exigency

noun

1. an urgent need or demand

CRASH! Metal grinding and glass shattering.

The noise came, and I screamed into my little brother's hair, but the pain never arrived. Jac-Jac started screaming, holding onto me tightly, his little finger nails scraping off skin on my bare arms, pinching in his fright.

Time sped back up to normal. Wallace came out of nowhere, scaring us both again as he picked us up together and ran back off road, dropped us, then he bolted away again. The sudden movements jarred my healing knee, making me whimper in pain.

I didn't get a chance to see what happened as my mum came, crying, saying, "Oh god, oh god..." over and over again. She sharply pulled us into her arms, then looked us both over. Jac-Jac climbed onto her from my arms and I finally got a chance to look back at the road to see what had happened.

The mustang had crumpled into a pillar at the corner of the hotel building, a bit further behind where I rescued Jac-Jac off the road. Wallace was at the passenger side door, trying to find his daughter. The other side was smashed into the pillar, the driver stuck in behind his steering wheel with an air bag in his face.

Glass was everywhere from the windscreen and other car windows. When Wallace couldn't find his daughter in the car, he called out to her, then noticed a body that had smashed through the windscreen, crumpled on the road side.

Glass littered the whole scene, and a bits of metal painted in hot blue were scattered here and there. A strange thought went through my head, I thought they made those high end cars more sturdy than that.

Hotel staff members carrying first aid kits ran towards the crashed mustang and gave Wallace a hand in securing Eyva's neck and back on a hard board they bought along with them. Eyva looked half dead, with blood running down her head and neck, staining everything.

Other security team members ran all around us, some to stand around mum, Jac-Jac and I, some to follow their boss to scene of the accident. I also saw others run out to the road to stop traffic and hold off any paparazzi that would find the scene news worthy. Watching as Wallace picked up his teenaged daughter, I could see how broken and limp she was, blood trailing down her silver dress clad arms. Wallace's usually stern face was distraught, powerful and in control still, but on the edge of panic, as he ran with her towards the car that was meant to take him and his wife home. And I honestly didn't know how to feel about all of this.

I mean, this is Eyva we're talking about here. The woman who made my life a LIVING HELL. And she looked like she could die at any moment. Should I feel relief that if she died she wouldn't become the monster she was in my last life? Should I feel concern, because that's how I should feel, now that I'm the good girl, the well behaved daughter? Should I feel anything regarding Eyva, at all? Because I just feel numb.

"Drive, drive." He yelled, got into the back seat still holding his daughter who was in a neck brace. One of his staff shut his door just as the car drove to the emergency hospital. I didn't see which way they went as the security team closed in around us and blocked my view.

"Another car is being arranged for you shortly, Mrs Overmeyer. One moment please." Mr Denault came out of nowhere and his familiar voice helped calm our racing hearts. I looked at mum whose face was white with fright. I pulled her into my arms and Jac-Jac was sandwiched between us. Mum was murmuring and it took a moment to realise she was saying thank you.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh my god, thank you." Then she looked at me, and called my name, giving me another fright.

"Lily, are you OK? Thank you for saving my baby. Lily, thank you." I had thought she was thanking some deity but it turned out she was thanking me. I started shaking again, and thank goodness a car pulled up beside us so we could sit down. Mum was escorted into the car first with Jac-Jac nestled in her arms. I paused as I noticed some staff ladies from the front desk were arriving with blankets and warm drinks. Around the other side of the car, they had the back door open and were giving these things to Mum and Jac-Jac.

"Here miss, take this." Another staff lady draped a soft warm blanket around my shoulders, and when she realised I was shaking, she gently lead me to the car to sit down next to my mum.