Sam woke up suddenly, her light green eyes blinking rapidly then coming to rest on Chris, who was frantically trying to shake her awake.
"Yes, thank you. We'll be there immediately." Chris was talking into his cell phone. "Thank you again for calling." Putting it in his jacket pocket, he turned to his fellow blonde.
"Sam, wake up. We have to go." Chris' eyes were brimming with unshed tears.
Sam shook her head, desperately trying to process why Chris would be so distraught.
Chris sighed, bringing his hand up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. "Sam, it's Josh."
Immediately Sam brought herself up to a sitting position, throwing the blanket Chris must have draped over her off as she swung her legs over the side of the couch.
"What's going on?" Sam ran to the wall where she kept her spare house key, pulling on her shoes as she stopped to grab her key.
Chris walked by her, yanking open the front door. "No time, I'll explain in the car."
"You drove?" Sam's brows furrowed. "I thought your car was at a bus station?"
"My parents don't mind if I borrow their car, Sam. Now let's go." Chris reached his arm around, looping it behind Sam to help rush her along.
Sam took the steps two at a time, Chris right on her heels.
Slamming the car doors behind them, Sam rubbed her temples as she tried to catch her breath. "Chris, when are you going to tell me what's going on?"
Chris' breath hitched, his chest heaving. "Josh's mom Melinda called me. He's in the back of an ambulance right now."
Sam shook her head frantically. "No, he was fine earlier."
"Melinda came home about an hour ago, and went to check on him. He had gotten into Bob's gun locker." Chris stopped then, his voice cracking. "Sam, he was going to kill himself."
"He was okay this morning." Sam brought her arms up to fold around her, holding herself as she trembled.
They were quiet for a while, listening to the soft rumble of the road under the car and their quiet sniffling. Sam watched the clouds; the sky was an array of dark oranges and pinks.
Sam wiped at her eyes angrily. Josh could have died tonight, and instead of driving to meet him at a hospital they could've been driving to a morgue to comfort his mother.
"Chris. You don't understand. He was okay. Just this morning, he was fine." Sam leaned her head against the cold window as she spoke, the freezing glass keeping her grounded.
He sniffed harshly. "Maybe he thought of his sisters. Or maybe he thought of this weekend. Maybe he came to terms with what he did to us and he couldn't handle it."
Sam bit her lip, much harder than she meant to, and she winced as the metallic blood hit her tongue. "I don't know Chris. I just don't know."
The two friends spent the rest of the ride in silence. Sam's stomach lurched as they drove past Kirkbridge. If he was being taken to a genuine hospital, she was more worried that he had done something to himself with the time he had before Melinda had found him.
Fighting the urge to roll down the window and empty her stomach, Sam frantically dug around the car in search of a CD case.
Chris loved his technology, but he also loved physical copies of music too. While they had been growing up, most of Chris' requests for Christmas and birthday gifts had been playlists burned onto discs.
Feeling her fingers come into contact with the sharp corner of a case, Sam aggressively pulled the case out of the bottom of the console.
'Team Edward!' was scribbled messily on the front of the disc, and Sam found herself tearing up as she recognized Hannah's handwriting.
Doing her best to keep her tears at bay, Sam worked against her shaking hands to shove the disc into the player.
Bon Iver's 'Roslyn' slowly filled her ears, and Sam sighed. Hannah must have made Chris a copy of the Twilight soundtrack.
"Okay, don't laugh at me." Chris laughed, glancing at Sam. "I'm totally Team Jacob."
Sam's tears spilled over, and started laughing so hard it was bordering the edge of hysterical. Chris laughed too, until Sam's laughter slowly dissipated into soft sobbing.
"Hey, whoa, Sam?" Chris' head whipped back and forth, desperately trying to keep his attention on the road but still trying to let Sam know he was here for her.
Sam's sobbing escalated, her hands coming up to tear at her hair as her throat went raw.
Every time she closed her eyes, wendigo with butterfly tattoos would burst forward out of the dark corners of her eyelids. She'd see Josh laying in a pool of his own blood, a crimson hole in the center of his forehead. Beth's head staring at her, milky eyes wide and unseeing, just out of the black emptiness.
Sam clawed her nails down her face, drawing blood. Turning to Chris as she tried in desperation to keep her eyes open, she started to scream.
Chris' eyes went wide, and his knuckles gripped white on the steering wheel. "Sam, listen to me! It's going to be okay! Josh needs you, Sam. You have to calm down."
Sam's breath was coming in short gasps now. "Th-They're all dead. We're all dead, Chris."
"Josh is alive, Sam! Can you hear me?" Chris was shouting, most likely to try to drown out anything Sam was seeing.
Sam was vaguely aware of the blood trickling down her cheeks, and slowly dripping onto her jeans. Her eyes were starting to burn; she had barely blinked in the last few minutes.
Chris' voice echoed in the background, as if he were nothing but white noise.
"Sam, please!" Chris you don't understand.
"We're alive, Sam! Josh is alive!" I saw his dead body, gunshot and all. You're lying.
"Sammy, it's okay! Look at me!" I can't stop looking, Chris.
She realized then that she must have still been screaming, judging by the raw burn in the back of her throat.
There were claws on her now, grabbing ahold of her arms and twisting her sideways in her seat. Sam struggled as she cried out, begging for Hannah to stop.
"Sam, look at me."
Ashley was staring at her; it wasn't Hannah or another wendigo. Sam's scream caught in her throat as she stared at her ginger friend. Ashley's arms grasped Sam's shoulders, and Sam could feel the nervous trembles in her fingers.
Chris was standing behind Ash, holding the door open. His face was streaked with tears and blood.
Sam realized then, to her horror, just how strong the metallic tang of blood was in the small car space.
"What happened?" Sam's voice shook, and she flinched as she took in how shattered her voice sounded.
"You started crying, raking your nails down your face and screaming. I pulled over and called Ash, I didn't know what else to do." Chris looked genuinely shaken, and his voice wavered as he spoke.
Sam looked into Ashley's eyes, taking in the confusion and the concern. But she also focused on the light that was there, that proved that she was alive. Her eyes combed over the light flush on her cheeks, and the small clouds of icy air every time she breathed.
Sam licked her lips, wincing as she licked at the blood that had pooled in the small creases in her lips. "You're alive."
Ash laughed, gently. "Yes, I am. You are too, and so is Chris. We're all alive, Sam."
Sam blinked slowly, but there were no haunting images of her dead friends burned into her eyelids anymore.
Stepping forward slowly, Chris smiled at her. "Sam, you can talk to us. It's okay."
"I saw Hannah, and Beth's head. Every time I would blink, they'd be there. Josh was dead too." Sam was faintly aware of the sudden sting on her cheeks, and she deduced she must have been crying again.
Chris winced, then stepped forward cautiously, with his arms extended. "How about you sit in the back with Ash? She'll help you get cleaned up too, okay?"
Sam nodded, allowing Chris to help her to her feet. She stumbled forward into his chest, and he held her gently as he helped her maneuver around the car door and into the back seat.
Ash slid in next to her. "Are you still doing okay, Sam?"
Sam wanted to tell her no, I'm not okay. How could you be okay after seeing all your friends dead and bloody and gone?
She nodded.
Ashley gave her a small, nervous smile. "I'm going to clean the blood off of you now, okay?"
Sam watched as Ashley wadded up the small handful of napkins, and wet them with a water bottle handed to her by Chris. Smiling at them both, Chris shut the door, reappearing a few moments later at the front of the car.
Jerking backwards, Sam hissed as the cloth came into contact with the broken skin on her face.
Ashley's eyes were wide, frightened. "Sam, it's okay. It's just me."
Sam signaled for her to continue, prepared for the cold sting.
Sam was slightly hurt by the wide eyes Ashley was still giving her. She couldn't really blame her though, as she was watching the wad of napkins turn from white to red in just a few strokes.
If she would hurt herself like this, what would she do to someone else if she lost it again? Sam knew Ashley was sharing the same thought.
The rest of the car ride was completely silent, save for Ashley's quiet directions of which way she needed to turn her head. Chris had even turned off the playlist, just in case it set her off again.
Sam looked down at her arms, and her eyebrows nearly shot up into her hair in shock. Deep, bloody gouges ran down the length of both of her arms.
Ashley held her wrists, in fear that Sam wouldn't react well to seeing what she had done to herself. "The scratches on your face aren't as bad as the ones on your arms. They could actually be called scratches, but if we had to call the ones on your arms 'scratches' then I'd hate to see a gash."
Sam smiled at Ash's poor attempt at humor.
The rest of the car ride was spent in near silence. Chris and Ashley would quietly talk about Sam's condition and what Josh had done. Sam watched the sky change, and when the world outside the car went black she stared into the emptiness.
Eventually the car slowed to a stop, and Sam looked around to find blaring red hospital signs.
"Let's get you inside, okay Sam?" Chris had already opened her door, and he was reaching for her wrists.
Sam went limp. She didn't really have the energy to get up herself, but she didn't see any reason to make things harder for him. Allowing Chris to pull her out of the car, Sam leaned into his side heavily.
"All right, up you go Sammy." Chris' arms snaked around her middle and under her knees, sweeping her up like a bride.
"They should've taken you to a hospital yesterday. I know none of us were as hurt as Jess, but I know you have some pretty gnarly bruises and scrapes." Chris' eyes took in the new damage Sam had given herself. "And now this too."
Sam meant to shake her head no, but she was so exhausted that her head just lolled to the side. "I need to be with Josh. I need to see that he's okay."
"I really don't think that it would help Josh to see you like this, Sam. Wait until tomorrow." Ashley glanced over to gauge Sam's reaction as she spoke.
Chris nodded, readjusting his hold on the petite blonde. "She's right Sam. Josh would freak out if he saw you bleeding everywhere."
Done trying to argue her case, Sam allowed the exhaustion to take over and turned her head into the curve of Chris' neck.
Ashley trailed along behind them, her eyes filled with concern. Sam was surprised that she was okay with Chris holding her like this. Injured or not, most girls would be clawing at her hair for 'touching their man like that.'
Sam had never been so happy to think about just how different Ashley was compared to the other girls in their group.
Ashley wasn't always the best in pressured situations, or the most collected person. But she was understanding and kind, and that's all that Sam needed right now.
The next few minutes passed with a blur. Sam kept her face buried in Chris' neck, feeling the hurried bounce of his footsteps and listening to his voice as he spoke of her episode.
Sam was vaguely aware of Chris laying her down onto a gurney. Staring into the face of a smiling nurse, Sam blinked back as though her eyelids were weighed down with mud.
Watching the trail of hallways lights, Sam counted three turns before they finally stopped to push her into a small room.
They attached several beeping devices and IVs to her, and she felt the exhaustion weighing on her chest.
"When will I be allowed to leave?" Sam's voice was raspy, and it echoed eerily throughout the small hospital room.
The smiling nurse from earlier chuckled as she adjusted her pulse monitor. "Well, honey considering these wounds are self inflicted, you won't be allowed to leave until you have a psychiatric evaluation. We wouldn't want something like this to happen again."
Sam tried to shake her head, but her body wouldn't cooperate and instead she dropped down into the soft cushions like a dead weight.
"Where are my friends?" Sam blinked weakly, watching the tiles on the ceiling as her eyelids continued to droop.
"They will be allowed in after you have your evaluation." The nurse's brows furrowed slightly. "We can't risk you lunging at them."
Giving the nurse a single nod, Sam resolved to give in and try to get some rest.
Sam finally gave into unconsciousness after she heard Chris' concerned voice from the hallway, knowing that she would be okay as long as she had Chris and Josh.
/
Let me start by saying how sorryI am that it took me this long to update. You guys wouldn't believe what's been going on in my home life lately.
Something else I want to specify is that this is purely a Sam/Josh fic, and not a Sam/Chris/Josh fic. Yes, I do ship climbing class and climbing club. But this is strictly a Sam/Josh fic, with some background Chris/Ashley, and some of the other couples which you guys will see in the next few chapters. I just love the idea of the three being very close friends. :)
Again, I'm so sorry for keeping you guys waiting! I hope you're still enjoying this story! :) ~Ash