Tuesday, November 2, 2010

T is for TEASE...

Last week, we left off with Mia deciding that if she had to die, it wasn't going to be from cancer.  The first chance she got, she "fell" down a flight of stairs.  This what happened next.

Enjoy :)

I was floating through a hazy cloud cast adrift in a sea of gray. My heart lodged in my throat as I looked around, searching for the brilliant white light. Where was it? I was dead, so where was my guardian angel, come to ferry me across to the great beyond? Where was the express train to the Pearly Gates? Why was I just floating in this sea of nothingness?


I was dead…wasn’t I?

My body shook and pain lanced through me as the gray fell away, and my surroundings swam together, gelled, and everything became clear.

“Mia?” Kal called to me, shaking me. “Mia, talk to me. Come back to me,” he pleaded. Another shake, wringing a low groan of pain from me, and he materialized right before my eyes, his face a mask of terror that abruptly dissolved into relief. “Oh, thank god, Mia. Tell me you’re okay. Where does it hurt? How many fingers am I holding up?” He shoved two fingers in my face as he shot questions at me like they were missiles.

Another groan jumped out of me, and I pushed his hands out of the way so I could sit up. “What happened?” I winced as the loudness of the words I uttered bounced around in my skull. What I really wanted to know was what went wrong? I was supposed to be dead. How could I have survived that fall? How? Why?

He pursed his lips, regarding me silently for an endless minute. “You took a header down the stairs,” he finally said. “What the hell were you thinking, carrying all those damned jars up at once? You’re lucky you weren’t killed!”

Not really.

“Kal?” I reached out and grasped his shoulders to steady myself, keep the rest of the world from spinning. “Can you maybe hold off on the yelling until my head stops pounding?”

“Shit, Mia,” he yelped as understanding leeched into his eyes. “I have to get you to the hospital.” He leaped to his feet, pulling me up with him and then swinging me into his arms.

“No…no hospital,” I gasped, fisting my hands into his shirt to stabilize myself. Everything was moving just way too fast. “No hospital,” I repeated when he looked like he wanted to argue. “Just help me upstairs. Please?”

“I think you should go to the hospital,” he insisted but carried me up the stairs, through the yard, and into the house anyway. Inside the empty kitchen, Kal didn’t put me down, just looked at me, a brow raised in question. From the front of the house, sounds of Ben’s video games blared.

I shook my head. “I don’t want him to know,” I whispered, cringing a little. Even that was causing my head to hammer viciously.

He nodded and wordlessly carried me up to my room, through it, and into my bathroom. He perched me on the counter and stepped back to look me over, a grimace twisting his face. “I can’t tell if you’re injured. You’re covered in salsa and peaches.” His nose twitched as he sniffed. “Do I smell pickles, too?”

“I couldn’t decide which was better,” I hedged.

His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. “So, let me get this straight,” he said, slowly, carefully choosing each word before uttering it. “You went down into the basement—that you hate, by the way—to get something to eat, but once down there, you couldn’t decide what you wanted more…peaches,” he snatched a slice off my shoulder and dropped it into the sink. “Salsa,” he flicked a juicy, tomato-coated pepper from my shirt. “Or, pickles?” He made a face like he was going to be sick. “That is the weirdest breakfast I’ve ever heard of, Mia.”

6 comments:

  1. Whew! I didn't think she would die right then--glad to see I was right. :)

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  2. i'm still sucked in.

    help!

    more, please.

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  3. I still love this! Especially the last para :)

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  4. I'm guessing a shower scene is next . . .;) Too bad she made herself too nauseated to enjoy it.

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  5. I really liked this, though I was a bit scared for a moment XDD

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