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In the Blink of an Eye.
Part II
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The piercing tone of Rhett's voice that resonated within the small space of the truck was filled with the most terror that he had ever possibly succumb to. His mind immediately started racing, consuming itself with a million frantic questions. Was Link okay? Did he have his seatbelt on? Was he even going to be conscious in the upturned minivan?
How the hell am I going to get him out?
With this final thought being the most powerful on the forefront of his mind, Rhett's eyes suddenly widened to find that the car in front of him had just inched far enough forward to allow him to wriggle out of his lane and mount the curb. Quickly doing so, he parked onto the footpath, dashed out of the front seat and ran around to the back of the truck, pulling open the door. The distraught expressions on his boys' faces almost completely split Rhett's heart in two.
"Dad – "
"Locke," Rhett hastily cut him off, "Listen to me, buddy, you know the street corner that we're on right now, right?"
Locke froze for a moment before simply gazing out the window as the answer immediately came to him, "Main and Third?"
"Okay, good boy," Rhett spoke, forcing a smile as he pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket, "I need you to call 911, okay?"
Instantly, Locke's expression dropped, "Dad, I can't, I – "
"You can, okay?" Rhett reassured him, "You can – you have to – because I have to go make sure they're okay, okay? Just stay calm and listen to the operator and do everything they tell you, alright?"
A wave of hesitation crossed the small boy. His chest was heaving up and down as he was trying to prevent a mass of fearful tears from falling from his eyes. But as he continued to gaze into the serious and confident expression on his dad's face, Locke soon swallowed a chunk of nerves and slowly nodded his head.
"That's my boy," Rhett said, handing Locke his phone and the car keys, "Keep your seatbelts on, lock the doors, and do not unlock them for anyone who isn't me, understand?"
Both Locke and Shepherd quickly nodded their heads as Rhett reached across and ruffled up the blonde curls of his youngest son, "You look after your big brother, okay?"
Without sparing another second, Rhett shut the back door, watching as the boys locked them all before he took off towards the minivan. The scene of the crash was no more than twenty metres away from where the truck was parked on the curb, but even so, Rhett glanced back at it just one more time. Once he was sure that his boys would be safe, his thoughts immediately fell back onto the issue at hand.
Up until the very moment that Rhett planted his two feet in front of the upturned vehicle, there had only been one name frightfully crossing his mind. But as soon as he came within an arm's reach of the backseat, the image of a much more important face became overwhelmingly apparent to him.
"Move!" he yelled to the two or three people already knelt around the vehicle. As he got down on the ground and peered into the smashed back window of the minivan, Rhett took a deep breath to calm his terrified nerves and prepared himself for what he could have been about to see.
"…Lando?"
The crying and screeching sounds from his best friend's youngest son were instantaneous. As awful as it may have been to hear him so distressed, Rhett couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God he was okay.
"Lando, Lando, come on buddy, it's me, you're okay," Rhett tried to soothe him.
"Rhett?!"
Looking over to the driver's seat, Rhett felt a second wave of reprieve overcome him to see and hear Link dangling in the front of the car.
"Rhett," he repeated with horrible desperation, "You gotta' get him out, man, get him out of the car!"
"What do you think I'm trying to do?" Rhett snapped back, trying to keep his voice to a low volume. He knew how sensitive Lando was – hell, he was only five years old. If Rhett wanted to keep him calm and get him out the car as slowly and safely as possible, Link honestly and quite blatantly needed to just shut his mouth.
"I've got him," Rhett spoke firmly, "How about you just concentrate on getting yourself out?"
"I can't, dude, it's my leg, it's… argh…"
The painful tones in his friend's voice made Rhett shudder. It was only now that he was noticing just how mangled the front of the car was, and it instantly made him expect the worst, "Oh my God…"
"No, no, it's okay, it's not, like, completely crushed or anything," Link called back to him, "It's just… jammed… real bad."
By now, the sounds of Lando's crying was making it near impossible for Rhett to focus on anything else. As much as he couldn't stand the thought of Link being helplessly trapped in the front seat, he knew that there was nothing he could do for him right then and there. And besides, Lando needed him.
"Hey, Lando, c'mon bud, it's okay," he started again, "Buddy, I'm gonna' get you out, but you gotta' just calm down a bit and listen to me. Dad's up the front freaking out like a big baby, so you gotta' be man enough for the both of you right now, alright?"
The gentle sound of a familiar, joking voice was slowly beginning to make the majority of Lando's panic subside. But he was still hanging upside down in his booster seat, and all he could see around him was smoke and broken glass. His bottom lip began to wobble once more before Rhett brought his voice back to life.
"Lando, I can unclip you and pull you down, but I gotta' make sure you're not hurt first. If you're hurt and I move you, you could get more hurt, okay?"
Locking his eyes with the baby blues of the little boy just an arm span away from him, Rhett shot Lando a supportive grin, "Does your neck hurt, or your head?"
The extreme vigour that Lando was able to shake his head with quickly answered that question as Rhett chuckled, "Okay, good, and your fingers and your toes, you can move them, too?"
With a sniffily nose and watery eyes, Lando nodded his head as he waved his hands towards Rhett, causing the gentle giant to smile once more. Now the only thing left to do was to get him out.
"Give me two seconds, buddy."
Quickly leaning up on his knees, Rhett shrugged out of his jacket and lay it on the ground by Lando, on top of all the broken glass that he could see. Then, curling his body up as tightly as he could manage, Rhett lay down, stretching across the jacket so that his face was directly under Lando's small, dangling frame. Rhett looked up at him, trying as hard as he possibly could to keep his cool.
"Okay, Lando, I'm gonna' unclip you, and then you just gotta' slowly fall down on top of me, alright? Then we can both wriggle our way out of here."
Link was trembling in nervousness at the sound of his friend's instructions to his son. There was a long crack right down the middle of the rear view mirror, and his glasses were lost and smashed off to the side somewhere. But even so, as Link stared into the broken glass, he was able to make out the absolute relieving image of Lando safely landing down from his seat onto Rhett's chest. The younger man breathed out a heavy sigh as he watched his best friend wrap one arm around his son as firmly as he could as he began to shuffle the both of them out through the broken window.
"Rhett," Link called back at the last moment before they were free, "Don't leave him."
The combination of hearing Link's words and seeing Lando safely back out in the open air with him caused an overwhelming sense of emotion to cross over Rhett. As he lay out on the asphalt road with the small framed boy still resting on top on him, Rhett's eyes squinted as he gazed up into the California sun. And for a moment, as a number of sirens and flashing blue and red lights finally appeared in the background, he could only lay there, completely still.
His adrenalin was beginning to fade as he thought about the near fate of the little boy that he, too, had grown to love over the entire five years of his existence. Remaining on the ground, Rhett resisted a terrified tremour as he brought both his arms up and simply hugged Lando securely against his torso.
"Thank God…"
Before the comforting thought had even properly left him, the light from the sun was suddenly blocked out as a man in a white shirt and navy pants appeared above Rhett, carefully trying to sit him up.
"Sir, are you okay? Can you tell me your name?"
Snapping out of his bemused trance, Rhett gawked up at the paramedic and quickly shook his head, "Oh, no," he stuttered, "No, no, I wasn't in the accident, it was just him and his dad."
Gesturing down towards Lando, Rhett kept one comforting arm around him as the little boy clung to his shirt.
"Alright, then," the paramedic spoke again, "Can you tell me your name, little guy?"
The man gazed down at Lando with friendly eyes. Despite how pleasant he seemed, though, he had a short buzz cut and intimidatingly broad shoulders. It was no real surprise when the five year old examined all of this and then chose to stay deathly silent and only nuzzle further into Rhett's chest.
"Lando," Rhett said, answering the man opposite him, "Lando Neal, he's five."
"Okay, Lando, I'm Doctor Graham," he spoke kindly, "Do you think you could come over here to the ambulance with me just so I can check you over?"
Taking note of every uncertain murmur from the little blonde boy, Rhett slowly stood up from the concrete ground and followed Doctor Graham over to where the ambulance had stopped just a couple of metres away. A gurney had been pulled out from the back of it and elevated up to its full height. As Rhett placed Lando down on it, and the doctor began to carefully poke and prod at him to see if he was okay, the tall, blonde man's world began to properly slow back to its normal pace. A lightbulb suddenly flashed on in the back of his mind at the realisation of who was still waiting in his and Link's truck for him to return. Just before acting on this, however, Rhett timidly licked his lips and cleared his throat, gaining Doctor Graham's attention again.
"Uh, so… what about his… what about Lando's dad?"
The tone of dread in Rhett's voice was all too clear to Doctor Graham as he shot him a sympathetic smile before taking a quick look over his shoulder, "The rest of my team are going to have him out in no time," he answered supportively, "I guarantee it. Your friend's going to be just fine."
There was something about the way Doctor Graham worded his response that sent goosebumps ricocheting all the way up Rhett's arms. Now that he could be sure that Lando was safe and okay, there was nothing left for Rhett to do but worry about Link. Well, that and check back up on Locke and Shepherd, of course.
Gently cupping the back of Lando's head with his hand, Rhett lowered his voice, "I'll be right back, buddy, okay?"
The five year old's scared whimpers were immediate, "No…"
"Hey, it's okay, I've just gotta' go and get Locke and Shepherd, alright?" Rhett soothed him, stroking his hair, "I'll only be a minute, I promise."
Swapping a trusting glance with the paramedic, Rhett then quickly turned on his heels and dashed back over towards his truck. He couldn't bear to look at the wreck for a second longer, but as he approached where the culprit had crushed and ultimately ended up, the southern native felt an overwhelming anger consume his soul.
The guilty driver had already been pulled from his vehicle, and looked to be no older than about twenty or twenty-one years old. It took every positive and proud fibre of Rhett's being for him to not make a beeline for the young man and smack him upside the head, but he knew that wasn't going to solve any problems. Besides, he was back within sight of Locke and Shepherd now. And they were what mattered most in that moment.
Their two sets of little eyes hidden by their curly messes widened as they spotted their dad. Locke instantly pressed the button on the car keys, unlocking the doors from where he had manoeuvred himself into the front seat.
As he opened the driver's door, Rhett frowned at his eldest son, "Didn't I tell you to keep your seatbelt on?"
Locke had been all too prepared to immediately ask Rhett if Link and Lando were okay, but the strict, scolding tone in his father's voice had only made him shrink back into his own skin, as it so often did. So enough, though, Rhett allowed his demeanour to change as he glanced down at his son with a softened expression.
"Did you call 911?"
The eager response of Locke nodding his head made an uncontrollable grin grow across Rhett's face as he affectionately ruffled up the brunette boy's hair, "Good boy," he spoke with a sigh of relief, "I'm proud of you."
As he ushered both of his boys out of the car, Rhett took a tight hold of Shepherd's hand and placed an arm around Locke as they strolled back towards the ambulance. Giving his shoulder a loving squeeze, the bearded man couldn't stop smirking happily at his eldest son.
Locke had truly done a great job… no matter how many other people Rhett had actually spotted on their mobile phones at the time of the accident, as far as he was concerned, all the police cars and ambulances had been able to arrive all because of his boy. It made his chest swell with pride as they re-approached Lando where he was waiting for them, still choking on a sad little sob here and there. The five year old seemed to relax a little as he spotted the three familiar faces, causing Rhett to grin affectionately at him.
That was until, all of a sudden, the tall, blonde man felt his heart completely skip a beat.
Just on the other side of the now destroyed minivan, a second figure had finally been successfully pulled from the driver's seat.
All that Rhett could will himself to do was bring his voice to a timid mutter, "Oh my God."
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