Chapter 4 - The Red Lights
When consciousness clawed its way back through the darkness, it didn't arrive gently. It came with the deafening, frantic wail of an industrial siren and the blinding strobe of red and blue emergency lights flashing through the living room windows.
The air smelled intensely of ozone, antiseptic wipes, and sweat.
I wasn't on the wooden floor anymore. I was strapped rigidly onto a hard backboard, a stiff foam cervical collar locked tightly around my neck, restricting every movement of my head. Heavy leather straps pinned my chest, my waist, and my legs down against the rigid board.
“Her pulse is thready, eighty-five beats per minute, but dropping,” a crisp, professional voice spoke right beside my ear. “BP is ninety over sixty. She’s coming around. Hey, honey? Can you hear me?”
I blinked laboriously. My eyelids felt like sandpaper.
Leaning over me inside the cramped, bouncing interior of an ambulance was a female paramedic with dark hair pulled back into a tight tactical ponytail, her uniform patch identifying her as Paramedic Vance—though no relation to the nightmare I shared a last name with. Her expression was intensely focused, her gloved hands gently running a penlight across my pupils.
“What... happened?” I croaked out, my voice sounding like dry gravel scraping together.
“You’ve had a bad fall, sweetie,” the paramedic said gently, though her eyes remained sharp and analytical as she monitored the heart monitor beside her. “You're in the back of an ambulance right now. We’re rushing you to Grand County General Hospital. Do you know your name?”
“Chloe,” I whispered.
“Good. Do you know where you are?”
“Lake... house.”
“Okay, Chloe. You’ve got severe trauma to your cervical spine and lumbar region. You're paralyzed from the shock right now, but we’re going to get you scanned the second we roll through the ER doors.”
She turned her head toward the front cabin of the moving vehicle, speaking loudly through the small sliding window to her partner driving. “Mark, push IV saline. She’s starting to show signs of neurogenic shock. Let’s prep for immediate CT and MRI the second we hit triage.”
The ambulance swayed violently as it took a sharp mountain curve at high speed.
Through the rear doors of the ambulance, which had been left slightly unlatched during the loading process, I could see my father’s silver SUV trailing right behind us with its hazard lights flashing.
Even in an ambulance, even with sirens wailing, my family couldn't resist tagging along—not to hold my hand, but to control the narrative. I knew exactly what my father was doing. He was driving behind the ambulance to ensure that whatever the doctors said, he was the first person in the room to spin the story.
“She tripped while throwing a temper tantrum. She’s always been clumsy. It was an accident.”
The realization burned hotter than the pain in my spine. They weren't worried about me. They were worried about liability. They were worried about Tyler’s future law school applications, his pristine reputation, and the family’s social standing in Denver.
Ten minutes later, the ambulance slammed to a halt.
The rear doors flew open, flooding the clinical white interior with harsh fluorescent hospital light.
May you like
Before I could even process the movement, gurneys, doctors, and nurses swarmed around me, transferring my rigid backboard onto a rolling hospital bed and wheeling me at breakneck speed down a brightly lit, sterile hospital corridor.
And trailing right behind the medical team, talking loudly and aggressively to a triage nurse, were my father and Tyler.
