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Chapter 3, Part 2

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Cassie sat in the back of the ambulance, awkwardly holding a blanket around her shoulders. It would be easier if she wasn’t wearing handcuffs. The only reason she was sitting in the ambulance instead of the back of a cop car was because of the impressive road burn on her shoulder and right leg. The leather jacket had protected her shoulder, but her jeans hadn’t held up their end of the bargain so well. It looked terrible and felt even worse so she was pretty sure the cop felt bad for her and let her sit in the ambulance instead. That and they were trying to find the driver of the truck who charged the intersection behind her, causing at least one another wreck to Cassie’s two. He was somewhere around, she was sure of it. She could add hiding well in the darkness to his repertoire of orange eyes and electric shocks.

“How you doing, kid?” the cop stopped by again.

“I’m fine, officer. The medic gave me some sort of pain meds,” she replied. No point in being rude. He was nice and her dad had taught her to be respectful to cops.

“OK, we’ll be leaving here in a few minutes. We have to go to the hospital first. The medic wants to check your leg for fractures. Didn’t your parents ever tell you motorcycles were dangerous?”

She wanted to sniffle at the mention of her parents. They probably would have said something like that.

“Yeah, but I’m not supposed to listen, right?”

His friendly grin faded into a wordless grimace of pain as he was jolted by volts of electricity. A paramedic stepped around and slammed the doors shut. She almost screamed when she saw the glint of orange under his hat. The cops wouldn’t believe a story of an electric man chasing her, no more than they would believe the wings threatening to burst out of her shoulders. She was on her own.

The ambulance started to move. Wasn’t someone supposed to be in here with her? The Freak wasn’t a paramedic, that much she knew. Her so far absolutely terrific life was about to take a sharp downward spiral again.

The ambulance picked up speed and she was jolted around the bench as the driver began to weave through traffic at a frenzied pace. The deep pounding of her heart overwhelmed any neural activity she tried to muster. The sound only repeated one thing. Run! She had to get out of here! She tumbled to the ground with a cry of pain as the ambulance came to an abrupt halt. The doors opened and she saw a young kid about her own age grinning down at her. His smile showed brilliantly white against his dark face.

“I’m Luke Skywalker and I’m here to rescue you!” he declared.

“Seriously?”

“Nah, I’ve always wanted to say that though. But my name is Luke and I am here to get you away from that weirdo.”

Cassie grabbed her jacket from the ground and hobbled towards him.

“Oh, hey, let me get that for you,” he reached towards her. She expected him to grab the jacket or undo the cuffs, but he grabbed her arm instead. “Check this out!” he grinned. It was kind of contagious. A tingling feeling spread through her, increasing its intensity at her shoulder and shredded leg. She looked down in shock. She was completely healed!

“Pretty nifty, right?”

“Um…Yeah, I’d say so.” She couldn’t quite wrap her head around the fact that he was like her.

He hauled a motorcycle around. Her bike, she noticed. How had he gotten that away from the scene?

“Climb aboard, miss! If you think I’m awesome then I’ve got a friend you’ll definitely want to meet!”

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Quick fun fact about today’s post. This was the one that started it all. I originally wrote this section in response to a prompt in a writer’s group that I frequent. I originally wrote it in first person, so I had to go back through and tweak some stuff for continuity’s sake, too. I think it has a little different tone that the rest of the story so far, but I’m lazy and didn’t want to throw the whole thing out. 😀

I’m sure we’re all glad that Cassie is ok. 😛