With her homework already accounted for the night before, Leni was bound to mindless distractions upon waking up on Sunday at nine in the morning—she'd get a seat on the couch to catch up with her favorite shows (if she was lucky enough to not have any of her siblings beat her to the punch), but she'd have to shower, brush her teeth and hair, and get dressed first.
With the weekend affording each Loud sibling the luxury of waking up whenever they wanted, Leni was able to shower without waiting in line. Normally, she'd have to head to her room to slip into a fresh pair of clothes afterward attending to her personal hygiene, but she took it upon herself to take her clean clothes into the bathroom with her. As she took measures to give her hair brushing a thorough inspection in the bathroom mirror, a sad frown emerged as she thought of the reason why she had taken that course of action—like most of her anxious thoughts centered around these days, they had her sleeping roommate in mind.
Her silly head, filled with foolish whims, had to make her worry about Lori's well-being more than ever, even after Mom and Dad assured her that fretting wasn't necessary. As if thinking that Lori was undergoing some kind of...whatever it was she thought of her recent behavior (she couldn't quite put her finger on "it"), now she had to worry about Lori's supposed lack of sleep—if she was having trouble getting enough rest, then dressing up in the bathroom (instead of re-entering her room, thus creating an unnecessary commotion with her moving about) was the only thing that she could do.
Her impression of an insomnia dilemma started yesterday morning, just as the crack of dawn's early morning sunlight spilled through her bedroom window and pierced through her closed eyes—not even her sleeping mask could keep her pupils from being bathed in a bright orange bath of blinding light. Leni had stirred awake with a grunt of annoyance and she absentmindedly flopped to her side as she shuffled her mask off. She had the presence of mind to be aware of her surroundings, namely the window that had been giving her problems.
Her clarity, however, allowed her to see the upright Lori-sized lump that sat underneath the blanket, a faint spotlight of blue light shining through the fabric. It was that sight that had made Leni believe that she was dreaming—she knew what that light meant (having seen it plenty of times before) and there was no way that Lori was up at 6:38 in the morning on her phone. Yes, she and that phone were attached to the hip, as her father had jokingly said the week after he had gotten it for her (though, weren't phones attached to the hand, if anything?), but the latest she'd use it would be, give or take, midnight.
Had Lori been using it since she had last seen her with it before she drifted off to bed that Friday night? The thought of such a drastic shift in phone usage was enough to get her to ask Lori if she had had a good night's sleep once they were both at the dining table with their breakfast. Her fears were met with denial as Lori—between sluggish, hearty sips of coffee—told her that she had slept well.
That, Leni thought, should've been the end of it, the end of her thoughtless apprehension. The fact that her foreboding carried with her into the present shamed her. Couldn't she trust her own sister and parents enough to believe them? What had they done to deserve her reluctance to trust them?
Whatever it was that wasn't allowing Leni relax, once she stepped out of the bathroom—as freshened up as her newfound attitude—she was determined not to give it any mind as she drowned out her troubles with as much TV time as possible. And after helping herself to a bowl of sugary cereal flakes, that was exactly how she spent the remainder of her morning and early afternoon. Luckily, only a few of her sisters were interspersed within her lounging session as they took over the TV to watch what they wanted.
But her course for relaxation, which was admittedly having a positive effect on her troubled soul, took an unexpected turn when she heard loud banging against the front door.
She didn't say it out loud, but Leni felt relieved—honest-to-God liberated from the crushing weight of anxious dread—that Lincoln hadn't insisted on driving a wedge between them by closing himself off from her. She didn't know what she'd do if Lincoln, who was clearly out of sorts, continued to dig his heels in the ground and declare that he "didn't want to talk"…
...much to the same effect as Lori's "I'm fine" replies; both retorts refused to let her in.
Except with Lincoln, it was worse. She could concede that Lori's behavior was, at the very worst, very dubious—the onus was on her to respect that Lori could handle herself, especially after her parents endorsed her actions. Lincoln, however, left no room for any doubt; he was clearly hurting and as selfish as it sounded in her head, she jumped at the opportunity of acting as a reliable sister to not only put Lincoln at ease but to gratify her need to be dependable after Lori, Mom, and Dad had unintentionally taken that away from her with their gung-ho "everything's fine" insistence.
Her underlying elation, however, took a massive dive after she led Lincoln up to his room and he took a seat on his bed while she sat in his chair by his desk—guilt panged through her chest like a fiery arrow as she listened to her brother get to the meat of his story, specifically the reason why he had an argument with Clyde in the first place.
Her eyes misted with unshed tears, which she brushed away while her brother wasn't looking. How could she've been so stupid? She'd been doing nothing but giving Lori undivided attention that she probably didn't need. Meanwhile, she let Lincoln's bitterness of Lori carry on through the weeks, to the point where his friendships were in jeopardy because of it. It was no secret that Lincoln wasn't on the best of terms with Lori, but Leni had clearly done the wrong thing by assuming that he wasn't this angry with her.
Still, if there was any sort of silver lining to this, it was with Lincoln's expression as he drew his story to a close. Flickers of resentment had danced behind his eyes and his lips were curled in a tightened frown while he was recalling his falling out with Clyde at the beginning. By now, however, sadness drowned his face, as if to suggest that he had regret over what he had done. Perhaps, Leni thought, that meant that Lincoln's heart was open to letting Lori in, too.
"And that's when he told me that he didn't want to hang around me until I got over what Lori did," Lincoln said, his knees drawn to his chest and his eyes glued to his feet. "Then, he left for home."
A watery, shaky sigh tore out of his throat. "I told him to just drop it, but he just..." He paused to swallow the lump in his throat. "No, I...I-I shouldn't have snapped at him like that. I mean, it's not his fault that I didn't tell him about what Lori did. And in the end, he was just trying to help me. But it's just..."
He trailed off again, and Leni's heart skipped a beat when the faintest trace of a snarl took form across his lips.
"Just what?" Leni asked, hoping he'd clarify with something that could put her at ease.
Apparently, Lincoln felt like he was being needled to open up to soon for his liking—that's all Leni could think as he shrunk back a little and looked away from her with a sulky pout.
"I don't like bringing Lori up," he said. "It's been so easy to just ignore her, y'know? I've barely spoken a word to her since that night, and I try not to think about her for as long as I can. Because every time I do, I just wind up hating her all over again. I mean, I'm still mad at Lori, but I don't wanna hate her."
Leni could only guess what he thought of in the moment his pout hardened before he said, "Though, I can't forgive her, either. All I can do is just ignore her. At least if I keep her out of my mind, I can't hate her."
Another fiery arrow hit its mark, scorching her spirits with a deadly blow—things were way worse than they thought. Leni could admit that she had held her fair share of grudges against her siblings before, but she couldn't remember anything close to hatred lasting for but a brief second or two at the longest.
With the hope of hearing a more comforting report on his honest feelings, despite everything suggesting that she was better off not even bothering, she asked, "Do you, uh, hate her now?"
Lincoln turned to her, and Leni noted that the hardened fire behind his gaze faltered. "What'd you mean?" he asked.
"You're thinking about her right now, aren't you? So, like, do you hate her?"
Contemplation weighed heavy on Lincoln's mind, Leni could see, as it took him a few seconds to come clean—the fact that his next words weren't said with a scathing tone behind them didn't make Leni feel much better.
"A little, yeah," he said before he shut his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. "I know I shouldn't, but I just can't let what she did go. Besides, this isn't the first time she's put herself before others—it's hard to believe that she's sorry when she never learns."
Without missing a beat, Leni pushed on, not wanting to dwell on her feelings when Lincoln's were the ones that needed to be treated. Still, the realization that Lincoln held a fraction of hatred for Lori, no matter how meager he made it out to be, broke her heart.
"Lincoln?" she asked.
"Yeah?"
"Why can't you forgive Lori?"
"I just..." His gaze left her once again, his eyes titled towards the ceiling. "...I just can't."
Leni's brow creased downward at a slight angle, the gesture driven by impulse. In that moment, she didn't allow herself to feel guilt from the glint of impatience and frustration she harbored at how unfair she felt those last few words were.
"Lincoln, she's your sister," Leni said sternly. "She deserves better than that."
Lincoln let out a groan. "I knew it," he said. "I just knew you wouldn't get it."
The only reason why Leni didn't sharply retort back at him, for implying that she wasn't fit to know Lori enough to know that she was worth Lincoln's forgiveness, was because he didn't carry his words with a biting, accusatory tone. Instead, his eyes drew to her again, casting gentleness that, up until this point, seemed impossible for Lincoln to harbor.
"But it's not your fault. You weren't there that night. Of course, you wouldn't understand. You think this is all about what she did to me, isn't it?" He shook his head and spoke before Leni could reply. "Yeah, it really hurt when she shoved me down and hurt me, but I got over that. What I can't get over is what she did to you guys and especially what she did to Carol."
The softness in his voice chipped away towards the end of his sentence, and Leni felt her stomach roll in nervous knots as she watched her brother ball up his hands into fists.
"She was just trying to know what it was like to have younger siblings to take care of and bond with. That's why she became a babysitter in the first place. And I was gonna help her. I promised her that..." Leni gasped when she saw tiny trickles of tears bleeding out of his eyes. "I-I promised her that I could be her little brother any time she wanted. I promised her that I could show her what she was missing out on."
Leni got up and sat on the bed along side her brother. Even as his body shook, from the anger that he was clearly trying not to let loose, she braved the warning signs and let her hand slide over one of his fists—the warmth of their contact froze her blood when she noted how it hardly had any comforting effect on him. Still, she was hung on every word, taken aback at the little tidbit of Carol's and the fondness that her brother clearly had for her.
"A-and then Lori came in and ruined it," Lincoln continued, his voice uneven and tacky. "She chewed her out and wanted to beat her up just because she couldn't stand that someone was doing her job better than her. All Carol wanted was to be happier than she'd ever been before. Now, she doesn't want anything to do with me anymore, and it's all Lori's fault."
When Lincoln ripped his hand away from Leni, her heart clutched in pain. Before she could apologize for imposing herself too forwardly, however, Lincoln's next actions suggested that she hadn't offended him—she watched as he rolled out of bed to stroll over his drawer and pull out a sheet of paper.
"She left this for me after I fell asleep that night," he said and passed it off to Leni before he crawled back into his bed. "I found it on my desk after I woke up."
Leni held up the paper, her eyes quickly glancing over the words that were on them. Though she was beckoned to indulge her curiosity by reading it, she gave one last look at her brother to ensure that he was, at the very least, okay. She found him scowling softly with a sideways glance, but it was at least better than shaking with repressed resentment.
With that, she glanced over at the paper again and read it out loud.
"Hey Lincoln,
I hope you had a good night's sleep, given everything that happened. I was thinking about telling you this in person, before I tucked you in, but I had second thoughts. Chances are, you'd fight tooth and nail with me not to say what I'm about to tell you, and I didn't want to risk being talked out of it.
I really appreciate you, Lincoln. I know I'm supposed to be more impartial to all the kids I babysit, but I honestly say that you're the best I've had to watch over. And I was looking forward to getting to know even more about you, as your honorary big sister and all..."
Leni peered over the paper to judge Lincoln's expression, and she was nearly tempted to stop altogether when she found that his glare, which had been tiny and subdued, was twice the length it was before. That, along with how Carol's words seemed to be setting up for tragedy, made a sickly tingle trace up her spine.
Regardless, she soldiered on for the sake of closure.
"But I realize that I just can't do that. You're a great kid, Lincoln, but I have to stay away from you, all the same. I thought I knew enough about Lori to know that she'd never lash out at me like she did, but I was wrong. And to be honest, that makes me afraid of any possibilities that could come from me hanging around you. I'm fine with her taking out her aggression on me, but she crossed the line when she hurt you.
But what made it worse was that she didn't have to hurt you. I could've stopped her, but I was too late to do anything. I failed to protect you, and words can't begin to describe how sorry I am that I let you down as not only your babysitter but as someone who you wanted to invite into your life.
I'm honored that you'd even consider me as part of your family, given how wonderful your sisters are, but I have to turn down that privilege. Even if I felt that I deserved it, I still don't want to see you get hurt like that again.
So, I'm saying this as a final goodbye. Please don't try to change my mind. This is for both of our sakes. Thank you for everything, Lincoln. If I had a little brother or sister, I'd want them to be just like you.
Take care,
Carol"
Once she was finished, she set the letter down on Lincoln's desk before sitting back down. Even now, her mind was abuzz with contemplation—the gravity of her brother's animosity had been fully realized before she reached the last word, but Lincoln was quick to add his his thoughts, as if she needed help wondering why he felt this way about Lori.
"You know, after the last time Clyde had a sleepover here, he made me realize how lucky I've been to have ten..." He frowned as his words petered off. "...well, nine great sisters. Sometimes, I take you guys for granted, but I've had such a great life because all of you are in it to make it better.
But Carol? She had the chance of having her own sibling snatched away from her, and she did nothing to deserve it. How am I supposed to forgive Lori when all I wanted to do was give her a taste of what she could've had all along? How, Leni? You tell me."
Frankly, as much as it shamed her to admit, Leni didn't have a "respectable" answer. There wasn't a magic pair of words, woven in intricate wisdom, that she could use to nudge Lincoln towards the path of forgiveness. All she had, though she wasn't sure if it meant much, was mutual understanding. Maybe it wouldn't be enough, but both Lori and Lincoln deserved her best foot forward, all the same.
"I...think I understand you, Lincoln," Leni said. "Sometimes, Lori can say and do really hurtful things. I should know; she sabotaged my driver's test, after al—"
"See?!" Lincoln cried, his outburst startling Leni and knocking her off her stride. "That's what I'm talking about! She keeps putting herself before everyone else and ruins everything! No matter how many times she apologizes and promises to change, she never does! She keeps hurting people over and over again!"
Aghast at his unabashed reflection of Lori's character, Leni was driven to snatch that away from him as quickly as possibly by getting back on track.
"I wasn't finished yet," she said calmly and waited for her brother's seething rage to be soothed to the point where he could listen to her, unabated by emotions.
"Yes, Lori's not perfect, but everyone makes mistakes." Leni gave Lincoln a pointed look. "Even you. Remember all the stuff that you did in the past that hurt us? We forgave you, didn't we?"
To Leni's disappointment, Lincoln shrugged off her council without so much as taking a moment to pause and meditate on it.
"Look, I'm not saying I'm perfect, and I don't expect Lori to be perfect, either," he said. "But I've never done anything like she did. And if she'd just learn not to be so petty all the time, then that would've never happened. You and everyone else can act like that shouldn't matter all you want, but it matters to me."
It was then that Leni's focus aligned, shifting to the bigger picture that had been waiting for someone to put together, From the beginning, she had only been looking to fix a Lori issue. Presently, she was dwelling on solving a Lincoln issue. But now, it was crystal clear that the mountain that she had to scale was a Lori and Lincoln issue.
It was obvious that Lincoln, despite his hatred, wanted to see Lori as a better sister and desperately needed reassurance that she was worth letting back into his life. Lori, on the other hand, was better off with Lincoln than without him—even if Leni could believe that Lori wasn't a victim of some downward spiral, it wasn't wrong to assume that she missed her little brother's love.
That meant, for the sake of both her downtrodden siblings, that they need to reconcile with each other with earnestness and understanding. And if Lincoln could expose so much to her, then he could surely do the same with Lori.
"And you matter to Lori, Lincoln. You really do," Leni replied with a smile, confidence filling her to the brim. "I know she's really sorry about what she did, and you'll both feel better if you just talk to one another. I know it. I just kn..."
She hesitated from saying anything further when Lincoln stared at her in bewilderment.
"What're you talking about?" he asked. "Lori's fine, isn't she?"
With that, Leni's conviction began to wilt. Lincoln had unintentionally put her faith in Lori in check. Though it was stronger than before, the foundation was just about as sturdy as an old, rickety bridge—something that was only manageable to cross with light, measured steps, but overall unreliable.
"I...I guess," Leni said, her grin waned but not dead. "She says that she is, but I think she still feels really bad about what happened, and...maybe it's because you keep ignoring her. Maybe if you were to, like, at least hear her out, you both could—"
"I already feel fine. If Lori can't feel comfortable in her own skin, then that's her problem."
Leni's eyes burst open, her eager optimism tumbling off the tracks with a thunderous, booming crash. What's more, the indescribable feeling—that was beginning to fester and overtake her like a rampant, blooming weed—made her skin itch and her face redden. Regardless, Lincoln didn't seem to care about his sister's response enough to keep him from speaking his harsh words.
"If anything, she should feel bad. But that's not going to fix the damage she caused. That's not going to take away all the pain that she lashed out on someone I care about."
If there was any mystery about the sensation that felt like hot steam building up in her body, it wasn't anymore. Leni's benevolence, her patience, her willingness to see her brother venture down a more sensible path, was consumed in righteous anger.
She stood up suddenly, her abrupt descent immediately causing Lincoln to take notice and shrink back in timidity. "L-Leni?"
"I just..." Leni's temper flared up again as she grit her teeth, her voice still yet heated enough to convey her indignation. "I can't believe you. The Lincoln I know wouldn't talk like that. He'd never act like his sisters' pain didn't matter. Never."
Her heart was hardly moved when Lincoln looked at her with pleading eyes, the same look he gave her earlier when he begged her to understand her. She had done more than enough understanding, and what she had discovered wasn't worth her pity nor her further indulgence.
"Leni, I—"
"And you can say and think what you want about Lori, but she'd never treat you like this."
That had to have stung; Leni thought as much as she watched Lincoln's resolve buckle through his weak, wounded grimace.
But not even that could stop her from leaving parting words that, though cast from a place of disappointment, were done so with the hopes that perspective could sink in.
"Until you're ready to be the Lincoln Loud that I know, I don't think you're worth Lori's time, anyway. Have fun with your comics."
With that, Leni stormed out of Lincoln's bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Even amid her frustration, hope for reconciliation never left.
At 11:29 AM, just a few minutes before the start of Sunday afternoon, a bleary, bloodshot eye peeled open. The other one followed suit soon after. All the same, Lori's dawning consciousness did little to wipe away the foggy smears and thick cobwebs that sapped her brain and body of energy—it did even less for the pulses of misery that shocked her back after an innocuous little twist.
She hissed through her teeth from the pain, but the sudden intake of air throttled her gut and made her nauseous. Lori surmised that, perhaps today wasn't a day for a big breakfast. If anything, it was a day to appreciate how she had managed to finally get some sleep, even if a measly five hours wasn't anything to write home about.
Friday evening had left her...dead, alive in body but numb in the senses that made her human. Otherwise, she wouldn't have spent all of that Friday night and Saturday morning dead awake. She had alternated between gazing at the dull light of her phone and the heavenly bodies in the sky, whether they were the dazzling stars of midnight or the warm color-shrouded clouds within the sunrise.
It wasn't for longing or regret for what she had done to Bobby; if anything, she had gained a modicum of peace for giving instead of taking for herself.
But that momentary burst of achievement shattered under the blunt realization that her shortcomings, her monstrous feats of folly and malice, couldn't be done away with only one little act of charity. If anything, that selfish line of thinking was how she was able to live apart from her better senses for so long without any regard for anyone else. It was exactly how drunkards and cheaters, liars and murderers, could look themselves in the mirror for so long; act in goodwill in a meager exhibition to fight back at their consciences enough to plunder and kill for their own benefit.
She was no better than those types of scum, she thought as the first tendrils of guilt took root that night—the fact that the thought of "atoning for herself" crossed her mind around the same time that the thought of Bobby's well-being did proved that.
That self-condemnation had carried with her throughout Saturday, leaving her mindlessly drifting throughout the house without the focus to tend to matters with a clear head—her sleep-deprived faculties made the day-long journey arduous. The only instance she recalled with some clarity was a dodged bullet—she nearly sweat bullets from the brief flash of incredulity on Leni's face after she had told her that she had slept well.
Exhaustion had finally done the trick in knocking Lori out before the sunrise of early Sunday morning. Her call to action, to do something to validate her continued existence in her family, wasn't fully realize until after she had dragged her creaky brittle body out of bed and accidentally bumped into her mother on her way down the stairs.
She had stopped her and filled her in on what she and Dad needed her to do today, as her punishment had called for. Over the past few weeks, Lori's weekends had been filled with submitting to drudgery of household duties—scrubbing the bathroom floor, sweeping up the basement, and washing Vanzilla were her responsibilities last week.
Today's was cleaning up the attic, specifically organizing boxes in rows via alphabetical order.
Lori felt her weary bones ache from the sound of all that physical labor alone, but she agreed without complaint. Her voice of reason had put it best as she watched her mother go on her way:
'If you can't even clean up an attic, then what good are you?'
And so, after having her fill with a glass of water and half a banana, Lori tiredly trudged towards her post, intent on seeing her task through for the sake of her parents. They had every right to cast her out, to decry her as a disgrace and forsake her of her family name for being the destructive fiend that she was. But she was given the chance to exist with a purpose, and it was to serve better as a maid than she ever could as a daughter.
And what a better place to do it than the attic, the place where the unwanted trinkets of old were stowed away and left to rot, forgotten and alone—for as long as it took to get the job done, Lori would be surrounded by useless ilk that failed to bring happiness for long.
A cold shiver raced down Lori's spine, mingling with the burning aching in her back at a sordid thought:
How long would it took, though, before her parents found an attic for her?
In one moment, a tape-sealed box of old picture frames was securely in Lori's arms, regardless of how her body had swayed from exhaustion as she went to drop it off where it needed to be.
In the very next moment, a streak of fatigue zapped through, wiping her out and sending her and the box tumbling towards the ground. She barely reacted in time to prevent considerable damage. On her way down, she shifted her arm downwards to grab the box by the tape that was peeling off the side.
Though she succeeded in making sure that the box hadn't crashed onto the floor, the extra weight on her sluggish body only made her descent worse—she slammed against the floor, her box-bearing arm taking the brunt of the force as it jammed into the creaky wood. The dust from the floor flew up and made Lori cough from its accidental inhalation into her lungs. She continued to splutter and cough, all while feelings pure agony rack down her left arm.
A greater sensation—dread—ignited her heart into a beating frenzy when she heard the attic's stepladder creak. With nervous, frantic energy pushing her forward, she scrambled onto the floor into a seated position, legs crossed and arms splayed in her lap nonchalantly—a mollifying grin completed the façade just in time for her father's head to peek through the opening.
She fought the urge to sigh in relief when he seemed to not notice anything amiss—the pain and discomfort from her task was hers to endure alone. She'd be a cretin to take advantage of her father's kindness by stitching the misery of a victim on her sleeve for him to pity.
"Ah, there you are, Lori," Dad said. "You're still cleaning out the attic, huh? I thought you'd be done by now."
"S-sorry," Lori replied. "I'll get back to work. I was just taking a little break."
Dad shook his head. "Ah, forget about the attic," he said. "I actually have something else in mind for you to do for me."
'You better not mess this up.'
"What's that?" Lori asked.
"Could you run down to the store and buy some groceries, please? I left the money and the grocery list on the kitchen table. And while you're at the store, make sure that you pick up some sunscreen for Lola, okay? It's got an SPF rating of 200 and that picture of the Beagle puppy with sunglasses and a sunhat on."
Lori obeyed without a second thought. "Okay," she said. "I will."
She made a move to get up, but Dad unintentionally stopped her when he said, with a proud grin. "Oh, and one more thing. There's twenty dollars there for you to spend on whatever you want. Consider it my thanks for doing such a good job around the house lately. Keep it up."
Her phony smile conveyed elation, but hearing her father's words of praise didn't make it move—not even so much as a twitch—in a genuine response to happiness.
Besides the pain, emptiness was all she could feel, even as she nodded and said, "I will."
"Thanks, Lori. Love you" Dad said before he waved goodbye and left.
She didn't have the will to go after him and reciprocate his feelings. She was far too busy wondering how she had his love after everything that she had done. Perhaps, she decided, it was a phrase of obligation. That was the only way such a declaration of kindness could make sense in the fog of her weary head.
With much grunting and straining, Lori lifted herself off the floor and staggered towards the stepladder. Whether she had her father's love or not, she did not have his permission to fail him.
Even after minutes of successfully cruising into the heart of Royal Woods, the agonizing sensations didn't ebb. She was still throttled with vision and hearing that was marred under a blurry filter—noises of passerby vehicles and the sight of streetlights melded into a cacophony that Lori could hardly put together without pleading with herself to stay alert and focus.
It was a price worth paying, having decided that after a swift kick in the butt. Before that, though, she had made herself sick with how she had tried to make excuses for herself before she even left the driveway. Oh, her arm had a little boo-boo? She was a little tired? That meant she couldn't complete one paltry task that she was asked to do?
'Pathetic. Mom and Dad have gone through way worse trying to raise a family, and you can't make one small trip to the grocery store? Useless and ungrateful; how lower do you need to sink until you're happy?'
And that swift kick thrust her into action, propelling her forward as she managed, with only a few mental hiccups, to keep her eyes on the prize.
Ah, and there was the intersection of Spring Lane and Saffron Street now. Just a few more intersections and a left turn would lead her right where she needed to be. In a stroke of fortune, she was dealing with a clear lane, no cars in front of her—she had a few close calls of nearly tapping into the bumper of a few cars earlier from her groggy senses misjudging the oncoming distance. Now, there'd be no such problems.
With the gentle steady press of the brake pedal, Lori approached the sold white line…
...at a faster speed than what she was previously traveling.
She was choked in her fog, not registering her mistake until it was too late and she was within the intersection—she didn't get a chance to slip her foot off the gas pedal before her world was rocked by the sharp blaring of a car horn, the loud squealing of car wheels, and the thunderous smashing of another vehicle colliding into Vanzilla's side.
Her head jerked forward violently, cracking against the ridge of the steering wheel.
Though her eyes were closed, she was still coming to.
She could barely hear herself think over the loud sirens and shouting voices that crowded around her—had it not been for the overbearing, paralyzing pain that kept her body from jostling about, she would've squirmed against the cold surface of the blacktop of the street seeping through her clothes.
Her head drummed in agony as the feeling of oozing warmth sticking locks of her hair against her face. It dribbled down her face, running over her lips and seeping through the thin crack of her mouth and staining her front teeth. She gagged and coughed from the entry of blood, something she instantly regretted when her ribs and sternum ached with each spastic push.
But the worst of it all, radiated from her left arm. It was exploding in pain, bursting under tortuous ministration. She braved her head over to the side, her slow movement sending ripples of torment down her neck. An eye cracked open to survey the damage and Lori's heart nearly burst—blood caked over a gaping wound in her forearm, a red-soaked bone jutting through muscle and skin.
Lori's mouth flew open, a gurgling scream crying out that ended nearly as quickly as it began—it ended with a cough, blood spewing out in a short gush that sprinkled across her face.
And then, shortly after another scything slice of pain cut through her heart, her world faded into darkness.