He was able to get Trina to send them the location, and as soon as Leon managed to lock his front door, they ran down the hall to the stairs. James tried to coax more information out of Trina, but it was a lost cause. By the time they reached the lobby, she’d hung up to wait for the ambulance. In the city, it could be anywhere from five minutes to fifty, especially if the weather was bad.
They rushed as carefully as they could across the parking lot to James’ car. James ended up sliding the last few feet and slammed into the driver's side door with enough force to rattle his teeth. Leon didn’t fare much better, crashing into the passenger door with a grunt. He struggled with the handle for a moment before giving a desperate-sounding roar and ripping the door open.
James had them out of the parking lot before either was fully buckled in, but he came to a complete stop at the entrance to the main road to test the brakes and make sure they both had their seatbelts on. His Subaru was pretty good at handling the weather, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He was about to break several rules of the road, but this wouldn’t be one of them.
“It’s good that Trina is okay and was able to call for help,” James said, glancing only for half a second at Leon to see him nod stiffly. “And it’s not uncommon for people to get knocked out by the force of the airbag. That doesn't mean anything.”
Leon grunted, but even the small noise sounded broken.
“I’m sure the ambulance will beat us there, and we’ll probably get a call from Trina that they’re in the ambulance and everything is fine. Then we can go to the hospital to meet them,” James said as he ran a yellow light and sped around the car in front of him to make the next light.
Leon made another choking noise, and James wished he could reach for him, but he was not taking his hand off the wheel for any reason.
“It’s going to be okay. She’s going to be okay,” he said, because there was absolutely no way she couldn’t be. His mom survived cancer. Hailey was going to get up and walk away from a car accident. She was way too full of life and fight.
“Th-thank you…for…driving,” Leon forced out.
“Of course,” James said, skidding a little around a corner, but getting enough traction to race through the next light. “You just focus on breathing, okay?”
He didn’t want to say it because he didn’t want to put any added pressure on him, but James was going to need Leon when they got there. James could only maintain calm and collected for so long before he broke down, too. Trina and Hailey would need them both to have it together—or at least appear to. They were the “old folks,” after all.
Tears tried to form in James’ eyes, but he didn’t have time for them. He sniffed loudly and then again until his sinuses burned, but his eyes cleared.
“We’re almost there,” James said as he took the last turn onto the final stretch of road. Up ahead, he could see red lights flashing, a gross parody of the festive decorations James had spent all afternoon hanging up.
“Fuck,” Leon breathed as they both took in the mangled state of Hailey’s car. They had crashed headfirst into a light pole, with tire marks in the ice on the street showing exactly where theyhad skidded out. The car wasn’t split in half, or any of the other horrifying things James had been envisioning, but the front was crumpled in, and the windshield was shattered.
James did his best to maneuver the car up to the curb, but Leon tore off his seatbelt before they came to a complete stop.
He managed to get the door open, but he tripped while getting out, catching the side of the car with his hands before pushing off.
“Hailey!” he shouted, racing towards the scene.
Chapter Six
LEON
In college, Leon had taken a biology class to fulfill his science requirement, and they’d studied how the brain stores short-term memory. He was pretty sure his brain had stopped processing short-term memory when James took his phone out of his hands. He didn’t remember leaving his apartment or the drive over.
The first real memory he formed was Hailey’s distraught voice calling his name.
It was possible he vaulted over the back of her car. He also might have run into a paramedic on the way.
“Hailey!”
“Leon!” she sobbed, reaching for him from where she was sitting on the back step of the ambulance.
He skidded to a stop right in front of her, taking the hand that wasn’t pressing a compress to the side of her face. A paramedic was inspecting a gash running across her forehead. Her hair was matted with blood, and dried bits of it were stuck to her face and the shoulder of her coat.
Leon’s entire arm was tingling, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He refused to distract the paramedics from caring for Hailey by doing something fucking stupid like passing out.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, and Hailey hiccupped in response. “Are you okay? Where’s Trina? Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?” He turned to look desperately at the paramedic. “Why the fuck are you on the side of the road? Do you see her? She needs to be in a fucking hospital right–”
“Leon,” a soft voice interrupted, and he glanced over to see Trina clutching their jacket tightly around themself. “She doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”
Leon whipped back around, just as a steady hand pressed into his back. “And why the fuck not?” Leon asked. He only had to turn his head an inch to catch James’ eye as he stepped up to his side. “She doesn’t want to go to the fucking hospital, and I’m going to need you to talk sense into her because I’m seeing red, and it’s not from this fucking holiday or these fucking lights.”
“Sir, if you could please just–” the paramedic tried to say.
