Page 27 of Burn (Two Wheeled Psychos #2)

Wakey, wakey. I’m bored.

The voice that’s been with me most of my life echoes in my head, his words seeming so far away, yet still there. Everything is dark, and my eyes are so heavy. It’s a battle to open them, and I have to try really hard to force my eyelids to rise just a little.

A crack of light blinds me and I reach up to shield my face, only something on my arm won’t let it rise. I’m stuck on something, and God does it fucking hurt. Everything hurts; except the pain I had when I can last remember. The burn on my chest is the only part of me that doesn’t ache. The burn. The burn from Phoenix. Like a thundering stampede the thoughts of her rumble in my head. Phoenix. The fire. The explosion.

“Phoenix!”

I scream, but no sounds comes out.

My mouth and throat are dry, so dry that it feels like I’ve swallowed mouthfuls of sand. I have no saliva in my mouth, and my tongue feels like it’s about to crack.

I can’t move, see, or speak, but I can hear, and I lay still listening to the sounds around me. Beeping, shuffling, people taking in the distance, it’s all there. But where is there?

“Where am I?”

I croak out to the voice inside me. He’ll know. He knows everything.

The hospital, you fuck face. You got blown up, remember?

“I’m not dead?”

Nah, you’re not that easy to kill. That pretty little thing you’re in love with though, yeah, sorry, she wasn’t so hard.

“No.”

I whisper, the sounds finally coming from my mouth almost loud enough for me to hear them.

“No. She can’t be…”

Blown to smithereens?

“Fuck…oh fuck…no.”

I whine, my voice hissing from the desert that is my mouth. “No.”

Yeah, yeah, oh fuck yeah. He says, laughing at me, mocking me.

“No, no, no, no, no!”

I’m screaming, but it’s mostly in my head, the sounds are still barely leaving my parched lips.

I want them to come out, to break the silence around me in this godforsaken place. I want to bellow out to the heavens the pain that I feel, the unexpected pain at the loss of a life. Something I never imagined would happen. But then again I never imagined I would fall in love, only for it to be taken away from me so fast, and so cruelly.

Agony, that’s how to describe it, utter agony, as I squeeze my eyes closed and see the fire, the explosion, the truck blowing up. She was in that truck; she blew up with it. She’s gone. My angel, my devil, the one who was both pure and filthy.

It's overwhelming, the pain, the hurt, and I can’t breathe. Coughs wrack my body as I struggle to get up. I have to get up. I can’t lay here when her body is in pieces. In pieces because of me, because I took her with me, when I knew better.

I claw at my arms, at whatever is holding me down, and the beeping in the background gets louder and faster. It’s my heart on a monitor; I know that sound. It’s me freaking out, thrashing on a hospital bed, attached to IV lines and machines. I have to get up.

“Hey, easy there. Easy honey.”

A sweet voice calls out to me before hands touch me all over, holding me down.

“I…I have…”

I start to croak but she shushes me with a finger on my lips.

“It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital.”

“I know.”

I finally say.

“Phoenix. I need Phoenix.”

“Who’s that honey?”

“My… my…girlfriend I guess.”

“You guess? Did you hit your head harder than we thought?”

Nah, he’s just crazy.

“I’m not crazy.”

“No one said you were baby. Relax for me okay?”

The woman, most likely a nurse says.

I still can’t see her, I can’t open my eyes, the light hurts too much, that and there’s the fact that if I do open them then this is all real.

You’re batshit crazy, and you know it. Now get up and get the fuck out of here.

“I have to go.”

“Oh, honey, you’re not going anywhere.”

She says, her hands gently brushing my hair from my forehead.

I can feel her fingers on me, and it reminds me of the way Phoenix brushed me the same way. I want to cry, I want to scream, and I want to fucking die.

“Phoenix.”

I say her name again, feeling exhaustion take over me, an exhaustion that makes it hard to move, one that keeps me in the bed and makes the beeping slow down again. One from drugs.

“No. No drugs.”

“You need them dear. Just relax.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, it’s drugs that got you here and now they’re keeping you here.

“No. No drugs, please.”

“Just rest baby. It’ll all be okay.”

The sweet lady says as unconsciousness takes me again, pulling me down into a black abyss.

The blackness swirling around me is lightening up and becoming brighter. The empty and weightless feeling is being replaced by pain. It’s not physical though, it’s mental, emotional, spiritual, or whatever you want to call it. It’s a pain in my chest, but not on the surface, not like the burns. It’s deep inside and it strangles me as I try to breathe.

Daylight filters in as I peel my eyes open for the first time in I don’t know how long. It’s blinding, but the searing of it is nothing compared to the agony in my heart.

Still whining over her? Come on, it’s been days. Suck it up. She’s gone.

There’s no one with me now. My room is empty besides me as I rub my face and look around at all the lines and cords running to my body. I have to go. I can’t be here any longer. I don’t want the drugs anymore.

The machines cry out their warning tones as I rip the sticky pads off my chest and pull my IV line from the back of my hand. Fluids spill out and blood runs from the hole in my skin, but I couldn’t care less. My legs are weak and my arms ache, but it’s nothing compared to what she went through, and I can only hope that she didn’t suffer. I hope she died instantly, like I should have.

I was between her and the blast. I should be dead, not her. She was in a huge fire truck, and I was on the ground. She should still be here, and I shouldn’t. I want to die to be with her, but I didn’t, and I can’t.

You know what you have to do.

“I do.”