Chapter 14

An icy calm descended on Hana as she sat the complaining Melissa down on the kitchen stool. Melissa gripped her arm awkwardly, her eyes unfocused, continuously trying to get up on shaky legs.

Pushing Melissa down once more onto the seat, Hana pulled out a recessed drawer in the counter and retrieved the all-purpose first aid kit.

“I—I’m okay, Hana,” Melissa mumbled, shaking her head as if to clear it. “It’s ... it’s not that bad.”

“Stay there,” Hana ordered as she opened the kit and emptied the contents onto the table.

Finally giving up, Melissa stayed put.

“Look here,” Hana said, clicking on a small flashlight and shining it into her eyes. Melissa tried to pull away, but Hana held her head in place while she checked both eyes. “Don’t blink. Look straight ahead.”

There wasn’t any delayed response to the light or unusual blemishes to suggest anything permanent.

“We weren’t going that fast, Hana,” Melissa said. “We—we barely even left the driveway.”

Hana should have known something had been off when Trent had come over. Beyond his usual leers, he’d seemed more unfocused than usual. She’d chocked it up to him just wanting to leave for a party, not that he’d been drinking.

“What did I tell you?” Hana asked calmly, even as she boiled inside at how Melissa had been hurt. “What is the rule when driving?”

“I know, I—ow!” Melissa flinched and batted Hana’s hand away.

“It’ll get infected. Stop moving and let me take care of it.” Not to be deterred, Hana brought the swab back to the reddened skin of Melissa’s forehead. It would clearly grow into a bruise, but the friction had burned the skin, leaving familiar markings like rug burns there.

“Here you go,” Kaylie said, handing Hana an icy gel pack, wrapped in a towel.

“Hold this to your eye,” Hana said, firmly planting the pack in Melissa’s right hand. “It’ll keep the swelling down.”

“It’s fine. It’s just a black eye. It could have been worse,” Melissa complained. She flinched away again but ultimately gave up once Hana grasped her chin to hold her still.

Melissa finally complied, holding the pack to her eye while Hana finished disinfecting and bandaging her forehead.

“Let me see your arm.”

“Ow! It’s not broken, Hana! It just hurts.”

Hana thanked whatever lucky stars shone down on their family that she hadn’t been seriously hurt. After Kal’s disappearance, she couldn’t handle anything else happening. The stress was too much. The constant worries. The constant fear.

“What were you thinking?” Hana asked, her voice growing shaky as the immediate danger had passed. “What would have happened if he’d been driving faster? Huh?”

“I hadn’t been ready yet,” Melissa said. “He just took off. I was going to put on my seatbelt—”

The front door slammed open with enough force to shake the old house, cutting off Melissa’s excuse. Kal stood at the door, panting hard like he’d run the whole way back from campus. His eyes flicked from Kaylie, who held her hands up to calm him, to Melissa, who shrunk away from his gaze.