“In my pocket,” he says. His voice is way too weak.
“Get them out!” I yell. I can’t seem to keep myself from screaming right in his face.
“Can’t,” he says, his fingers flopping around near his right front pocket.
“Oh my god,” I say, crouching down and putting my hand into his pants. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Feels good,” he says with a slight grin on his face.
“Shut up, perv.”
When I jam my fingers in deeper into the pocket his happy expression disappears. “Please don’t jerk me around. It hurts my guts.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears coming. Fighting to keep them at bay, I grunt to get my fingers moving in the right direction. I can feel the edge of the keyring, but it’s against his thigh, stuck there in a crease of the denim. “You have to move your leg!” I say, whisper-screaming at him. “I can’t reach it!”
He adjusts his body to slide down the seat a few inches and that’s all I need to get the keys out.
“Yes!” I yell in triumph as they come free. I hold them up in the air and shake them like a mad woman with a messed-up dinner bell. “Teagan! Rebel! Come on! We have to go! To the hospital!” I wait for their responses, staring down the sidewalk in the direction they went in. “Teagan?! Rebel?!”
Nothing. I got nada. Fucking crickets give a shit about my problems and that’s it.
I bend down and put my face near Mick’s, trying to use a calm voice. I’m not sure that I pull it off. “They’re gone. Of course now is the best time I can think of to go off and have sex in the bushes or whatever it is they’re doing. Idiots. I’m all you’ve got unless you want me to get Colin. I can call 9-1-1 …”
“Let’s go,” he says, cutting into my list of suggestions. “They can ride with Colin,” Mick says, his voice a whisper again. “I need a doctor, fast. No time for 9-1-1…”
For a moment I wonder if I should ignore his orders and go inside and tell Colin what’s going on, but then I quickly decide against it. For one thing, he’s the one sending Mick to the hospital, so he’s probably not on Mick’s favorites list right now; and second, I can just imagine how awesome it would not be to see Colin arrested at Mick’s bedside for assaulting his own brother. Fucking men. How did I get in the middle of this mess?
I run around the other side of the car and jump in, slamming the door behind me. “Okay,” I say, sticking the key in and turning over the engine. It roars to life, and when I press on the accelerator experimentally, it rocks the whole car side to side with the revving power. “Whoa. Holy horses under the hood,” I say, rubbing the steering wheel on the side, up and down. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a tad scared. I don’t have a whole hell of a lot of control over my body right now; I’m too freaked out. This car is way more powerful than Teagan’s Beetle or my dad’s Buick.
“Be careful,” he says. “The pedal is sensitive.”
“You just leave this to me,” I say, patting him on the leg with fake bravado while I check the rearview mirror for Teagan and Rebel. A few experimental honks on the horn get me nothing but a few responding honks from other cars passing by.
Putting the car into drive, I look out into traffic using the side mirror. “You sure you’re ready?” I ask, glancing over at Mick. “Put your seatbelt on.”
“Just go,” he says.
I take a few precious seconds to brake and put his belt on for him when he doesn’t comply. He complains the entire time, but I figure with the way my luck is going, I’ll get in a wreck and kill him on the way to getting him healed. Better at least try not to do that.
Now with the car back in drive, I try to press the accelerator easy-does-it, but the car has different ideas. It peels out away from the curb and we’re gone, my head flying back like it’s going to break right off my shoulders because there’s no headrest for it to fall against. I use the steering wheel to hold on for dear life.
“Oh shit … I’m gonna die,” Mick says, finishing up with a moan of pain. His body lists to the right.
“No, you’re not. You’re gonna be fine,” I say with as much confidence as I can muster, all considered. My eyes facing forward again, I pat him on the leg with one hand while the other one holds onto the skinny, hard steering wheel. The car rumbles down the street with the roar of a thousand angry horses. I swear people eight neighborhoods over can hear this damn motor gunning away.