Page 5 of The Healer

Smothering her smile, she readied to reveal her good news. “Oncology.” She blinked at the bright lights penetrating the windscreen as Dad stopped at a red traffic light.

Mom beamed. “That’s amaz—”

“Shit,” Dad bit out.

Ilona screamed, throwing out a hand like she could stop the semi when it plowed into them head-on. A moving wall of metal scrunched the front of the car. The force shoved them back, shoving them into the car behind. Time slowed. Glass shattered and sprayed. Streetlights glimmered off shards tearing through obstacles. Mom’s blood-streaked arms rose as if floating underwater before snapping back in recoil. Dad lurched, his head whipping forward into the white airbags exploding to life.

Ilona’s vision filled with the floor, then the ceiling, her breath seizing in her lungs. Phones, house keys, pens, and coins shot around the cab.

When the car settled, metal tinkled, and the stench of gasoline burned her nose. Groaning, she unfolded her body, peeling her face off the back of Dad’s seat. Her cheek throbbed and burned as if on fire. She pressed her palm there then drew it back to study the blood smeared across her hand.

Silence reigned from the front.

She raised her gaze and blinked, unable to process what she was seeing.

Her door opened. A stranger unclipped her and dragged her out, his grip firm despite her squirming. A pleading wail penetrated her ears. Who is crying like that?

“My mom…” she rasped, wiggling for freedom.

“The ambulance is on its way,” the man gritted out, holding her in place on the sidewalk and away from the devastation.

Ambulance? Yes! Hope, warm, bright, blinding engulfed her. She stilled. “I’m…I’m a doctor.”

He blinked at her, studied her face for a second, then released her. With her knees weak, her muscles trembling, she staggered and crumpled to the tarmac.

Splaying her bloodied hands, she tried to push herself up, dazed as the cold rain trickled down her face and saturated her dress. The stench of blood and the rain hitting tarmac assaulted her. Across shattered glass and twisted metal pieces she couldn’t identify, she studied the wreckage. The full realization was slow to form. Their car was a crumpled mess. The driver of the semi was being lifted out of his cab.

“Dad! Mom!” Tears mingled with the rain, and Ilona whimpered, unable to hear a groan above the patter of the raindrops and the cooling metal.

She rocked to her knees, then onto her feet to stumble to the car. Running her hand along the dented roof, she slid down as she collapsed beside Mom’s shattered window.

One look contorted Ilona’s mouth into a wail, the sound she made unrecognizable. Her beautiful mother, her neck twisted, her lips smeared with blood, and her lifeless eyes staring at nothing.

Ilona fell onto her backside, raising her face to the dark sky, letting the rain pelt her. The agony cinching her chest stole her ability to breathe. Her vision spun, but instead of calming her breathing, she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Mom… I love you. I’m sorry I never told you enough.” Dizziness assailed Ilona, and she bumped her head on the side of the car. She stayed there, allowing the cold metal to comfort her. Her temple pulsed, her face itched and burned—she might be concussed.

She gripped the door, inching herself to her feet. People milled around, gathering on Dad’s side. Someone had opened his door and was speaking to him. She held her breath, hoping to hear his warm baritone. He didn’t respond.

Crying out, she weaved through the carnage, one destination in mind. The man from earlier tried to stop her, but she shook him off. She rested a hand on the buckled rear of the car, needing its solidity to ground her. Dad could be fine, he had to be. Hand over hand, she pushed herself to hurry, but every step drained her with her limbs threatening to fail her, her body complaining at the abuse.

He slumped over the steering wheel with his face in the deflated airbag. She sucked in a deep breath and peeked between those trying to help. Blood trickled from an injury on his temple, but air misted with each gasp he took.

She nudged and tugged people aside, eager to reach him. When they tried to stop her, she screamed she was a doctor.

On a whimper, she stilled, and stared at Dad, forcing herself to calm, to think. What would he do? Mom was…dead. Her throat constricted, almost cutting off her breathing. She had to focus on the living.

Kneeling beside him, she feathered her hands over parts of him she could reach, starting at the back of his neck. Nothing felt out of place, but moving someone with broken vertebrae wasn’t wise. His airway was clear. His wrist and his leg were broken. Tiny cuts marred his skin.

While head wounds bled a lot and sometimes looked worse than they were, the deep laceration worried her because of the potential hidden damage to his brain.

The shrill of sirens piercing the rain’s hush was sweet. She wept amid chants of gratitude.

Pressing her palm to his head wound, applying direct pressure, she took his warm hand in her other hand. “I got you, Dad. I got you.”

Familiar beeps, trolley wheels on linoleum, and the sharp sting of antiseptic dragged Ilona from her sleep. Had she caught a nap between shifts? She frowned, unable to remember or to think past her throbbing head. Even her ears rang as if she suffered from tinnitus.

She shifted in the bed, and stinging barbs of fire lanced through her, skittering across her skin. Groaning, she tried to touch something obscuring her vision on the left side of her face but couldn’t, not with a drip in her wrist.

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