As my car hit a bump I hadn’t seen, I jerked forward in my seat—and I heard a scream of pain from outside.
My foot slammed on the brake, and the rest of me froze. Ice clotted my veins, crackling upward from my feet to my head. My brain was in cold shock, my fingers stuck to the steering wheel, my eyes to the rearview mirror. A shout sounded, this one from an onlooker, and then someone moaned outside my car. Red-hot fire raced through me, breaking through the ice and springing me into action. In a split second, I was unbuckled and out of the car, slamming the door behind me and stumbling to the front of my vehicle. No one was there. Falling to my knees, I looked underneath the car and saw a person lying—behind it—writhing in agony. Oh. My. Word. He was all the way on the other side. I hadn’t just bumped into him. I had run him over. I ran to the back of my car and knelt beside the young man. “Ohhhh,” he groaned, holding his chest. “Where are you hurt? Where are you hurt? Where are you hurt?” I heard myself asking while thick, red liquid squirmed out between his fingers. All I could think as I watched the color spread from his soaked shirt was how could he still be alive? “You’re going to be okay,” I whispered forcefully, searching my pockets, patting myself down. If this were England, Jane Austen time, I would have had a handkerchief that could stop the blood. Or maybe I could have torn the hem off my gown and used that. Were people stronger back then, or did their clothes just tear more easily? I was pretty sure I couldn’t tear a piece from my shirt. The man who had been staring in shock on the sidewalk suddenly regained his presence of mind and dug a cell phone from his pocket. “I’m calling 911,” he told me and turned to speak into the phone. Stupid. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Of course, my cell phone was back in the car. “It’s okay, you’ll be okay. Don’t move,” I told the man on the ground, stopping his twisting movements with my hands. Wide, blue eyes looked up at me above a cheek that was swollen and sporting a bruise. His face remained distorted with pain, and the sight of his blood might have made me gag if not for its almost cozy, pungent smell. Sirens started up nearby, and I let out my breath in relief. An emergency vehicle must have been close when the call was made. Still, I needed to do what I could for this guy until it arrived. “Okay. Um.” I tried to remember my middle school health teacher’s instructions. “If face is red, raise the head. If face is tail . . .” My mind was swirling . . . “No, pale, then raise the tail.” I stared at the wounded man. He gasped, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. “I don’t know if your face is red. Does a cut lip count as a red face?” I cried, then stopped and took a deep breath. “Um. Right, if in doubt, leave flat.” I held up my hands and reminded myself that panicking out loud was probably not reassuring to the patient. “They’ll be here in a moment,” I told him in a mostly calm voice, but when he took up squirming again, I clamped down on him anew. Please don’t let his innards be hurt, I prayed. The smell of the blood grounded me, surprisingly comforting to my senses. I had never exhibited vampiric tendencies before, but I was seriously starting to wonder if I had a problem. “We need to stop the bleeding. Don’t worry.” I spouted reassuring nonsense while removing a hand from his shirt and tugging at the bottom of my azure V-neck. I put both hands to my shirt and tried to rip the fabric. Of course it wouldn’t tear. How was I to stop the bleeding? Now that the thought had occurred to me, it seemed imperative to keep him from losing more blood. His moans turned to shuddering coughs. In desperation, I leaned down across him, slapped his hands away from his chest, and pressed the bottom of my shirt against the wound, stretching it away from my skin and feeling the nice-smelling blood soak through the fabric while the man’s eyebrows shot upward and he seemed to shrink into himself. “Whoa, we better stop it right there,” the man from the sidewalk protested. I looked up, catching a glimpse of him from the corner of my eye and underneath the hair falling in my face. I didn’t dare move from my precarious position for fear I would fall on top of the invalid. “Can’t you do anything to help?” I huffed. To my surprise, I felt someone move my hand. The bottom of my shirt sprang back to its rightful spot, wetting my skin and clinging as though glued. I started to protest as the man I had nearly killed sat up, but then I saw that the dazed look in his eyes was gone and his face no longer contracted in pain. “You were pretty heroic,” he said in a cheerful voice, reaching out a blood-stained hand as though to clap me on the shoulder, then apparently thinking the better of it as he caught sight of his hand. As though my shirt wasn’t already ruined. But what did that matter in the face of his . . . injury? The man who had called for help reached in front of me, phone in hand, and pointed at a scraggly tree while the wounded guy stood up as though he were perfectly sound. Cell Phone Guy then spoke two words that stole my attention from the invalid. “Hidden Camera.” I stared at the tree. He guffawed. “You were great.” I heard a noise and turned to see the bleeding man extract a white piece of gauze from his mouth, leaving his cheeks evenly matched. “That’s the best reaction we’ve seen,” he agreed. “Deserves an Oscar.” No more swollen cheek. Just a touch of makeup creating a fake bruise. Oh, and “blood” on his chest, but apparently I should never have been concerned about that. I swung to meet Cell Phone Guy’s dark-blue eyes full-on. “How dare you,” I hissed. “What? Film your moment of glory?” His tan, square face held what looked to be perpetual dimples—dimples that mocked me. “We were very careful,” the other guy spoke up. “The bump didn’t hurt your vehicle. I waited to crawl behind your car until I was certain you wouldn’t move it.” “Yeah, no worries,” his friend drawled. “No one—” “How dare you,” I shrieked, wanting these perpetrators to feel just a fraction of the fear I had experienced these past few minutes. “What gives you the right to make me think I’ve killed someone?” The one who had faked his injury looked a little worried and perhaps guilty. Not so his friend. “I know it’s a bit of a shock at first,” Cell Phone Guy began in a condescending tone, “but the others who went through this thought it was funny once they realized . . .” His voice was shaking—not with fear, but with repressed laughter. “This isn’t funny,” I insisted. “It’s a cruel joke. No, it’s not even a joke, it’s just plain mean. You can’t—” “Relax,” he interrupted, choking with laughter. “It’s been done to others, and I’m sure you’ll survive it, too. It’s a good thing we decided our video needed one more scene.” He shared a grin with his friend. “It felt incomplete when we put it together earlier this week, but now, with your awesome contribution and some mad editing skills, we can air our video on time. You’ll be a star on YouTube.” He gave me a theatrical bow. I stepped toward him, ready to give him a sound slap like women do in the movies. Or maybe I would push him into the gutter. Angry as I was, I totally had the strength to do it. His expression changed as though he realized the danger. “Look, we would have let you know the accident wasn’t real as soon as you realized the sirens hadn’t grown louder. That’s what we did with the others. They figured out something was up, and we stepped in.” I hadn’t been given time to realize the sirens weren’t real—mainly because I had been busy sacrificing my shirt, along with a little bit of my modesty. A fact that would henceforth be broadcast on YouTube. “And hey, you have to be glad to know Josh here isn’t hurt,” Cell Phone Guy continued, pointing at the man’s shirt. “It’s not blood, just paint mixed with a few things.” I sucked in my breath. Paint. That was why the smell had steadied me. How could I, an artist, have fallen for that? Embarrassment mixed with anger, leaving me unsure of what to do. The countless church lessons I had grown up with on being Christ-like came to mind. I decided to take the high road and leave off scolding. “You guys aren’t worth it,” I growled and turned away. Semi-high road, I guess. I stalked back to my Kia where it waited, humming, the engine on the way I had left it. I jerked out the handle by the driver’s seat, but the door didn’t budge. I tried again, to no avail. It was locked.
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