I walked out of there on my own two feet. Mostly.
An EMT gripped my elbows, carefully steering me toward one of the ambulances. They’d been pissy when I refused the stretcher. Chris was taken away strapped down on one, raging incoherently. Isaac and the clerk behind the counter got body bags. Meanwhile, the cops were still talking to John.
I huddled beneath a blanket, face turned away from the crowd of spectators gathered behind the police line. Media and other assorted curious douches surrounded the place.
“Edie.” Mom was crying, her face red and worn. Her eyes widened, horrified at the sight of me.
The front of my shirt was covered in the red stuff, both dried and new. I pulled the blanket tighter around me. “It’s not all mine.”
Mom was not appeased.
“Here we go,” said Bill the EMT, directing me to sit on the back step of the ambulance.
Every last bit of energy was gone. My arms felt ready to fall off, my head hanging down. Bill got busy, gently but efficiently tending to my face. The rest was really just bruises. His partner climbed into the back, handing him bandages, etcetera.
Lots of cop cars. Some uniforms were rushing back and forth between the parking lot and the Drop Stop, while others simply stood around. Bill answered Mom’s questions in a gruff, no-nonsense voice. Repeatedly saying we’d be heading to the hospital soon, and the doctors there would tell her more about my condition. Mom kept asking him stuff regardless of his unchanging answers.
It was all just background noise. None of it seemed real. My friend Georgia hovered nearby. Her parents had arrived too, their faces pale and weary. Probably relieved as all hell it wasn’t Georgia sitting in the back of an ambulance covered in blood, face all busted up.
Two Johns were being ushered toward a police cruiser, their hands cuffed in front of them. I blinked repeatedly, concentrated. Slowly he blurred back into one.
What the hell was going on? I tried to get up.
“Edie.” Bill put a hand up to stop me. “Hey, kid. Where are you going?”
“I need to talk to them.”
“I’m sure one of the detectives will want to talk to you at the hospital.”
“No.” I slowly stood. Whoa, nothing felt good. Not that I’d thought it would. But if it weren’t for Bill’s hold on me, my poor bruised ass would probably have hit the ground. Again. “I need to talk to them now.”
“What you need to do is let me patch you up.”
“No. Now.”
Bill sighed. Then he helped.
“Stop,” I said, voice horribly weak, even to my own still-ringing ears. “What are you doing? Why did you cuff him?”
The cop pushing John into the back of the cruiser frowned, closing the door. “Stay back please, miss.”
“He didn’t do anything.”
A man in a rumpled gray suit stepped forward, giving me a professional smile. “Miss Millen? Can I call you Edie?”
“Get him out of there,” I demanded, swaying on my feet. Not good. “He helped me. He saved my life. Christ’s sake, his friend just died!”
His smile turned to condescending. “Edie, I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”
“What?” I wanted to scream in frustration. But honestly, I didn’t have it in me. Wondered if they’d wait to continue this conversation after I had a brief nap. “Why are you doing this? I don’t understand what you’re doing.”
The cop opened his mouth, doubtless to continue on with more of the same. Except John tapped on the inside of the car window. He didn’t smile, didn’t frown; he just looked at me. Blood speckled his face and stained the fresh white bandage around his upper arm. His light-brown shoulder-length hair hung around his face. There were clumps in it too. Out of the five people who’d been in the store, only he and I were left. Besides Chris, of course.
The car engine rumbled to life.
The tapping stopped, and John pressed a bruised and bloodstained palm up to the door window. Maybe it was his way of waving good-bye or signaling glad-you’re-okay. But with the gray-metal handcuffs looped around his wrist, the gesture just made him look lost and alone. His expression didn’t change, haunted eyes looking out from a pale, shell-shocked face. Nothing about this was okay. While I was shrugging off the attentions of Mom and Georgia and the nice ambulance officer, John was being carted off in the back of a police car.
We held each other’s gaze as the vehicle slowly moved forward, more police clearing a way out through the crowd. Cameras and reporters pressed in like a frenzied mob. Once the cruiser was gone, they trained their lenses my way. I turned my blanket into a Jedi-style cape, hiding my face from view.
“Come on, tough girl,” said Bill, ushering me away with a firm hand. “They’ll be taking him to the hospital to get patched up. Same place you need to go.”
The man in the gray suit said nothing, but he didn’t look happy. Made two of us.