Keira covered her ears, tried to blot out the sound of Ricky’s gunshot and Kona’s poorly suppressed crying. “We wanted to help you.” She heard Kona sob, heard the low prayers he made and the sirens behind them, the cruisers speeding past them wailing their horns. “Kona, you have to pull over. They’re chasing us. Please!”
But Kona wasn’t listening, didn’t hear her, didn’t noticed the beams of red and blue light streaming through the windows. “You should have stayed!” he screamed, taking a curve too quickly, the tires crying against the pavement. “You should have fucking stayed, Keira!”
Vision blurred with her tears, her head muddy with fear, with heartache. She settled next to Luka, her head on his shoulder and she reached up to brush her fingertips over his open lids. They should be closed.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, feeling the tight clench in her heart twisting, burning until she couldn’t breathe. “I’m so sorry, Luka.”
The squeal of tires started again, became louder than the sirens chasing behind them. Keira heard Kona’s scream, the angry rage that pierced her ears, then with the rip of a crash, Keira’s body jerked forward and the silence took them.
Keira’s mother never wore slippers. Even at home, when no one was expected, when she wouldn’t be entertaining her friends or pretending that the shine of their lives was tarnished, she always took care with her footwear. Wedges, sandals, pumps and heels, all designer, all obnoxiously expensive, but the woman did not own a single pair of slippers.
It was slippers, though, that Keira saw when she blinked awake. They were pink, thin, and very clean, as though they’d just been pulled from cardboard and plastic. Her eyes shifted up her mother’s legs, over the charcoal slacks she wore and onto the pink cardigan slung on her shoulders. The sweater was fastened with a broach, diamonds that were as bright, as clean as the perfect polish on her mother’s pink nails.
Keira stared at that broach, gaze blurring at the sparkle reflected against the overhead light and she did not put much thought into the pounding that was drumming in her head or the burning ache of her shoulder. She pretended to feel nothing and Keira believed if she stared long enough at her mother’s polished appearance and that shining jewel below her throat, time would not press forward. She would not be in this hospital, sore and bruised.
Luka would not be dead.
“I’ve called the nurse, Keira. She’ll fetch you some pain meds.”
“I don’t want them.” She didn’t look at her mother when she spoke, didn’t move her eyes from that gaudy broach until the woman came to her bedside. And when she lifted her eyes, shot a quick glimpse at the scowl on her mother’s face, Keira returned to the distracting blur that dulled her attention.
“You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?”
“Mother, please don’t. Not yet.”
“When would you recommend we discuss this mess?”
The nurse came in and her mother stepped back, let the woman in the blue scrubs fiddle around with Keira’s I.V. and push a thermometer in her ear.
“How’s your pain?” the nurse asked, smiling down at Keira; a soft grip on her hand. Keira tried to return the woman’s smile; she had a kind face, wide mouth, teeth straight and clean, and hazel eyes that shone against the cocoa cream of her skin. But Keira could not bring herself to do much more than stare at her, blinking once before she shrugged. “We’ll need to monitor you tonight and in the morning you’ll go down for your procedure.”
“What procedure?”
The nurse exchanged a glance with Keira’s mother before she patted Keira’s arm. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. Dr. Mitchell does terminations every week and she’s very gentle.” The nurse picked up Keira’s chart and scribbled along the form, attention away from Keira’s open-mouth expression.
“Wait. What are you talking about? I thought I just sprained my elbow. What termination?”
Those slippers again, tiny feet that approached the bed and the dull ache in Keira’s chest smarted. “It’s fine, I’ll explain everything to her,” Keira’s mother said, nodding toward the door, dismissing the nurse.
Her nametag read “Renée” with a little accent over the first “e” and that kind smile dropped from her face. “You let me know if you want anything for the pain, okay, sweetie?”
Keira inched herself up, brushing off her mother’s attempts to help her and she moved her leg away from the edge of the bed when the woman sat down. She wouldn’t look directly in Keira’s face; didn’t seem interested in anything other than her long nails.