Soul Fire (2 page)

He yelled so loudly it echoed across the next valley. I stopped, my heart pumping crazily. Now, I was panting. “I’ve got to stop the bleeding,” I explained shakily, using my forearm to wipe beads of cold sweat from my pounding forehead. “On the positive side of things, at least you can feel your leg.” I tried to offer an encouraging smile, but it felt like a grimace.

“It’s bad,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ll never play again, I know it.”

As I carefully worked the sweater around his bleeding leg, he moaned. His agony tore at me. I wanted someone else to do this—someone who knew what he was doing. Never in my life had I inflicted pain on anyone, and it left me shaking from head to toe. “I’m trying to be gentle. Really,” I told him, willing myself to continue. Finally, my favorite sweater was around his leg. I crossed the ends and tied them firmly to maintain pressure. He lurched. “Sorry it hurts so much,” I said, wiping my bloody hands on my ski pants.

I realized I was freezing, literally and threw my jacket and gloves back on as I watched to see if my makeshift pressure bandage would work. With the bone being broken, I couldn’t elevate his leg, but it looked like my sweater was doing its job. “I think the bleeding has slowed down.” Relief was audible in my voice. I shimmied back up to see his face—
ashen
, even in the opaque light
. Keep him awake
. “How are you doing?” Even my voice shook.

It took a minute for him to answer. “Not great,” he whispered through clenched teeth. He was looking at me strangely. “Name’s Justin,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Ashla.” I wasn’t going to tell him we went to the same school.

His eyes searched my face and he reached up to touch my forehead. “Your forehead,” he whispered, “You must’ve hit the tree.”

His glove sent sparks of pain flying behind my eyes. I jerked back.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

I touched his arm, my heart aching for him. “Just rest. I’ll stay with you.”

“Thanks.”

I dug in my pocket for a tissue and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’ll be fine. You’ll be okay. Someone will come soon,” I tried to reassure him. His head was unprotected on the cold snow. We had lost our hats along with all other loose items in the tumble. I pulled off my left glove and tucked it under his head.

“Thanks,” he whispered again. He was shivering, and I wondered if he was going into shock. I was trying to think of what to do for that when I heard the unmistakable sound of skis on the snow. Someone had just lifted off the jump. I knew if that skier had hit it hard enough, and landed far enough downhill, those skis could cut right through us as he tore around The Pike. “Stop!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Can’t move. Stop! Injured. We’re by the hairpin.” I held my breath as a man came flying through the air, toward us. He landed short and hard. The edges of his skis bit in for a fast stop, snow spraying out in front of him.

I stood up anxiously, and everything whirled around me. Then, nothingness.

Sound penetrated my consciousness—a din of voices, equipment moving, rubber-soled shoes rushing back and forth, and a baby wailing. My head was too small for the massive pain it housed, so I opened my eyes very slowly.
Where was I?

I saw that I was on a stretcher in a curtained cubicle. Cautiously, I glanced down at myself. An IV was in the back of my left hand and a clothes pin-like object was stuck on my finger. Something sounding dangerously like a heart monitor was beeping behind me, and the cuff on my upper left arm suddenly inflated, startling me. The overhead lights made my headache worse, so I closed my eyes.
How did I get in a hospital?

Trying again to see around me, I peeked through my lashes. My vision was blurry, my head was pounding, and my memory was drifting around in a fogbank. Bit by bit fragments surfaced.

I was half asleep when I saw a tree coming at me . . . broken legs . . . and a vivid image of blood pooling on the white snow. Another memory fragment: a guy standing at the bottom of the jump. I heard bones snap and his screams of agony. I slapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a cry.

I tried to recall his name. James? Jordan? No, it was like the singer . . . Justin. Oh, right. I had hit none other than Justin Ledger. His legs! Suddenly, I had to know what had happened to him. “Hello, excuse me, Nurse!” I assumed there must be at least one out there.

A fluffy head poked through the curtain, followed by a compact body in green. She had a big smile and looked at me like I had won the Indie. “You’re awake. Great. How’re we feeling?”

“I need to know how the other skier is—the guy who was with me on Blackcomb? Justin Ledger? Is he okay?”

The nurse’s smile disappeared. “I’m not his nurse, so I can’t say. How’s your head?”

“Seriously, right now, I could give it to somebody else.”

“Tell me your name, birthday, today’s date, and anything else you can think of,” she demanded.

I lifted my arm and squinted at the wristband. “It’s all right here, “ I told her, wondering how they got the information. “ It says Ashla Cameron, May 3rd, I live in Seattle, and I’m thinking that today was a mess.”

The nurse threw her head back and laughed. “Well, aren’t you the smart one!”

“The band doesn’t say which hospital I’m in.”

“Vancouver General. They brought you by helicopter. Doc says you have a concussion, so stay still. Don’t move around. Don’t get up. If you need anything,” the nurse flipped me a buzzer that was tied to the side rail, “call.”

“Can you find out how the other skier is?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” And she was gone. Painkillers would have also been nice, unless I was already on them.

I thought of my friends. Tara would have waited for me at the bottom of the run. Celeste and Brenna would have saved a table for us at Starbucks. What did they do when I didn’t show? Had they become worried and called the ski patrol? Maybe that was how the hospital had gotten my information.

I thought of my parents. Had someone called them? I groaned as I pictured them taking that call and their shock, considering I had told them I was staying at Tara’s, a mile from home. Instead, here I was, over a hundred miles north, in Canada, no less! Worse, I had gone skiing when they’d told me we couldn’t afford that anymore. And then, for toppers . . . I was in the hospital ringing up a big bill. To make everything worse, there was the guy I piled into. I moaned aloud. I would give
anything
to turn this day back . . . to start it over!

I must have drifted to sleep because time passed. When I saw the curtain part again, none other than my parents slipped inside. Uh-oh, now I’d have to answer for my misdemeanors.

Their faces were pinched with concern. Mom wiped her eyes with a damp tissue. “Ashla,” she whispered, “How badly are you hurt?” She leaned over and gently kissed my cheek, her striking green eyes inches from my matching set, her gold auburn hair bursting from her scalp like a curly mop. I was my mother’s clone. Each of us had a wild mane of hair that defied a brush, large green eyes that missed nothing, milk white skin smattered with a few annoying freckles, and a small, overly sensitive nose that could smell dirty socks across the room. I had a large mouth with orthodontic perfect teeth, which Dad calls my five thousand dollar, heart-stopping smile.

Mom and I both have small ears that look odd, but hear everything. Often taken for sisters, our slim bodies are constantly in motion. Neither of us can stay still. My being in bed and being told not to move, and her trying to stand quietly next to me was a challenge for both of us.

I felt Dad take my hand, his thumb rubbing my fingers. His dark hair was on end. His tanned face was pale. “How’re you doing, Ashla?”

“I’ll be fine, Dad, really.”

Mom examined me as mothers do, missing nothing. “The doctor says you have a concussion.” Her fingers went to the side of my head. “They closed the gash on your head, but they shaved off some of your hair to do it.”

“Shaved?” My hand flew to my head. A bandage. I felt all around my head. Aside from the bandaged area, all my hair was there. “Did they shave much off? Can you see? Am I going to be bald, or what?”

Mom shook her head. “No bald spots and no fresh blood, although you have an ugly purple plum sticking out of the gash on your forehead. They put ointment on it. It’s enough to make a person lose their lunch.”

Forgetting the clothes peg on my finger, I reached for mom’s arm. The oxygen sensor went flying. “Don’t worry, Mom, I do everything fast. Remember? I’ll be fine in a few days.”

Dad grunted and retrieved the sensor. “Don’t think so, Ashla. A concussion is serious. It can have long term affects.” He glanced away . . . his discomfort obvious. Then he asked: “What the heck happened up there anyway?”

I swallowed hard, knowing that he had avoided asking the obvious—like ‘
What the H were you doing skiing in Whistler!
’

I almost made the mistake of shaking my head. “I hit a guy who was standing at the bottom of a jump. Couldn’t see him ‘till it was too late.”

Dad scratched his head. That was my clue. He did that when he was unhappy about something. “
That guy
was Justin Ledger,” he said with a pointed look. “Apparently the ski patrol closed the run right behind him. They actually talked to him and told him conditions on the run were becoming dangerous. Technically, Ledger was the last person to go down
before the closure
.” Dad looked at me purposefully. “Ashla, you skied a
closed
run.”

My head was swirling as I wondered what it was Dad was really trying to tell me. I closed my eyes and heard him say, “We’ll talk about it later, Ashla.”

“What are you saying, Dad?”

He hesitated. “The resort is suggesting that you’re responsible for what happened to Ledger.”

My eyes popped open. Those words hit me like a whack in the face.
No! No, no, no, that could not be
. Dad was staring at me pointedly. The pounding in my head grew and I heard a sob. I don’t cry. I never cry. So, what was seeping out from under my lashes?

Mom’s fingers gently pushed back a stray lock of hair that had fallen over my good eye. She whispered, “They haven’t confirmed that, Ashla. We’ll discuss this when you’re feeling better.”

Dad retorted, “That boy could’ve died, Laine. Who knows . . . he still could. A broken bone perforated the vein in his leg.”

My eyes flew open again. “No! He can’t die.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed as they always did when she used them as an MRI to look inside my head. She said, “On the positive side, they told us that the person who used the pink sweater as a compression bandage on his leg likely saved his life. Your sweater, right Ashla?”

“He was bleeding so badly, Mom. It was terrible.”

She nodded. “You did the right thing. Anyway, he needed three pints of blood, and both his legs are broken…or worse. He’s in the OR right now.”

She straightened and glanced at my dad. I recognized the posture. Something was coming my way.

She took a big breath. “Do you know who the
Ledger family
is, Ashla?”

I stopped myself from shaking my pounding head. “People? Just like us?”

My father frowned, but said nothing. Mom was quick with a retort, “Nope. Wrong, Ashla. They’re not anything like us.
They’re wealthy
.”

A copper-haired beauty drifted through my dreams, her startling green eyes gazing down at me, her sweet voice saying over and over: “Rest, Justin. You’ll be okay. I won’t leave you.” I wanted to reassure her and say,
I know that
, but the words wouldn’t come. My lips were frozen. I tried to reach for her hand. I wanted to pull her toward me before she floated away, but my arm wouldn’t move either. And then, poof, she was gone—again.

“Justin!” A different voice. Harsh. Deep. Familiar. “Wake up, Boy!”

No thanks. I wanted to see more of the copper-haired girl and hear her soothing words.

A female voice this time. It was deep-throated and raw from years of cigarettes. “Justin! Open your eyes, for crying-out-loud. Dad and I are here, beside you. The operation is all over.”

Reluctantly, I left my dream world. The minute I did, pain struck from everywhere, especially my legs. My legs! I opened my eyes and a bleary room tilted around me. When I finally focused on my legs, I saw they were heavily bandaged and in what I would soon come to know as backslab plasters. The sight made me feel ill. An IV was stuck in the back of my hand. Somewhere beneath me was the elevated hospital bed, putting me eye level with my mother’s face. It was  painted with a layer of tan makeup and framed by a short, thick mane of heavily sprayed unnaturally black hair. Earrings dangled from large lobes. Mom never went out without what she called her
face.
That always included hair sprayed stiff and a ton of flashy jewelry. Not even a call from the hospital emergency had prevented this.

“Thank goodness, Justin,” she said with relief. “Dad and I were worried you’d never wake up. We were afraid to go home. We’ve been here all night waiting for you to come out of surgery and then out of the recovery room. You’re in intensive care now, but at least they let us in to see you. This whole experience has been exhausting.”

I glanced up at my father, tall and imposing. He wore a badly rumpled three-piece suit and was in need of a shave. He caught my eye and slid into my line of sight.

“Hey, Son. You sure had us worried for a while,” he mumbled, running a meaty hand backward over his balding head.

Pain shot up my right leg. “My legs,” I choked.

All three of us looked down. The silence was ominous.

Finally, I asked, “How bad?”

My parents stared at my bandaged legs, seemingly at a loss for words. Finally, Dad cleared his throat. “You should probably rest now, Son. Your mother and I will stop by tomorrow.” They moved in unison toward the door and then they were gone. Would it have been over the top for them to offer up some form of, well maybe not affection, that would have been asking too much, but maybe a pat, or a hand on the shoulder, or something, considering my situation? But it just wasn’t their style.
No touching
.