the choice.” A long, silent pause, and then full of emotion, “Dana? Did you really want to go so very badly?”

Such a wealth of sorrow, she thought, and forced her eyelids open to stare at him. He seemed different somehow, tired, worried. “Not really,” she whispered, a mere thread of sound. Her eyes smiled at him for a moment and then closed. “I was just—very tired couldn’t handle the pain by myself…” She stopped and gathered her strength so that she could whisper, “I want to live.” Lips pressed against her forehead and again she slept.

A few days later, Dana was eating with help from one of the student nurses when her door opened and David again walked into the room. He’d visited every day, quite often for several hours at a time, reading to her, or talking and helping to pass away some of the time made tedious by pain and boredom. Dana carefully blanked out her mind, as she had for his past several visits, and she smiled at him lightly before taking a bite of vegetable.

He stood there and looked down at her silently for some time before finally saying, “Hello.” She mumbled a greeting around her mouthful, wrinkled her nose at him, and turned her head back to the student nurse. Her heart was thudding at a mad pace and her hands shook like they hadn’t for several days. David was waiting, just standing there quietly, and she knew he wasn’t waiting for the student nurse to finish.

After an eternity, during which her appetite had completely diminished, the nurse finally picked up her tray and left the room, and Dana was left alone with the silent, watching man who had perched himself on the wide hospital window sill. He was staring at her face, and she turned it away to look at the opposite wall.