Note to self: never say that I'll even TRY and update twice in one day, unless it's early on in the day, cuz something's bound to come up! Anyway, here goes nothing! Oh, and Mewtwo, this is the chapter I was telling you about that I'd decided to be evil. I can't help myself! It's in my nature as an author! In the immortal words of JK Rowling after she wrote the fifth book, "An author has to be a ruthless killer."
Chapter 9
Clara
As a treat, I suggest that all of us girls go on a shopping trip at the mall. Ginny agrees immediately, but Vanessa opts out.
"I'd rather spend the day with Jacob," she says, and I shrug.
"It's your loss," I tell her. Neriah also decides to stay behind, but her reason is that she wants to help Matt and the rest of the Tribunal figure out what to do with Dillon.
In the end, Isabel, Rochelle, Ginny, Hermione, Delilah, and I go over to the Angel Falls mall, armed with loads of money which Ethan created.
We walk in the front doors. "I want to look at the bookstores!" Hermione exclaims to nobody's surprise.
"I want to look at jewellery!" exclaim Ginny and Isabel simultaneously.
"Clothes!" Delilah and I exclaim.
"Shoes!" says Rochelle.
"Okay, we'll all split up," I suggest, "and meet back here by 2:00. It's noon now."
Everyone nods, and we break off. Delilah and I have a blast, going to different clothing stores and trying things on, modelling them for each other, and buying the things that look best. We leave for the main entrance at 1:55, arms heavy with bags, still giggling like little schoolgirls. The mall is so crowded that it's 2:00 before we even get halfway there.
"Come on," I say, "let's hurry!" Delilah nods, and we pick up the pace a bit. I groan when I see how crowded the escalators are, and it's too late to turn around and take the elevator.
We manage to find spots that aren't totally crowded on the escalator, and stand there. Some crazy person runs up, bumping into Delilah as he passes.
"Hey, watch it!" I call, but he just keeps running. Delilah regains her balance, with help from the handrail, only to be bumped by two mall security guards. I watch the horrified look on her face as she seems to fall in slow motion. Nobody in front of us even tries to catch her; they just move out of the way and let her fall. I try to hold on to her, but I can't. She falls down the rest of the escalator ride, which is halfway between the top floor and the bottom floor.
"DELILAH!!" I scream, taking advantage of the momentary lack of people in front of me to run down to my sister.
Rochelle! I call out, hoping she's close enough to hear me.
Clara, what's wrong? she replies.
It's Delilah. I tell her what happened. Bring Isabel here, NOW!
Silence. Then, We're coming!
I reach the bottom, where Delilah lies, eyes closed, on her back. Her neck is at an odd angle, and I can tell it's broken. I just hope that it's not completely broken. I kneel down beside her.
Isabel and Rochelle come running, closely followed by Ginny and Hermione.
"Clara!" Isabel calls, and Delilah's neck goes slowly back to normal.
Tell Isabel to stop healing Delilah now, I say to Rochelle. She's healed enough that she won't die, but if she suddenly got up, completely fine, people would get suspicious.
Okay, comes the reply.
"Call an ambulance!" someone yells.
"Already done!" calls somebody else. "They're on their way now!"
I breathe a sigh of relief. "You'll be fine," I say to Delilah, even though I have no clue if she can hear me. I grip her hand. "Just stay with me, girl. Follow the sound of my voice, if you have to."
I feel the tiniest of squeezes on my hand. "She's still alive!" I exclaim. "But she's fading fast."
A pair of paramedics breaks through he crowd that's formed around my sister and me. Without saying a word, they put Delilah on a stretcher and take her to the ambulance. I follow close by, and Rochelle, Isabel, Ginny, and Hermione follow me. When we get to the ambulance, there's a huge crowd still following us. Once Delilah's safely in, a paramedic turns to the five of us. "Family and close friends only," he says.
"I'm her sister," I say, "and these four are our best friends." The guy lets us in and closes the doors. He asks me what happened, and I tell him.
I look at Rochelle. Can you please tell everyone else what's going on? I ask. I'll be busy.
She gives a barely perceptible nod, and I return my focus to Delilah. Her eyes are closed, and some of her brown hair is plastered to her somewhat sweaty face. "Will she be alright?" I ask the paramedic, not taking my eyes off my sister.
"She's alive," he says, "though we're not sure how she managed to survive. Her neck is almost completely broken, but it's still attached enough that, as long as we can get her to the hospital in time, she won't die."
I realize that if Isabel hadn't healed Delilah that little bit, she'd definitely be dead by now. I flash her a quick, grateful look, and she smiles, whispering something to Rochelle.
Isabel would like me to tell you that she wouldn't have just left Delilah there to die, even if she didn't know her.
I smile slightly, feeling tears come to my eyes. Thank you, all four of you, for being here for us both. I wait as Rochelle forwards my message to the others.
We wouldn't have it any other way. We all love both of you, even though we only recently met Delilah.
I smile even more and can't even try to stop the tears from flowing now. The paramedic looks at me, and Ginny moves from her seat to beside me. She wraps her arms around my shoulders.
"There's just one more thing I need from you," the paramedic says to me. "I need to know the names of your parents and other immediate family members so that I can tell them what's happened and they can visit if they want to."
"Okay," I nod. "Our mum's name is Carolynn Swanson, and our brother is Seth Swanson."
The man writes that down, then looks back at me. "And your father?" he asks. I shift uncomfortably in my seat and look away.
"He…he died when I was two."
He doesn't ask any more about that. "How old is this brother?"
"He's 26," I answer, doing the math in my head. I can't believe it's really been that long since I've seen Seth. I mean, he was 10 when I ran away…I'm just surprised it's been 16 years!
"And how old is she?" the man continues, indicating Delilah.
"24."
"What about you guys?"
"Rochelle, Hermione, and I are 21," I say, while indicating who's who. "And Isabel and Ginny are 20."
The man writes all this down, and then we stop. He gets us to stay out of the way while they transport Delilah. Once she's out of the ambulance, the five of us follow on into the hospital.
Intense! I have a hard time believing that I'm actually writing the characters of adults technically…strange…oh well! They're still teens at heart…or in Isabel's case, in looks, too. Fooled you guys, didn't I? I said something about character death at the beginning of the chapter! No worries. As I told my readers of "Love Triangles", I never kill a character until the end of a fic. And this fic is far from over. I still have many plans for this…
