Chapter 8

“Like shit, but,” and she rolled her eyes a bit, knowing where I was going with this, since we both were now Star Trek nerds, thanks to Mom, “tell Mother I feel fine.” We both laughed a bit at the movie line. And then the inevitable silence as we looked at each other.

“You did it,” she said, her voice low. “You saved her.” She kept looking at me.

“I know.”

More silence.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

She came over to the bed. “Oh Embers, oh my fucking god, you, you have no idea how much shit has blown up.”

I sighed. “Tell me.”

“Well, the video hit and next thing you know we’ve got television reporters showing up, radio people, then the national people start arriving today. Twitter has gone off the deep end, you have people posting stuff on TikTok like they all know you, I mean, it has been a nightmare.

Do you know how Dad and Sheriff Townsend are friends? Well, that’s helped because he put deputies at the entrance and on this floor and if you don’t have a legit reason for being here, you get turned away.”

“Jesus,” I said, shaking my head.

“Yeah, they’re calling you that, too.” I thought she was making a joke, but she didn’t smile.

“What? What do you mean?”

“You have the religious nuts saying you’re the second coming of Jesus Christ, Embers.”

For fuck’s sake, I thought.

It was just then that Mom and Dad came into the room. Mom shrieked and dropped her bag of food and came rushing over to the bed asking 384 questions at once, crying, hugging me, and pressing the button to call the nurses, all at the same time. Only Mom could do all that.

Things had changed, dramatically. It took me another day to get out of the hospital despite all tests that were run showing absolutely nothing wrong with me. I had two CAT scans, a PET scan, and two MRIs run, all normal. There was no reason to keep me.

Now, getting out, physically out, of the hospital, that was another thing. I’d taken a look out the window before getting discharged and there were thousands, literally thousands of people milling around on the hospital grounds, and I was told that hundreds more were arriving every hour. I just shook my head.

I had a police escort out of the hospital’s underground parking lot, thankfully, and I thought that’d be it. Oh no, not by a long shot. There were easily half as many people at our house!

Again, thankfully, the police or deputies (I couldn’t keep them separated in my mind) had cleared the driveway and so we were able to get into the garage which led directly into the house. Apparently, money had started pouring in from all over the country; a family friend had set up a GoFundMe and I heard that there was already several hundred thousand dollars in it.

Initially, I had no idea for what purpose, but then I saw that a private security firm had been hired to protect me.

Protect me? Protect me from what, or whom?

It was Kinsley who told me about the threats. Mom and Dad kept it all from me, but I could see something was bothering her, and cornered Kinsley that first night.

“You have lots of love pouring in, Embers, but there’s some dark stuff, too.” She told me of the death threats, that I was being called satanic by some, and when all that surfaced, Dad called up some of his old Army buddies and within a few hours the house had been made more secure. No one was getting in without Mom’s or Dad’s approval.

It was decided that I wasn’t going to be sleeping in my room, it had a front exposure and that was a no-go. Kinsley had a queen-sized bed, so that was the quick solution, for now, sleeping in her room. Didn’t like the idea of possibly making her a target, but I was told that no one was getting near the backyard, etc.

Shortly after dinner, my boyfriend Tommy texted and asked if he could see me. I went to Mom and she cleared him, so about a half-hour later he showed up. He was frisked, twice, and went through a metal detector, then was allowed to see me. The three of us, him, me, and Kinsley, went up to her room to escape the madness of the adults on the first level.

“Embers, are you--” and I cut him off with a kiss on the lips that turned into a minute-and-a-half make-out session until Kinsley cleared her throat.