Chapter Nineteen
Dom
I’m too late.
She’s gone.
Dead.
Bile rises and my knees crash to the ground as the train continues to pass me by at a punishing speed. Wetness coats my cheeks, but I can’t focus or think straight. All I can do is grasp my head in my hands, squeezing my scalp, crushing it with all my strength, begging reality to be full of lies.
Agonizing yells surround me. I’m drowning in their sorrow.
Finally, the train comes to a complete stop, and the heat from the wheels finds it’s way to my chest and face.
Did Della feel the heat? Did she feel pain? Oh God please, no.
Abruptly and without warning I look up into the sky and a mighty scream rips from my mouth. I can physically feel the veins on my face near popping pressure.
All of a sudden I hear chatter and look at the train to see people in the windows staring down at me, confusion and sadness coating their features.
I glance over my shoulder and I spot Mack standing with his mouth hanging wide open with an ashen expression on his face.
Kelso is on his knees, next to his brother, hands covering his face while his shoulders shake with his silent grief.
Slater is close by them with a horrified stare on his pale face, his eyes still glued to the spot where his sister was standing just moments ago.
In the distance, Pacer races to the front of the train and on his way stopping to look underneath. Looking for Della’s body? Maybe in his mind, he thinks he can still save her, that she could’ve survived such a brutal impact.
Right before I look away, he halts, chest to the ground looking under the train, then he spins quickly and I watch bile explode from his mouth.
He found her.
Della.
The woman I love.
I stare down to the ground and then lift my palms, examining my hands, remembering a time when my flesh touched hers. I groan as a new wave of blanketed darkness covers me and what’s worse, I can still feel our love pump through my veins, our bond stronger than ever, as if it alone keeps my heart beating.
Muffled voices and pounding on the train windows cause my blurry eyes to look up. Their dull words don’t make sense. However, they keep pointing to the other side of the train. And then I focus on one woman’s lips…
“She’s alive.”
I must be imagining it, my reality distorted, unable to handle the grief which slams into my mind, body and heart with each second that ticks by.
I sense movement next to me and I look up to find Mack and Slater staring at the people also.
Slater slams his body down on the ground, chest first and then stills, before shouting, “Della!”
My eyes widen massively—it’s a shock at first—and then I’m chest to the ground, searching under the train.
And then I see her. On the other side of the tracks, lying on the grass, whole, but unconscious.
I place my hands under me and stand to find a way to her. Wetness coats my cheeks, but I’ve never felt so unashamed to cry.
Slater is banging on the train doors, trying to get the strangers to press the button for the glass to open. I don’t wait for the strangers to figure out what he wants. I start sprinting toward the closest gangway connection. My chest is rising and falling heavily. What if she’s dying right now, what if she needs urgent attention?
Strength I didn’t even realize I had catapulted me onto the gangway and then I’m leaping off and toward Della’s lifeless body. I hear heavy footsteps behind me and spot Slater and Mack jumping down from the train, through the opposite side glass door.
I slow and slide my body by Della’s, not wanting to hit her at the speed I was going.
The first thing I notice is blood splattered across the right side of her face and hair as well as her wrist which is turned on an ugly angle.
My gut churns with fear.
I place my hand over her chest and my other over her mouth.
The guys are all around me, almost on top of me, looking over their little sister. “She’s breathing,” I shout.
The sound of sirens breaks through my terror-fueled mind. Other noises begin to filter in one at a time after that.
Slater’s calling Della’s name. Mack says he’s going to go get the paramedics. Pacer asks what’s wrong with Della’s hand and Kelso’s trying gently to move Della’s hair away from her head to see where the blood is coming from.
All the noise and commotion disappear once more when Della flutters her eyelashes open slowly and pins me with her stare.
Della.
She’s alive.
Now to never let her go.