Chapter 71: Petrol
The moment the nurse completes taking all the blood she needs, they rush my mother into surgery, now possible because they have my blood.
I stumble back into the waiting area, my arm bandaged, still clutching the bottled orange juice the nurse pressed into my hand after the transfusion. The sweetness burns against my tongue, but it does nothing to ease the hollow ache inside me.
My fathers are here too, each in their own unique mess as one paces up and down, while the other two sit in silence, their fingers fidgeting nervously. Their pain is written across their faces and I can only imagine what it feels like, seeing the mate they’ve loved for years in such a condition. I would die if it were Lorali, and I haven’t even known her for a year.
Father Miles sits beside me, his hands trembling as he rubs my shoulder. "She’ll make it," he whispers, trying to provide me comfort, though his voice sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than me.
Father Jacob shakes his head slowly, his jaw tight. "We don’t know that. We need to find out how this happened."
Father Cedric leans forward, his elbows digging into his knees, his face buried in his hands. His voice is muffled, heavy with despair. "What we need to find out is why she was out in the middle of the night to begin with."
The silence that follows is suffocating, broken only by the faint hum of the conditioning and the pounding of my own heart.
I stare at the nearby plants, the hum of machines echoing faintly from down the hall. "Mother was out?" I ask, peeling my gaze from the plants toward my father. Cedric nods. "The police said the ambulance was called by a passerby couple who claim your mother’s car was hammered on the side of the road."
The silence stretches, before one of my fathers speaks. I am not concentrating enough to know which one. "The police are still trying to find the culprit because all nearby cameras have been wiped."
Inside me, guilt gnaws deeper. I told her to die. And now she might. And it will be my fault.
"Have you tried looking at her dashcam footage? If the car didn’t blow up, it should still be intact, and it could give us an idea of what happened," I say, pulling away from my guilty thoughts.
My fathers exchange looks, their eyes widening as if I have just given them a revelation. They look at me like I am a genius. "Whose phone is linked to the dashcam?" I ask.
"Your mother’s," Miles answers. I nod at his words. "Her phone is probably still in the car." He adds, "Most likely." I rise to my feet, determination sharpening my voice. "I’ll be back. I need that phone. I need to find out what happened."
"Torin, you need to stay and wait for your mother," Father Jacob scolds, his tone firm. I shake my head, refusing. "The surgery won’t be done for another ten hours. If we wait, it gives the people who did this enough time to go back and clean up their mess." My fathers flash me a concerned look, their worry etched deep. "I’ll go with you," Father Cedric says, stepping forward with a sigh.
"You don’t have to," I murmur, though my voice falters. He lifts his hands. "It’s my wife in there. If there’s even a slight possibility we can find out who did this to her, I’ll do it. Besides, you have no idea where that car is."
He is already walking past me and out of the waiting room by the time he finishes talking. I sigh, watching his figure retreat, then push myself to follow.
The drive to the accident site isn’t long. Father Cedric, the one who drove us here and he parks not far from the scene. We step out of the car, and the sight freezes me in place.
My mother’s black vehicle is mangled against a leaning tree, crushed as though shoved sideways into it. Police tape flutters in the night air, surrounding the wreckage.
As we walk closer, I notice blood smeared across the ground, along with tire tracks leading away. Two possibilities claw at me: another car was involved, and this is my mother’s blood or the other driver was bleeding.
I crouch down, pressing my sweater against the floor to collect a sample. I’ll test it later. As I lean closer, my nose prickles at the sharp scent of petrol.
A normal person might dismiss it, assuming the car is leaking petrol after the crash. But that is impossible. My mother drives a diesel.
Slowly, dread coils in my chest. I lift my gaze toward the car, and only then do I see it, the vehicle looks wet, glistening unnaturally, and the smell of petrol is stronger now.
"Father, STOP!" I shout, panic surging through me as Cedric nears the wreck.
The realization clicks in my head a second too late. The car explodes.
I huddle over, covering my face as shards of metal and fire erupt into the night. The blast shakes the ground, the roar deafening, and pieces of the car scatter like shrapnel.
I remain crouched there for a minute, my mind racing. This wasn’t an accident. It was orchestrated. But by who? Who would go this far?
The image of my father flashes in my mind, his body closing in on the wreck, the fear of losing another parent tonight claws at me. What if he died in the blast?
"Torin! My boy, you’re okay." His voice cuts through the haze, and I feel his warm hand grip my shoulder. I look up, relief flooding me. He is alive, though blood drips from his head and a burn scorches his forearm.
"What are we going to do now?" he sighs, his eyes drifting to the burning car.
I stare at the flames, my heart pounding against my chest. The fire consumes everything, but the truth remains.
Things just got a whole lot more complicated.