Watch Over Me

by Mila Gray

  In answer, the truck rams us again. We swerve across the road, and Tristan struggles to right the car.

  It’s my dad. The thought launches itself into my head with as much force as the truck ramming us. It has to be him. Who else would do this? I turn around in my seat and try to see out the window, but the dazzling glare of the truck’s headlights blinds me. “He’s still coming!” I cry as the headlights fill my vision.

  Tristan speeds up and manages to put us ahead of the truck. Tears streaming down my face, I scramble in my bag for my phone.

  Tristan’s gaze locks on the rearview mirror. “Shit,” he says.

  I look in the side mirror and see the truck roaring up behind us. I dial 911, my fingers shaking, but before I can press call, the phone goes flying out of my hands as we lift up in the air. The grinding crunch of metal fills my ears, along with my own screams.

  I clutch at the door and the seat in terror as we spin across the road, and all I’m aware of is Tristan yelling at me to hold on, struggling to keep control of the wheel. As he fights to stay on the road, the truck slams into us one more time. We spin across two lanes, down a ditch, and the last thing I see is Tristan wrenching the wheel hard to the right before we slam into a tree.

  For a while, all I can register is the tink-tink-tink of the engine and then the fact I’m lying at a slight angle. The car has come to a rest on a slope. The front windshield is smashed. In the distance, through the cracked glass, I see the lights of the truck disappearing over the horizon. Thank God.

  I turn to Tristan. “He’s gone,” I say, a sob bursting out of me.

  He doesn’t answer. I reach for him, feeling a twinge and a stiffness in my neck. I must have pulled a muscle or gotten whiplash from the crash, but I ignore it and reach over to shake Tristan’s arm. “Tristan?”

  He groans. His side of the car took the brunt of the crash. He turned the wheel deliberately, I realize, so he’d be on the side that hit the tree. His window is smashed and the door of the car crumpled.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him, starting to panic.

  He grunts, then turns to me, his face a grimace. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say. “I think it was my dad.”

  “Yeah,” Tristan says quietly.

  The thin sliver of moonlight coming through the shattered windshield bathes him in a milky glow, but I can make out a gash on his forehead that’s spilling blood down the side of his face. He wipes at it with his sleeve and then looks at it in surprise before touching his fingers to his head and wincing. He then notices something wrong with his other arm. I follow his gaze. His whole shirt is soaked through, the blue cotton now a deep purple color, sticking to his skin.

  “Oh my God,” I say, staring in horror at the blood. A shard of glass from the window or a piece of metal from the door has slashed his arm by the looks of things. Tristan looks too, then swallows. “It’s fine,” he says unconvincingly.

  I stare at him before frantically searching for my phone and am on the verge of hysteria by the time I finally find it under my seat. When I try to dial 911, nothing happens. “There’s no reception!” I cry in a panic.

  Tristan has his head shoved into the back of the headrest and is breathing deeply through gritted teeth.

  “We need to get to the hospital,” I say, but how? The road is deserted.

  “You need to help me stop the bleeding,” Tristan says.

  I turn my attention to his arm, ignoring the wave of dizziness I feel.

  “Do you have a scarf or something we can use as a tourniquet?”

  I shake my head.

  “Use my belt,” Tristan says.

  With shaking hands, I struggle to get it out of his belt loops. As I fight with it, Tristan starts talking. “A man’s in a car accident, and he really hurts his arm.”

  I glance his way, wondering if he’s lost so much blood he’s turning delirious. He’s gritting his teeth against the pain and is pale beneath the blood smearing his face, but he seems alert. “And the doctors take him into surgery,” he goes on, “and they tell his wife they’ll do their best.”

  I realize he’s telling a joke, and I laugh despite myself because the circumstances are so terrible, but I also know that he’s trying to distract himself from the pain by making me smile.

  “He gets out of surgery, and the doctors go and speak to the wife and they say, ‘Good news. We managed to save his arm.’ ”

  I’m finally able to tug the belt through the final loop and free it.

  “ ‘Bad news,’ ” Tristan continues through gritted teeth. “ ‘We didn’t manage to save the rest of him.’ ”

  “That’s not funny,” I say, crouching almost on top of him in order to tie the belt around his arm.

  He grimaces at me. “You’re laughing,” he says.

  I’m actually crying, but I don’t point that out to him. “Tell me what to do,” I say as I loop the belt and pull, trying not to focus on the blood soaking his shirt. There’s so much of it, my hands are sticky.

  “Tighter,” Tristan tells me. “Tight as you can go.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” I tell him, almost sobbing.

  “Well, then don’t break up with me ever again,” he says.

  “Stop joking,” I half sob, half laugh. I finish tying the belt. What now? We can’t stay here. He needs to get to the hospital. “Do you think the car will start?” I ask Tristan.

  Tristan reaches with his good hand and turns the key. The engine growls. “Yeah. The engine’s fine.”

  “You turned the car,” I say, “so you’d take the brunt of it.”

  He nods. “Don’t say I’m not a gentleman.” He tries to smile, but he’s gritting his teeth too hard, and it comes out as a grimace.

  “I’m going to climb over you,” I tell him. I scoot over onto his lap, and then he shunts himself over the gear stick into the passenger seat with some difficulty, even though I help him as much as I can.

  I put the car in reverse and press the gas, but the wheels just kick up dirt, and we don’t move.

  “Try again,” Tristan grunts.

  I nod and then try again, this time gunning it as hard as I can. The car lurches backward up the slope with a screeching sound as the side scrapes along the stand of trees.

  Once on the road, I floor it, one hand gripping Tristan’s, trying to will him to stay alert and awake. I talk to him, but he’s drifting in and out, and when I ask him to tell me another joke, he doesn’t answer.

  “Tristan!” I shout as his eyelids flutter. “Stay awake!”

  His eyes snap open, but he stares at me glassily, as though he doesn’t recognize me.

  “You told me you weren’t going to leave me ever. You promised.” I sob the words, and Tristan seems to hear them as his eyes fly open again and this time they fix on me. He sees me. Focuses on me hard, his breathing coming short and fast. I hold his gaze, willing him not to succumb as I grip his hand and force him to stay awake.

  Finally, I pull off the highway and drive to the nearest hospital, swerving up to the ER.

  “We’re here,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.” But when I look at him, his eyes are closed and he’s gone.

  TRISTAN

  Darkness presses in on me as though I’m sinking underwater, dark cold water. I feel Zoey’s hand grip mine and pull me back.

  “Stay awake,” Zoey says. “Stay with me.”

  I force my eyes open and smile at her. She looks so beautiful. I want to tell her how beautiful. She strokes my face. I try to speak, but my mouth won’t work. It’s as if my tongue is numb. My eyes start to droop again, my vision blurring.

  “Tristan,” someone says sharply. Not Zoey. He shouts something else, too, but I can’t make out the words.

  I can feel a coldness leaching up my arm as though it’s being dunked in dry ice. It flows up my arm, moving snakelike toward my throat.

  “Zo,” I start to say.

  She leans over me, te
ars glittering at the corner of her eyes. Why’s she crying?

  “Tristan!” she sobs.

  I try to reassure her I’m going to be okay, but then the darkness lunges up like a monster yawning and swallows me whole.

  ZOEY

  The doctors whisk Tristan away on the gurney, submerged in a tide of white coats, racing along beside him through the doors and into the ER.

  I try to follow, but I’m not allowed past a set of double doors, so instead I turn and give my details to the receptionist, then take a seat in the waiting room. I call Dahlia, who picks up and immediately jumps into action, telling me she’ll call their parents and be there within the hour, and then I call my mom, who doesn’t answer. Neither does Kate. Feeling anxious, unable to shake the sense of something terrible having happened to them, I text Robert. Next, I call the cops to report what’s happened, even though I have no confidence they’ll care or even do anything. They say they’ll send someone to take a statement from me at the hospital.

  I still don’t understand how my dad isn’t in jail. He broke the terms of his parole. The cops arrested him outside our apartment. Did they let him go and just not tell us?

  I know it was him who set my car on fire—it had to be—and I know it was him who tried to run us off the road and who’s done this to Tristan, but I can’t prove it. They’ll never put him in prison. He’ll be out forever, hunting me down wherever I go.

  As I dwell on this, a man and a woman walk over and stop in front of me. “Zoey?” one asks.

  I nod, gripping the sides of the seat. The woman flashes something in front of my face. A police badge. “Detective Roper,” she says. “This is my partner, Detective Fredericks.”

  They sent detectives? I was expecting someone in uniform. “Are you here to take my statement?” I ask. “Because I think it was my dad who ran us off the road. Is he out of prison?”

  They glance at each other. “Yes,” Detective Fredericks answers. “They tightened his parole, but he wasn’t required to serve more time.”

  If I weren’t sitting, I think I’d fall to the floor. It was him. I thought I’d been certain, but it isn’t until I hear it from their lips that I fully accept it was him.

  “Perhaps we can go somewhere more quiet?” the female detective says.

  I gesture at the ER. “I can’t leave. I need to be here. My boyfriend’s in surgery.”

  “We know,” the woman, Detective Roper, says. She’s about forty, with short black hair and kind eyes.

  “We need to talk to you urgently,” her partner says, and something about his tone and his expression pulls me up short, chills my blood.

  “What is it?” I ask, looking between them.

  “Let’s find somewhere quiet to chat,” the woman says, giving me a smile. It’s a fake smile.

  I follow them through endless white corridors, our heels squeaking on the linoleum tile, my mind blank. Something terrible has happened to my mom, or to Kate and Cole. I know it in the depths of my being. Why else would they be here? Why else would they need to talk to me? My feet drag, the voice in my head urging me to turn and run, run as fast as I can so I don’t have to hear whatever it is they are about to tell me.

  Somehow, though, I keep following them, and then somehow again I find myself in a room with brown carpeted floors, a sagging sofa, and a watercolor of sunflowers on the wall. I’m on the sofa, unsure how I sat down, and the two detectives are sitting opposite me, wearing expressions I can already read.

  “Has he hurt my mom?” I hear myself ask.

  Detective Roper takes a breath, pauses, and in that pause I live a million lifetimes.

  “He tried,” she says, reaching across the table to take my hand.

  “What?” I gasp, looking between them. What does that mean? I can’t breathe; I can’t think. The walls are closing in. Someone presses something into my hand. A plastic cup of water. They urge me to take a sip. I do. It rushes cold down my throat and settles me. I bow my head over my lap and take several deep breaths, trying to process everything, but nothing makes sense.

  Detective Roper is sitting beside me with her arm around me, and a nurse has appeared out of nowhere and sits on the other side, holding the cup of water.

  “What did he do?” I finally think to ask.

  “We think he tampered with the water heater. They were poisoned with carbon monoxide. Your mother’s boyfriend found them. Your mom was meant to meet up with him and didn’t show, so he went to the apartment. When he couldn’t get an answer, he broke the door down. They were lucky they were found when they were.”

  “Are they going to be okay?” I ask.

  “Yes, but they need to stay overnight.”

  I take that in. Tristan. My mom. Kate. Then I remember Cole. I look up in alarm. “Cole,” I say. “Where’s my brother?”

  The detectives exchange a look. They’ve clearly been anticipating this question. “We can’t find him.”

  I look between them in disbelief. “What?” I ask dully. “What do you mean?”

  “He wasn’t there when Robert found your mom and sister. His room was empty.”

  “Where is he?” I ask, getting to my feet, the ground unsteady and tilting beneath them.

  “We’re looking for him,” Detective Fredericks says. “There’s an Amber Alert out. We’ll find him.”

  “My dad,” I say. “He’s got him.”

  They exchange a glance. The man takes out a little notebook and a stubby pencil. “We need to ask you a few questions, Zoey, if that’s okay, about what happened.”

  “A truck ran us off the road. I think it was my dad driving—”

  Detective Roper interrupts. “Can you describe the truck, the color, the make? Do you remember the license?”

  I shake my head. “No. It was dark.”

  “We should be able to get the color of his truck from the paint that will have been left behind on your bumper. And if we’re lucky, the make and model too.” She nods at her partner, who gets up, pulling out his phone. “And we’ll be looking for a vehicle with a crushed bumper and damage to the front end.”

  But what if he’s ditched that vehicle? What if he’s already in Mexico? What if he’s done something to Cole, too? What if I lose my whole family, and Tristan?

  “We’re going to go and make some calls,” she says. “We’ll be right back.”

  I watch them go, feeling helpless and more alone than I ever have in my life. “What’s happened to Tristan?” I ask, turning to the nurse who’s stayed with me. “Is he going to be okay?”

  She pats my hand. “He’s still in surgery. I’ll get someone to find out and let us know as soon as he’s out of the operating room.”

  I nod, feeling frustration bubbling up. I want to burst into tears, but I can’t. I need to stay strong. “I want to see my mom and sister,” I say.

  She nods and walks me through the hospital’s endless corridors until we reach a room that says NO ENTRY on the door. There’s a window, and through it I can see my mom and Kate lying on beds.

  “Can I go in?” I ask.

  “I’m afraid you can’t. We have to wait outside,” the nurse tells me.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “It’s a hyperbaric chamber. It’s how we treat carbon monoxide poisoning. It helps draw the toxins out of the body. They’re going to be fine. Don’t worry. You’ll be able to speak to them soon.”

  I feel the tears sliding down my face. This is my fault. If I hadn’t taken the stand and been a witness for the prosecution, my dad wouldn’t have gone to jail, and if he hadn’t gone to jail, he wouldn’t blame me and he wouldn’t have taken it out on the people I love.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper out loud.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I turn around. Robert is standing there with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. The nurse smiles and leaves as I notice how tired and haggard Robert looks under the unforgiving lights, worry etched across his face. He sets his coffee cup down on a nearby table
and opens his arms. I fall into them, and he holds me tight, smelling of coffee and old-man aftershave. “It’s going to be okay, Zoey,” he says. “Your mom’s a fighter. She might not look it, but she is. That’s where you get it from.”

  I look at him, and my lip trembles. “I got Tristan hurt,” I tell him, sobbing.

  He shakes his head firmly at me. “No, your dad got Tristan hurt. You saved him.” He pauses. “Is he going to be okay?”

  I shrug, my limbs shaking. “He’s in surgery.”

  “Why don’t you go and wait for him? I think he’ll want you there when he comes around. I’ll stay with your mom and Kate. The doctor says it will be a while before they wake up.”

  I look at them uncertainly through the thick glass of the door.

  “Go on,” he urges. “I’ll keep an eye on them, let you know when they wake.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He nods and wipes my cheek with the back of his hand.

  TRISTAN

  My eyes hurt when I open them, but not as much as my arm, which feels as though someone’s had a go at hacking it off with a blunt saw before giving up halfway. I feel someone squeeze my hand, and I know before I open my eyes that it’s Zoey. I’d know that touch anywhere, can sense her presence even with my eyes shut.

  I force my eyes open and see her leaning over me, her eyes wide with worry.

  My mouth feels too dry to speak, so I reach my hand up to press the back of her head closer, and I kiss her instead. When she pulls back to look at me, I can see her eyes are wide with fear and red from crying.

  “Please don’t scare me like that ever again,” she says.

  I grin at her through the pain. “I promise,” I croak, then frown at her expression. There’s no relief, only angst. “What’s the matter?”

  “My mom and Kate,” she says, swallowing hard. “They’re here in the hospital too. My dad messed with the water heater, so there was a carbon monoxide leak.”

  I struggle to sit up. “Are they going to be okay?”

  She nods. “The nurse says they will be.”