by Cheree Alsop
Uncle Rick laughed. It wasn’t a little laugh; it was a grab-your-belly-because-it-hurts-so-bad laugh. The Ashbys joined in with their father, and soon even Mom and Dr. Carrison were laughing. I remembered my ribs and settled for smiling and feeling more like myself than I had in a very long time.
Dr. Carrison tied one last knot, then snipped the thread. “Done.” He stood and surveyed my chart. “You have two broken ribs. The rest are bruised and will probably bother you just as much as the broken ones. Unfortunately, there’s really nothing we can do for them besides pain medication; they’ll just have to heal on their own. You have a mild concussion, so take it easy. You can ice the back of your head if it bothers you.” He met my mother’s worried gaze. “He should be fine, but wake him up every four hours this first night just to make sure he’s doing all right. If he starts acting strange or is hard to awaken, give me a call.”
“He jumped through a window on a motorcycle. Is that strange?” Cole asked innocently. Aunt Lauren escorted him from the room.
Dr. Carrison gave me a stern look. “Take it easy. No Black Rider stuff until you’re healed. Do you understand?”
I fought back a smile at the tone he probably reserved for little kids who jumped off bookshelves. “Yes, Doctor.”
“What Black Rider stuff?” Mom asked.
“There’s a bit we need to fill you in on,” Uncle Rick replied. “For starters, we’ll meet Kelson in the truck. There are a bunch of people in the waiting room who want to thank him, and we don’t want them linking the Black Rider to us for obvious reasons.”
Mom looked confused. “What reasons?”
“If he wants to ride again,” Uncle Rick said. He threw me a look and I couldn’t help but smile at the approval on his face.
“Won’t they recognize the truck?” Mom asked.
Everyone laughed. At Mom’s lost expression, I put a hand on her arm. “There are so many trucks in Sparrow, no one could keep track. Once I reach the truck, we’ll be in the clear.”
Uncle Rick put an arm around her shoulders and led her away. She looked back at me. “I don’t understand. What did he do?”
“You’ll see,” Uncle Rick said mysteriously. “Your boy’s been up to a lot more out here than anyone knew.”
The family piled out after them. “Do you need help?” Madelyn asked.
Her dad waited quietly by the door. I glanced at the wheelchair the short-haired nurse had stubbornly brought back and shook my head. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tonight.”
Madelyn shook her head firmly. “You need your rest tonight. I’ll come over and visit you tomorrow.” She looked back at her father. “If that’s okay.”
He gave her a warm smile, the first true smile I had ever seen on his face. “I assumed you would. Your mother and I could use a few more evenings to ourselves anyway.” Her father saw the worry in her eyes and lowered his voice. “We could have been killed today. I’m not going to throw away the evenings I could spend with your mother by drinking. Things are going to get better, I promise.”
Madelyn gave my hand one last squeeze, then crossed to her father’s side and hugged him. He hesitated, then put his arms around her and held her tight for a second. “Let’s go home,” he said quietly. She nodded and they walked to the door. Mr. West paused and met my gaze. “Thank you, Kelson. I owe you more than I can say.”
When everyone was gone, Dr. Carrison handed me my helmet. “Time for the Black Rider to make an exit.”
He helped me into my riding clothes and fastened my helmet under my chin because it hurt to raise my arms that high. The black jacket was peppered with bullet holes, reminding me how lucky I had been. I definitely owed Jagger a big thank you.
“The rib pain will let up eventually; practice deep breathing whenever you can,” Dr. Carrison said as he helped me to my feet.
I wavered, then gritted my teeth and straightened, letting him go.
“You ready?” he asked. There was an air of respect in his voice.
I nodded. “Thanks, Doc.”
He grinned. “Too bad Martin doesn’t know what he’s missing out on. This would have been the story of a lifetime.”
“I’m sure he’s busy writing about my epic flight through the window.” I grimaced beneath the helmet. “Crashing to the ground wasn’t nearly so heroic.”
“I’m sure he’ll twist it in your favor,” Dr. Carrison replied with a chuckle. He opened the door and I walked slowly down the hall toward the emergency room waiting area. My ribs hurt with every step, but I kept my jaw clenched and my head high. No one needed to know the Black Rider had been hurt, though the visit to the emergency room was a bit conspicuous.
“He’s coming,” a girl with blonde hair braided into pigtails said.
A crowd surged forward, despite nurses fighting to keep them back. I glanced at Dr. Carrison. He grinned. “You asked for it.”
“Too late to reconsider?” I joked.
He chuckled and motioned for me to go on alone. I glanced at my reflection in one of the windows along the hall. The black uniform and flat black helmet looked imposing and formidable. The dark-tinted visor hid my face. The Black Rider walked once more; the pains of the boy hidden underneath no longer mattered in the faces of hope and gratitude that smiled and cheered down the hall.
Hands stretched out to meet me. I shook as many as I could reach. Joe from the convenience store was there, and when I shook his hand, he pulled me close and said, “Now you’ve figured it out.” He slapped me on the back and I hid a wince.
“Thank you, thank you,” a lady in a pale-blue dress said. “You saved our lives.”
“That was so brave,” a man I recognized from the Sparrow grocery store said as he shook my hand in a tight grip.
A woman with long black hair and pleading eyes hurried through the crowd. “Please, Black Rider. Can I ask you a favor?” She looked down when I turned in her direction, but the citizens around her nudged her forward. “It—it’s my son. He was shot at the fair and they’re taking him in for surgery, but he’s so scared. I know it would help him if he could talk to you. He looks up to you so much.”
“I would be glad to,” I said. I was grateful the helmet muffled my voice so she wouldn’t hear how emotional her plea made me. I really shouldn’t be left alone in crowds after a concussion.
The people in the waiting area gave way and I followed her to a room just down the hall. A doctor was there checking the bandages around a little boy’s arm while a nurse put in an I.V. When the doctor looked up and saw who entered, his eyes narrowed. “What’s this?” he demanded.
“It’s all right,” Dr. Carrison cut in. I hadn’t realized he had followed us. “I can vouch for him. He’s here to talk to your patient before his surgery.”
“You know that’s against policy,” the doctor pointed out.
Dr. Carrison stopped him with a look. “Judd, can it. This is important.” The doctor shut his mouth, but didn’t look happy about it.
The small boy, about eight or nine years old, tipped his head to see me. When he did, his eyes widened and a smile spread across his pain-pinched face. “You’re the Black Rider,” he breathed.
I nodded and crossed to the opposite side of the bed from where the doctor watched me suspiciously. “I am. I heard there was a brave little boy in here who I needed to see. Are you worried about going into surgery?”
He nodded, his eyebrows forming a little worried crease between them.
I knelt by the bed so we were eye to eye, or at least so we were eye to visor. “I just got my shoulder stitched up. Want to see?”
He nodded eagerly.
I unzipped my jacket, revealing my bruised chest and bandaged shoulder. The boy’s mom put a hand to her mouth, and even the other doctor stopped glaring at me. “See,” I said. I gestured toward Dr. Carrison. “My doctor took good care of me, and the surgery wasn’t bad at all. I’ll heal much better now. You need to have your surgery so you can get well too.”
He nodde
d, but I could still see the fear in his eyes. “What’s your name?”
“M—Mark,” he said.
I nodded. “Mark, you’re a brave boy. Not many boys can say they were brave enough to go through surgery, especially when it involves bullets. You’re going to have quite the story to tell the kids at school. That’s pretty awesome, don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes lighting with excitement. “I can tell Jason and Ryan.”
“They’ll think it’s cool,” I said.
He nodded. “But not as cool as meeting you. They’ll never believe me.”
“I could take a picture,” his mom suggested with hope in her voice.
I looked at Dr. Carrison. He nodded encouragingly.
“Let’s do it,” I said. Mark sat up as much as his doctor would let him and I put an arm around his shoulders. He grinned up at me, then turned to his mom as she fumbled with the camera on her phone. A few seconds later, the flash went off.
I rose. “You hang in there, Mark. Be brave and you’ll be back home soon. Can you do that for me?”
“I will,” he said, sounding more confident.
I held out a fist and he bumped it with his own. “You’re a brave kid. Thanks for showing me how tough you can be.”
“Bye, Black Rider,” he said. “Thanks for the picture.”
I waved and left through the door.
“That was a nice thing to do,” Dr. Carrison said as he walked with me back up the hall toward the crowd.
“You think Martin’s going to get that picture?”
“Probably,” the doctor replied with a laugh. “My brother has connections even I don’t know about.”
“Tell me about it,” I replied wryly.
“Oh, you might want to zip up your jacket.”
I looked down and realized I hadn’t zipped it since showing Mark my shoulder.
“Is it too late to go back and get another picture?”
Dr. Carrison laughed again. “And keep your audience waiting?”
“Don’t you have patients to attend to?” I asked sarcastically.
He grinned. “I do, but you’re too much fun to hang around with. You should come back sometime without bullet holes, bruises, or wounds that need stitching. I’ll take you to dinner at my house. Martin would be thrilled.”
I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see them. “Thanks,” I replied dryly. He chuckled.
The crowd in the waiting room noticed us and hurried over. Dr. Carrison stopped me with a hand on my arm. “But really, man, thanks for what you did and for being such a stand-up guy. Martin really doesn’t exaggerate that much. I knew from the beginning that you were trying to help Sparrow, but you’ve gone far above and beyond what I thought one person could do.”
He held out his hand and I shook it. “Thanks for patching me up.”
“Anytime,” he replied. “But try to space it out a little bit more.”
“Deal,” I said before the crowd enveloped me back in its grasp.
The doctor found me fifteen minutes later still in the waiting room with grateful patients and families.
“All right; it’s time for the Black Rider to go home. He’s under my orders to get some rest,” he told them.
He tipped his head toward mine. “There’s a crowd of reporters waiting in the front. I’ll get you out a side door,” he said in an undertone.
“I appreciate it,” I replied gratefully.
He swiped a keycard at a door and escorted me outside. From our position, I could see a swarm of reporters and news vans ringing the front of the hospital. “The Black Rider drew the gunfire to himself, preventing any fatalities in the hostage situation,” one woman was saying.
“Details as to why this shooting broke out are still pending, but the members of the gangs involved have been arrested and are currently being held in custody,” another said.
“Who knows what would have happened if the Black Rider hadn’t shown up?” a man in a gray pinstriped suit asked into a camera.
“I’ll head out front and give them as few details as possible,” Dr. Carrison said as he opened the door to the Ashbys’ waiting truck. I was so tired I could barely climb onto the front seat they kept empty for me.
“Is everything all right?” Uncle Rick asked.
“I couldn’t get him away from the grateful mob,” Dr. Carrison explained. “He’s earned their gratitude.”
“Thanks again, Doc,” I said before he shut the door.
He smiled and closed it behind me.
I tipped my head back against the seat, feeling more exhausted than I ever had before.
“Want help taking off your helmet?” Cassidy asked quietly.
I opened my eyes, surprised to find that I still had it on.
“I guess I’m getting used to it,” I replied.
She unbuckled the strap and eased it off. My mom sat in the back seat next to Aunt Lauren and watched me with concern in her eyes.
“I’m all right, Mom,” I said, meeting her gaze in the sun visor mirror. “I just need to sleep.”
“I can’t believe how many people were there just to thank you,” she replied with awe in her voice. “Lauren told me what you did. My son is a hero.”
I shook my head, then put a hand to it to stop the world from spinning. “I was just lucky.”
Uncle Rick pulled out of the parking lot as Cole replied, “You got that right. You got shot and you’re still alive.”
“Not everyone who’s shot dies,” Jaren said quietly.
I nodded. “See Mom, it’s fine. I was just playing the odds.”
“I think the odds favored dying,” Cole guessed.
I smiled and tipped my head back against the headrest. I drifted off to the sound of tires humming across the road and a tiny whisper of wind escaping into the truck.
MOM TUCKED ME INTO bed that night. I was on my usual cot in the living room while she slept in Cassidy’s room. Uncle Rick had offered to give me their bed, but the thought of him and Aunt Lauren spending the night on the couch and the cot was ridiculous. I reassured them that I would be just fine. All the same, Mom insisted on tucking me in, even though she had stopped doing that when I was six.
“I’ll be back to wake you up in four hours, doctor’s orders,” she reminded me. She pushed the unruly hair back from my forehead and kissed me good night. The gesture brought back so many memories from growing up: Zoey falling off her bike and scraping her knee, me banging my head on the railing by the stairs for the hundredth time, Zoey and me both with poked fingers when we tried to pick roses from Mom’s flower box to surprise her.
In all instances, Mom healed our hurts with kisses and perhaps a Band-Aid or two. When she kissed my forehead, I closed my eyes, feeling more complete than I had in a long time.
FIRE FLICKERED AGAINST MY eyelids. I opened my eyes, expecting to see the Ashbys’ cheery fireplace, but instead an inferno roared around me. Wood fell from the ceiling and popped along the floor as the fire fed upon it. Everywhere I turned, orange, yellow, and molten red twisted and danced in ravenous abandon.
Beer bottles lay partially empty on the floor. Shards of glass caught the light of the fire and glowed as though made of flames themselves. The car in the middle of the warehouse smoldered with smoke rising from the inside and no longer beat with the unending thump of party music. The flames had devoured the soul of the party as quickly as the warehouse itself.
A cry of fear above made me look up. I remembered seeing Zoey go up the stairs with Jeff, both of them laughing but not tipsy enough to do anything they would regret. I searched around frantically, but the stairs were now smoking piles of embers where careless feet had once run.
“Zoey!” I shouted.
“Kelson!”
I couldn’t see her through the smoke. I started to cough. A flaming board fell from the roof and hit me, shoving me into the remains of the stairs. I stood up quickly. My clothes were on fire, but I didn’t care.
“Zoey!�
�
“Kelson,” she replied. She then said something else I couldn’t quite catch. I stood there, certain I was caught in a dream. She had never said anything else, only crying my name until I couldn’t hear her anymore.
The huge wooden doors behind me burst open. Three firemen wearing oxygen masks and carrying a hose spewing water ran inside.
“Zoey!” I shouted, frantic to hear what she needed to say.
The firemen grabbed me and began pulling me toward the door. I struggled to get free. They wouldn’t let me go. I dropped to one knee and swept the legs out from under the first fireman, then spun to yank my arm from the other. He landed on the first and I took off running across the warehouse.
“Zoey!”
“Kelson, it’s okay,” came her soft reply.
I stopped, frozen to the floor. Zoey’s voice filled my mind above the crackle of the fire and the shouts of the firemen. Arms grabbed me and hauled me to the door. “Zoey,” I called again.
“Kelson, I’m okay,” came my sister’s voice, soft and smiling as she had always been. I could picture her blonde hair and bright blue eyes, the laughter that never faded dancing on her lips. Tears clouded my vision, tears of release among those of pain and heartache.
“Come on, son. Let’s get you out of here,” one of the firemen said. I didn’t fight him as he pulled me through the door and into the clear night air.
“KELSON, WAKE UP.” A hand smoothed the hair from my forehead. “Kel, it’s only a dream. It’s not real.”
I opened my eyes to see Mom crouched next to the cot, her concerned eyes reflecting the dying embers in the fireplace. Her brow was creased with worry, but a smile touched her lips when she saw I was awake. “I was worried we’d have to run you back to the hospital,” she said quietly.
I put a hand to my head. “It was only a dream.” The memory flooded through me and I took a calming breath.
“Sounded more like a nightmare,” Mom said gently. “Do you have them often?”
I thought about it. “I used to,” I replied. A small breath of peace touched my thoughts when I remembered the dream. “I’m okay,” Zoey had said. The voice was the one that had followed me around since she was old enough to walk. I would know her tone anywhere, and the words she had spoken were said with a smile. “I don’t think I’ll have them anymore,” I told Mom.