The old lady doesn't make it as far as Poughkeepsie. Of course not, just Jack's luck.
The slowed traffic made their trip much longer than it should have been. It only takes an hour or so to drive from Middletown to Poughkeepsie, but an extra 45 minutes was added to their route.
The sky is getting dark and there aren't very many other cars on the road, now.
It happens in the blink of an eye. A dark blur across the road, a loping animal, jumps right in front of the car. The old lady shouts and tries to swerve to miss it but cranks the wheel too hard and they roll.
Jack braces one forearm on the roof of the car, the other on the side of his door. His whole body stiffens, clenching up and he can't even cry out. He hears glass shatter, feels pieces of it cut his face, neck and hands. He can hear his duffle bag, in the backseat, rhythmically thumping from the roof to the floor and back again as they roll.
They come to a stop, finally, rocking back and forth just a little and then they settle.
Jack's breathing comes out fast and deep, more like panting. It feels like all the blood in his body is rushing straight to his head and he's dizzy. Most of his weight is on the arm against the roof of the car and he realizes that they've stopped upside down.
His hands are bleeding from the cuts where the shards of glass nicked him. He grunts and struggles one handed with the seatbelt, trying to keep from falling on his head. Jack can't get it though; his fingers are too slippery from the blood. He makes a sound of frustration, giving up and freezing the buckle. He fumbles with getting his cell phone from his pocket and eventually succeeds in breaking the metal casing of the buckle by smashing his phone against it a few times. The seat belt clicks open and Jack falls from his seat to the roof with a pained moan.
When he manages to work his way out of the car, he runs over to the driver's side and begins trying to get the old lady out. He's not sure she's alive but no one's final resting place should be in an upside down car off the highway.
Just as he's freezing the buckle to the old lady's seat something crashes into his ribs, still tender from Figgs's kick a few days earlier, and sends him tumbling through the snow.
He fights to get his wits about him, head spinning worse than before. Jack looks up when he hears a rough snort.
A horse, much like the one he'd seen earlier that day, towers over him, its head lowered and eyes fixed on him threateningly. Jack can't move, can't even think. He's paralyzed with fear so numbing, so consuming that his mind is merely a jumble of terrified incoherency.
The horse nickers, raising its head. It rears back on its legs and one singular thought comes to Jack with surprising clarity. It's the thought, the inkling, that this is the brute from earlier. It has to be.
The horse starts to descend and Jack squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for the terrible force of its hooves. An explosion goes off, a flash of light, and Jack is showered in debris. He gasps, opening his eyes, only to see an empty space where the horse once stood. Jack stands quickly, but wishes he hadn't when the world swirls before his eyes. He jumps when a voice from the darkness calls,
"Kid, are you all right?!"
The voice belongs to a tall man who emerges from the shadows, a boomerang in one hand and a concerned look on his face. His eyes dart around, looking for any sign of another horse.
"I- I'm fine. There's a- a woman in the car. I don't know if sh- she's alive or not. Call an ambulance."
The man nods once and runs over to the car. Jack stands, seemingly frozen to the spot, and listens to the sounds of the man freeing the old lady from her seat.
When Bunny arrives back at the manor with a teenage boy in tow and a grim expression on both of their faces, Sandy knows that it did not go entirely well.
The scratches all over the boy's face and hands, as well as blood smudges all over his clothing and dark circles under his eyes spell trouble.
Sandy zooms over to them, hands frantic with questions and eyes wide with dread.
"Sandy. Stop. The kid's been in an accident, he doesn't need your fingers in his face." Bunny lays a large hand on Sandy's shoulder and moves him aside.
"Get North. Tell him to meet us in the infirmary."
Sandy nods determinedly and flies off down the hall, running into some of the few students still in the halls at this time of night. He pats their arms or backs lightly, serving them apologetic looks as he passes by.
In the infirmary, Bunny sits Jack on one of the thin, but comfortable beds.
"You wait right here." He gently presses the flat of his large palm against Jack's shoulder in a somewhat comforting gesture.
Jack nods his affirmation of having heard Bunny, even though his eyes are fixed on a point over the man's shoulder. Bunny leaves Jack alone for only a few moments.
Jack's hood has been pulled up, covering his hair, ever since the moment he'd answered Bunny's call from the dark. It was the first thing he'd done, but now he doesn't think he'd be so strange in comparison. Bunny had introduced himself as 'Aster Bunnymund', a frankly frightening, six foot tall man with tribal tattoos down his arms and on his face.
Jack has him to thank for saving his life.
The doors to the infirmary open and Bunny re-enters, along with the short man named Sandy and a rather large, intimidating man. (Jesus, the guy's gotta be at least seven feet!)
"…on the side of the road, about to be crushed by one of those horses. It looked a lot like what you were describing. An elderly woman was in the car with him, we had to cut and run before the ambulance got there, though. I'm rubbish at first aid, North, and he needs your help."
"Is no problem, Bunny," the large man says, taking one look at Jack and turning to root through the cabinets for something. He withdraws a roll of gauze and some tape from one cabinet and scissors, tweezers, and antiseptic wipes from another.
North takes a seat on the bed across from Jack's, laying his supplies down next to his leg.
"May I see your hands?" He asks mildly, holding out one thick hand of his own. Jack tentatively places his right hand in North's. Despite having such wide fingers and looking so brutish, North's touch is deceptively gentle. He examines the cuts on Jack's hand, then gets to work on cleaning and bandaging them. He removes small bits of glass from the larger cuts.
Only when he moves to Jack's other hand does he speak.
"I am Nicholas St. North. What is your name?"
Jack looks up at North, then over at Bunny and Sandy nearby. He watches the two in conversation for a few seconds- Sandy signing, Bunny replying out loud- before murmuring, "Jack Frost."
"Welcome, Jack Frost. It is pleasure having you here, but is not pleasure how you came to be here. Tell me your story." It is worded in the way of a demand, but spoken like a request.
When Jack remains silent, North intones, "It is all right you do not wish to speak. There is pain all across your face. And I am knowing that, sometimes, it is hard to speak with pain covering your mouth."
Jack doesn't quite get it and almost says so, but rethinks it and keeps quiet.
North works quickly and efficiently on Jack's hands, but when he makes to remove the hood and start on the ones on his face, Jack turns his head away, leaning back only slightly.
"I'm a freak," he says, "I'll pull down my hood and you'll know what I am and you won't want to be near someone like me. You won't be able to stand the sight of me."
"Jack. I am grown man. I can be making decisions for myself, yes? Whatever this is, this thing you are not wanting to be seen, I assure you, is not the worst I have seen. Let me clean the cuts on your face. Please?"
Jack swallows thickly, looking back over at Bunny and Sandy, fearful that, while North might understand, they might not.
He holds the edges of his hood in a death grip before shakily lowering it. North only says, "See? Is better for me to be getting at the other cuts on sides of your face without the hood in the way."
With that, he opens another antiseptic wipe and swipes lightly at one nasty looking cut on the boy's cheek.
"You're- you're not-?"
"Not what? Not being scared or disgusted by your mutation? Is tame compared to some I have seen. You will be fine here, Jack. In our presence, you will be fine."
Jack laughs a little breathily, then harder, a high, wheezing note of hysteria bleeding its way into his mirth.
"Oh, God," he gasps, grinning, "oh, you- you're okay with- with me."
"Of course I am okay! If it will be making you feel better to know, I am mutant, too. As is Bunny and Sandy and everyone in this building."
"This is a building full of mutants?" Jack's voice takes on that high note of hysteria once more.
"Yes. Is school full of mutants. Is place of refuge," North pauses in his ministrations to look Jack straight in the eye, "Is home."