The Way We Roll (12 page)

Read The Way We Roll Online

Authors: Stephanie Perry Moore

BOOK: The Way We Roll
5.27Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Drinking?” Loni said.
“She says they're coming out to get something,”
All of a sudden, the door swung open, and four girls came swaggering out. The largest girl was waving keys around and couldn't even walk straight. And she was so loud we could hear her yelling at Cassie even with our windows up. I knew they were drunk.
“There's Sharon,” I said.
It was wintertime, and she had on a coat, so my friends couldn't tell what was really going on. I knew there was a baby hidden in there. The fourth girl I remembered from Eagle Weekend; she was from the University of SoutheasternArkansas.
“Yep, there's that Keisha girl,” Torian said, pointing to the larger girl.
Loni said, “You know everybody.”
“Yeah, I tried to get to know them, thinking they would like me. I didn't know she was going to leave school becauseshe put your girl Sharon in the hospital last year.”
Offended, I hit her on the head and said, “Don't trip. She is not my girl.”
We watched as they got in the car. Keisha was in the driver's seat. Sharon took the passenger seat. If Keisha was a fool and had severely harmed Sharon last year, why was Sharon with her? Why were they letting Keisha drive? Peopledid stupid things.
“Where are they taking them now? How come everybodyelse isn't leaving? What should we do?” Torian asked in an uneasy tone.
“I don't know. Cassie is getting in the car with them.” Loni stuck her head out the window to get a closer look. “Why do they have her hands all tied up? This is so crazy.”
“Yeah, they're doing something foolish with her. Let's follow them,” I said when they took off.
We tried to stay back, but Keisha was driving so fast, Torian had to break the speed limit to catch her. No sooner had we thought they should slow down than Keisha veered off the road, and her car slammed into a tree.
Torian abruptly pulled over and started screaming. When I saw the car, I was in shock, too. It was practically wrapped around the tree. Four people were in there. Loni started shaking like she was having a panic attack. Seeing this horrendous scene, all three of us were about to break.
11
GRAVE
“
O
h, my gosh, oh, my gosh!!” Torian continued to scream.
The three of us unlocked our car doors, and we ran over to the car. All we could see was blood, glass, and still bodies.
“Does someone have their phone? Hand me a phone!” I yelled, trying desperately to hold it together and get help. “We have to call the police!”
“I don't think they're going to be able to do something now,” Loni said as she cried.
“Here, t—take mine.” Torian handed it to me, clearly shaken and unable to talk.
“There has been an accident. Come quickly,” I said to the 911 operator as I gave specific directions on where I thought we were and what we'd just witnessed.
“Any movement in the vehicle, ma'am?” the female operator asked me.
Thinking I'd see none, I quickly looked and was elated to be wrong. “Oh, my gosh! Somebody's moving! Come quickly, please! You got to come quick! There is movementin the back of the car. Please!”
The calm voice of the operator said, “Help is on the way.” The three of us joined hands and huddled together. Loni's tears got stronger. Torian looked as if she'd seen a ghost. We all were in shock and wanted to do something to help.
I immediately prayed. “Lord we need you right now. The folks in this car need a miracle, Lord. I know hazing and drinking and driving are wrong, but as college students,we make mistakes. We don't have it together. We need grace.”
“Everybody needs to know what's going on. Everybody's got to know. We gotta go tell them!” Torian said, shouting.
Shaking her, I said, “Yeah, but somebody needs to stay here.”
“I can't go anywhere. I can't leave,” Loni said.
“It's okay. I'll go,” I said, taking the keys from Torian. “Talk into the car. Let them know we're getting help.”
I got back to the abandoned warehouse, and it seemed like there were more cars than before. The door was unlocked,and I didn't know if I should knock. I didn't have to be sweet; lives were hanging in the balance. When I stepped through the door, a Beta named Trisha came to the door with Bea. I saw Tammie positioned at the front of the line. I shook my head, and Tammie knew all wasn't great with Cassie.
Trisha took my collar and said, “What, so now you want to wake up and smell the coffee? You want a part of this? How did you know where we were, scrub?”
“First of all, you need to get your hands off me, and second of all, there was an accident.” I jerked away.
Bea said, “What you mean, an accident? All of us are here.”
“No, big sister!” Mulani shouted. “Big Sister Mean MachineKeisha and Cassie went to the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart.”
Trisha's eyes became large. “Keisha? She's been in an accident?”
Hating to deliver horrible news to anyone, I said, “It doesn't look good at all.”
“My line sister Rose was with her!” Jackie said. I rememberedher, she was a Beta from the University of SoutheasternArkansas who I'd met on my birthday.
Rose had been the girl I didn't know. So it appeared she was from the other college. This was hard. Now two schools were involved in this bad accident.
Bea said, “And Sharon is with her, too. She's pregnant!”
“What?” Trisha said.
This didn't shock me, but clearly everybody didn't know. Besides Kade telling me, no other word had gotten to me about it. Putting aside how I felt about her pregnancy, I could only pray she would walk away unhurt from the car accident.
“Where's Hayden?” I asked, knowing the highest chapterofficer needed to be in on what was going on.
“Hayden never participated in any of this stuff,” Trishasaid as she paced back and forth.
I stood by Jackie and eyed Trisha seriously. “We need to call her. She's the president. She needs to be there.”
“Uh-uh, she can't know,” Trisha said. “Let's go, everybody.”
“Maybe I wasn't clear about how bad things are. Police are on the way. What you're doing is illegal. Everyone doesn't need to come.” I shook Trisha hard, trying to get her to understand that the accident was not really somethingeverybody needed to come and see.
“Okay, I'll call Hayden. everybody else, stay here,” Trisha said. “Bea and I will be back.”
Trisha and Bea got in the car with me; they were so upset they couldn't drive either. I'd never seen the big sisters so on edge. I could only pray things would be better than when I'd left the scene. When we got there, there was an ambulance,fire truck, and three police cars. When I saw Torian being restrained by Loni and an officer, unable to be controlledand sick with grief, I knew the worst had occurred.
“Oh, my gosh, somebody's dead,” Trisha said, taking in the horrific scene.
“How many people were in the car?” Bea asked.
“There was four of them,” I said,
“Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh!” Bea collapsed as she saw the mangled steel that had used to be an automobile.
Loni spotted me and let Torian be held by the officer. She jogged over. I felt knots in my stomach.
“The girl from the University of Southeastern Arkansas is dead, Malloy,” she cried as my arms held her. “We didn't see it, but she was ejected and thrown from the car. They found her body in the woods. They said she wasn't wearinga seatbelt, and the immediate death was caused by head injury and a broken neck.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Trisha said, grabbing her waist.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“Not Rose!” Jackie cried.
I held Jackie tight. As bad as I felt, I knew Jackie felt ten times worse. I was so angry at this whole pledge process. Why they felt the old-school way was so important was beyond me. Now their crazy actions had cost someone their life.
“What about Sharon, Cassie, and Keisha?” I lifted Loni and asked.
After Loni collected herself, she said, “Keisha was driving, and she suffered a massive head injury. She is badly hurt. Sharon is, too.”
Bea asked, “And the baby?”
“There's a baby? She's not even conscious. They don't know anything. They're just rushing them to the hospital.Cassie is the one they think is most out of danger.”
Trisha, Bea, and I were happy for that.
“What have we done?” Bea said to a shaking Trisha as we saw the rescue workers carry a body with a sheet over it.
Trisha fell to her knees and shouted, “We were just tryingto have a little fun, and now somebody's gone! Oh, God, forgive me!”
I had never seen somebody's body under a sheet. I've never seen a real crime scene or been involved in any type of horrific accident, but there I stood, watching the rescueworkers. I felt numb. Maybe I shouldn't have let the four of them get in the car. Maybe I should have confronted Keisha and told her she didn't need to drive. I had clearly seen she was staggering. Because I was called to get some evidence to stop the hazing, I had wanted to catch the Betas doing something that would give my mom enough leverage to take over the line and stop the madness.
But I had known what was going on. Why hadn't I called my mom? Why hadn't I just ratted them out and told her what I knew? Then two police officers walked toward me. They started asking questions about Rose. “Officers, this was clearly an accident!” Trisha yelled after we could sense they were overly strong with us. “The driver herself isn't even available to tell you what happened. How do you expect any of us to know? We weren't here. We didn't see it.”
“Young lady, calm down. Somebody called this in. We can trace the cell phone if we have to. Someone saw something.”The officer looked at me as though I was holding back valuable information.
Not helping, Loni gave me a slight bump. Trisha couldn't even look my way. I knew I was supposed to speak up, but what was I supposed to say? On top of everything that had happened, we just needed to unite and get through this. I needed time to think. I needed to see if Keisha was going to survive before I went and put the blame on her. Plus, I held myself responsible. I should have stopped Keisha from driving. It just had all happened so fast. Finally I spoke. “Officer, we were driving home and saw a car lose controland crash into a tree.”
“And who was in the car with you, ma'am?”
I pointed to Torian, who was still with the other officer,and then I pointed to Loni.
“Is that what happened?” he asked Loni.
She nodded.
“Well, let me get your information, and if we need to ask you anything further, we will at a later time.”
“Sir, I just want to know ...” Trisha said as she got really close to me, and then I smelled alcohol on her as well.
I pushed her backward. “She's doesn't have anything to say, officer.”
“You ladies know each other?”
“Yeah, I know them,” Trisha said.
“We're a part of the same sorority.”
“Y'all need to be careful out here. It's a windy road, and it's dark. It's too dark for college students to be out at night.”
Cassie got into an ambulance, and I panicked. “Wait, what's going on? I thought she was going to be okay. Why are they taking her away?”
The softening officer said, “They're going to take her in for precautionary measures to get her checked out to make sure she doesn't have any internal bleeding or brokenbones.”
An hour later, we were at the hospital. Hayden came up to me, and I'd never seen her face look so distorted. She had apparently been crying for a long while, and her eyes were puffy, her cheeks red. She ended up in my arms. “Thank you,” she said.
“What? I should have stopped them. Why are you thankingme?”
“You tried to do what I couldn't. I just stayed away. Sharon told me all of it. You told Kade to get back togetherwith her.”
Caught off guard, I asked, “She told you that?”
“She's so happy about it. She hadn't been doing anythingthe whole pledge process, and tonight I guess she just wanted to be around. It might cost her everything.”
I turned away. I hadn't heard from Kade, so it only made sense that he was working things out with Sharon.
Good for them,
I thought, remembering she was clinging to her life.
Hayden turned my discouraged face back to hers. “But listen. He still wasn't feeling it.”
“What do you mean?”
“They weren't going to get back together. Sharon was trying to take her mind off that, but she was happy you tried for her. I honestly don't think she's ready to give up, but ...”
A woman suddenly came from the ER, screaming, “I been in this hospital before, and my daughter almost didn't survive then! Now, fooling with this crazy hazing stuff, my grandchild is dead! Somebody's going to pay!”
Hayden started crying again after hearing the news. “Oh, no, Sharon lost her baby.”
I could only hold on to Hayden. I had no answers. We were told that Sharon had had to have an emergency C-section, but it had been too late to save the baby. I couldn't make anything better, but I could be there for Sharon. I hoped it would a difference.
 
I had to call Kade. He had to know what was going on. Before I could call him, though, my phone rang. “Kade?”
“No, this is your mother. Why haven't you called me, girl, and let me know what in the world is happening with those Betas over there on your campus? I'm getting calls at all hours about some car accident. Please tell me this is a joke.”
“No, Mom,” I said in a somber tone. “Far from a joke.”
“And you were out there? You were on the scene? If any underground stuff is going on, I know you'd be smart enough not to participate in any of it. Plus, I thought they weren't doing anything crazy. I mean, you had given me your word.”
“No, Mama, I didn't give you my word that they weren't doing anything. I told you
I
wasn't.”
“Then why were you out there, Malloy?”
“Because the girls on the line ...”
Then I thought about what I was saying. I didn't know how all this needed to spin out. I didn't know what I needed to do to protect my fellow line sisters from all the craziness they had been through. Though I disagreed with it wholeheartedly,this was going to be more than anyone had to endure. Why should they have to pay the price twice?
Playing it safe, I said, “Mom, it's just crazy here right now. We got to talk later.”
“Baby, please tell me are you're okay. I need to know the facts.” I knew my mom couldn't sleep unless I assuredher.

Other books

Live Fire by Stephen Leather
Surrender to a Wicked Spy by Celeste Bradley
The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
Gift of Fire by Jayne Ann Krentz
The Arch and the Butterfly by Mohammed Achaari
Magic's Price by Mercedes Lackey
Goodbye Isn't Forever by Blake, Melanie