Persuaded (Jane Austen Diaries) by Jenni James

Author:Jenni James
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Inkberry Press
Published: 2012-07-18T05:00:00+00:00

Fourteen: The Day the World Stopped Turning

The world stopped. Everything froze around me as I watched the horrific scene. And then, as if in slow motion, the pieces of my brain began to click together and I realized what had just happened. This was real. I was not on some movie set in California. Kylie had just been seriously injured—or killed—when her ATV rolled over, taking her with it. It had ruthlessly slammed her head into the ground and then rolled over her again before it plummeted to a stop about three feet away.

Gregory was the first to her side. He was the first to move at all. Had it not been for his anguished cry of “She’s dead!”, I don’t think I would’ve come out of my trance-like state. As it was, his agony triggered me into motion.

All at once, I was speeding my ATV over to them, leaving my helmet and Kylie’s in the dust behind me. I heard someone scream as I jumped off the vehicle and ran toward Gregory, who was hunched over Kylie’s twisted body. I vaguely saw Ethan and Carson move forward, but neither of them came up to us.

My brain switched to an amazing clarity as I realized no one else knew what to do. My first-aid training from years ago suddenly came back to me as I quickly scanned Kylie’s mangled form.

And mangled it was. One of her legs was broken, and possibly the other as well. I leaned over and gently placed my fingers into the crook of her neck, feeling for a pulse, while I forced myself to scan her pale features for sign of life. There were none. Her neck had snapped back and there was a large, gaping wound from her forehead to her ear, and another where blood was pooling behind her left collarbone onto the dusty desert floor.

She really is dead! I thought with horror. It was then, just as I was about to make the same declaration Gregory had, that I felt it. The faintest of throbs in her neck.

“She’s alive!” I cried. “She’s alive! She has a pulse!”

Cries and screams and shouts burst out all around me. The noise came so quickly that I began to wonder if it had been there all the while and I had subconsciously blocked the sound so I could concentrate.

“What do I do?”

I had forgotten Gregory was there until his words caused me to look up.

“What can I do? Tell me!”

A thousand instructions and commands whipped through my head. Which to settle on first? “Find something to stop that bleeding. Whatever you do, don’t move her.” I pointed to the pool forming by Gregory’s knees as I searched for something to slow the bleeding from the side of her face. “I need fabric, cloth—something!” I shouted to the group at large.

Collin was above me. His shirt was off and torn in half so fast I didn’t even see him do it. “Here.” He chucked one half at me, and the other was caught mid-throw by Gregory.

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