Just one

Chapter three: The crash

By: Ambrlupin

Rating: T

Summary: "Aw come on, man! Its just one drink. What's the worst that could happen?" Not a oneshot. Blink/Mush & Spot/Race

Disclaimer: I don't own newsies. Red (Collin) however, is mine.

A/N: this was basically written for the prom season, and on a dare. A few friends of mine told me I wouldn't have the guts or whatnot, to write a newsies story about a drunk driving accident. So I did, using it to also put a point across. I hope someone reads this and thinks twice, maybe, about drinking and driving, even with peer pressure. There's always another choice. Remember that.

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I woke to the sound of metal grating on metal. Groaning, I felt something warm dripping down my face and I raised my hand weakly, brushing it away. My fingers came away sticky with blood and I had half a second to think 'what happened?' before there was a flash-light in my eyes and I shut them with another pained moan.

It was minutes before I had the courage to move anymore and I bit back a curse as the harsh belt dug into my chest, halting any movement at all. I sat there, my heart in my ears, while blood ran down the side of my face and a light hum ran through the air.

It was a while until I realized the hum I was hearing were voices.

Yes, they were voices, but I couldn't quite catch what they were saying, could make out the murmurs, but no actual words. There was a loud groan of metal that had me biting at me tongue and then it was suddenly much brighter.

Someone unhooked my seat belt and pulled it away, and next thing I knew I was on the ground, in the arms of a young woman, who brushed some strands of my hair and aside, and asked me if I could hear her.

"Yeah..." I murmurred, words slurred. "I hear ya..."

She frowned, and shook her head, "Drunk, I should have known."

"Hey!" I protested, jerking away and getting to my feet, while the world rocked and my head spun. "Im...Im not...drunk..." I rubbed at my head and frowned. "Hey...where are..." My tongue felt swollen as I took a look around, "Where-"

My eyes widened and my heart skipped a beat as I took in the sight behind me. Staggering backwards, I felt my stomach in my throat and before I could stop it, or help myself, I was on my knees, throwing up everything I had eaten -and drunk- that night.

I felt something cold touch my forehead, so cold that I jerked away on instinct, only to see one of the cops, because they were cops, dabbing at the bleeding cut. I pushed her away with one hand and tried to get up.

The world swam and I knew before the world turned dark again, that it was a foolish try.

I blacked out on the grass for the second time.

"Doesn't realize...harsh..."

"Underage...regulations..."

"Too young...barely..."

"I.D...call the parents..."

I came to this time, to someone finishing places the bandages to the various cuts and scrapes I had acquired. My arm felt like it was on fire, and they told me I might have bruised the bone, because it wasn't broken or fractured or anything like that. They asked for my information and I gave it to them without another thought.

My name was Jack Kelly, I am seventeen. My phone number is 485-3848, I lived off of lockshaire and holly, I had a few drinks earlier that evening, after the prom. Did I know what happened? Not really.

Someone helped me stand, and led me to the back of a car, where I could sit down. I was handed a steaming cup of tea, which I downed quickly enough, and an older officer told me that I was going to have to stay here, until they could get my friend's bodies out.

Bodies? What did they mean, bodies?

They stared at me in surprise, surprise and hurt. Their mouths fell open and they exchanged shocked glances, eyes wide. They didn't understand, and since they didn't, neither did I. Finally one of them worked up enough courage to ask.

Didn't anyone tell me?

Tell me what?

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For what seemed like hours I sat in the cop car, head in my hands, fingers digging into my scalp so hard I was sure I had cut myself hard enough to draw blood. My shirt was wet with blood, my own, and Sarah's. It stuck to my skin like glue, cold, so cold.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could still see them, could still see their faces, twisted in shocked fear, the last seconds of their lives shown to the world. Blink was halfway over by Mush, probably to pull him away from the window, Race was in Spot's arms, his mouth open in surprise. And Sarah...

Sarah, who had tried to warn me, tried to get the wheel from me...was half-way in the windshield, her eyes so wide at first all you saw was white. I dove to the side of the road, falling to my knees as my stomach emptied itself again, for the fifth time that night.

I could hear her screaming...screaming...

"JACK!"

Tears spilled from my eyes, down my cheeks and dripping to the ground like small raindrops. I retched even as they fell, gasping for air even as the sobs stole it away. I heard footsteps and knew an officer was coming toward me, maybe to help. But there was nothing they could do.

Nothing, unless they could turn back time, to only an hour before, when my friends were all alive, when they were laughing, joking around with me. To an hour before, when I had shrugged off everyone's concern and had just one drink.

"Hey, kid..." They touched my shoulder lightly, hesitantly. "Kid..."

I turned my face toward them slightly, wiping my mouth with my bloody sleeve. My hair fell over my still weeping eyes, and I could feel the drops trail across my skin, falling off my chin, to be lost among the saturated ground.

"You have to come with us now." It was a woman, her eyes full of sadness as she gazed at me, "Are you all right?"

I almost laughed, almost burst out laughing, mostly because of the hysteria coursing through my veins, but also because it was the most ludicrous thing I had ever heard. Did I look all right? Could I possibly be all right after I had just killed five other people?

Did I look all right!

Obviously she saw that on my face and pursed her lips as she grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet, not even waiting for the world to stop spinning before she escorted me to the squad car, opening the door for me to get in.

And thats when I saw it. My mini van, crushed and mangled past any hope of repair, almost past recognition. The passenger side was crushed in, from when it had wrapped around the pole, and the roof was tore apart from the flip, and even more from when they had pulled it open to get me out.

They were pulling Race out even as I looked.

His eyes were still open, and they locked with mine across the road. So empty they were, so devoid of anything, and as they pulled him free, his head fell back, limp and boneless. His neck was broken.

Someone screamed, and I didn't realize it was me screaming until I was on my knees, hands clasped over my mouth, biting back my nausea as the cries kept on coming, renting the air, horrible, terrible sounds.

"Kid! Kid!" The officer was trying to get me to shut up, but I couldn't even feel her arms on my shoulders. Couldn't feel her shaking me. "Snap out of it! God, Geoffrey, help me!"

Geoffrey? Who was that? What were they going to do? I didn't care. Wouldn't, couldn't care. The medics lowered Race to the ground- careful of his neck- slightly perturbed by my screaming, drawing a sheet over him, shutting his eyes with their hands, gently, ever so gently.

I wanted to scream at them, wanted to tear them away from my friend, wanted to rip the sheet off, to show them this was all just a horrible nightmare. That my friends weren't dead, that they were alive, and we were going home!

"Kelly!" Someone slapped me. And slapped me hard. Hard enough to snap my head to the side, hard enough to stop my frantic yelling, hard enough to make me jerk back to reality with a gasp not unlike a drowning man breaking the surface of the water.

I might have been silent from then on, I might have been conscious, I might have been there, physically, but I barely felt them putting me into the back of the squad car, didn't even move until I was in the seat, and the door shut behind me with one final click. That, beyond everything else, struck home the fact of this night.

My friends were all dead, and I had killed them.

It was true.

It was...

"God..." I sobbed, bending over, hands flat over my ears, eyes squeezed shut so hard a dull ache was beginning behind my eyes. "God..." I was praying, "God, please...please...no..."

But I knew I wasn't going to get an answer. I had made the final mistake, the final...final mistake. I could never take it back, could never atone, could never change it. No matter how much I begged, no matter how much I prayed...

God wasn't going to hear me.

And then, over the radio, full of static, "Fatalities reported...Dark green 1989 dodge minivan... Driver was intoxicated...Repeat...five fatalities..."

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Sorry bout the wait, I got into trouble and couldn't update this.

If every thing goes well, the next chapter will be up:

Wend: (tomorrow) at 5

Now, leave me a review using that nifty button on the bottom left of your screen that says 'submit review' and it doesn't matter if you have an account or not. Ciao!