Like a Train Wreck - 10. Chapter 10: Hells Fire

Sterling's eyes shot open when he woke up to the sound of shattering glass. His eyes squinted as they went directly to the bathroom door that was left half way open with the light on.

He pulled the covers away and moved from the bed and towards the bathroom, having no idea as to the scene he was about to come upon. That didn't take long when he pushed the door open and noticed Miracle laying there, on the floor, surrounded by shattered glass.

Sterling looked confused and then he gazed at the sink and spotted the prescription bottle, orange as most of them were but stripped of it's tag of information and very much barren and empty. That was the moment that he knew. His eyes trailed over to Miracle.

"Oh my god!" He dived down to the floor, his face tensed up and tears fell. "Oh my god, why? Miracle? Why would you even think of this?" He didn't understand.

Sterling gently rocked Miracle's fragile body in his arms and he looked down at him and as strange as it was, Miracle looked more at peace in that moment than he ever had.

To Sterling? It was utterly and unspeakably heart breaking that a person thought they had to die to find any kind of peace or happiness.

His hand moved up and he quickly checked for a pulse, knowing he had to get it together because if there was a chance to save Miracle, he would lose that chance if he fell apart.

He could feel a pulse but it was faint.

"Okay, I'm going to get you help." Sterling yanked a robe off the hanger and wrapped it around Miracle as best as he could and then gently laid him back. "I love you.."

Sterling shook his head and quickly ran back into his room and grabbed his phone, dialing emergency services to notify them of the situation and then quickly took spare moments to throw on a pair of sweat pants and a white tee shirt and a pair of shoes.

He didn't even bother with socks as he wanted to get back to Miracle as quickly as possible, he pulled the boy into his arms and simply held onto him as he waited for help.

"Look what you did now, you fuck up." Jaemin's eyes narrowed on Sterling.

Jaemin leaned against the wall of the third building down, watching Miracle being loaded into the ambulance as Sterling went to get into his own car. Jaemin's foot abandoned the wall and lowered to the sidewalk.

The ambulance took off and Sterling went after it and it was minutes after, that a red SUV pulled up and a man emerged from the drivers side.

Jaemin observed as the man moved to escort Sterling's mother out of the passenger side and he watched the couple head to the door of the apartment building. He pushed away from the wall and walked towards the car.

"I had a great time. Next friday?" Sterling's mother, Nancy, smiled.

"Sound's great." The man said and then watched Nancy walk inside the apartment building and he turned to head back to his vehicle.

Jaemin moved along the walls of the building, even slipping into the depths and the darkness of the alley beside the apartment building to avoid being seen.

He watched the man and then flicked the blade of his black leather pocket knife out of it's shelter.

This was when he made his move, stepping forward and wrapping an arm over the man's shoulder and bringing the knife to his throat with his other hand.

"Fate and destiny often work by no ones demand. Tonight though, you have power, and that, my fellow human is the power of choice." Jaemin whispered in the man's ear.

The man's eyes widened and he gasped in sudden surprise but once in Jaemin's embrace and threatened by the blade, he froze in obedience. "What do you want?"

Jaemin laughed. "Oh, there are a lot of things I want." He lightly pressed the blade against the man's skin. "So many things to desire."

"J..just tell me and it's yours." The man's eyes shifted down, noting the knife and the black finger nails.

He also noted Jaemin's voice but in his position there weren't any other identifying details that he could decipher.

“Well I could want your life ... but I don’t care enough about you for that.”

Jaemin then used his body to shove the man against the driver side of the car. “I could want your money, but I’m not financially concerned right now. What I want, is a ride. Call me an aggressive hitch hiker, if you will.” He grinned.

“Okay, it’s done. I’ll give you a ride, anywhere you want.” The man said, quick to comply.

Jaemin’s grin remained, clearly satisfied. “Okay, but there is one rule, you never look at me, if you do, I will blind you for life.” He eased up and then nodded. “Open the back door.”

The man tried to remain calm as he reached out and opened the back door for Jaemin.

“I’m going to get down but I’ll be watching, both hands better stay on the steering wheel. Drive me to the hospital.”

Jaemin released the man and climbed in back before lowering down into the floor board on the passenger side, in the back.

Sterling sat in the waiting room after Miracle had been rushed into the back. His eyes lifted when he saw Martha and Craig come rushing in so frantically.

A deep breath as he wondered whether or not he should get involved, given what Miracle had told him before, his parents probably wouldn’t even let him see Miracle.

“What happened?!” Martha screamed at the nurse that came out to greet them.

Maxine, the nurse looked between them both. “Calm down, it was very serious when they brought him in but they are working on him and these type of things, so long as you get to them in time tend to be very likely to cure. It’s all a matter of following procedures to get the medications out of his system and bringing his vitals back to standard.”

Craig wrapped an arm around Martha and rubbed her shoulder. “So who called it in? Where was he? How did this happen?”

Maxine took a deep breath. “I understand that you have a lot of questions.” She opened up the file and looked at the paper work. “Sterling Parker was the one that called it in.”

Sterling looked up and he watched Miracle’s parents and he saw and could relate to their desperation for answers when it came to Miracle, he knew what it felt like to not truly know Miracle. Even as his boyfriend he wasn’t dumb enough to believe that Miracle entirely pushed down his walls and opened up all his secrets.

“That would be me.” He stood up, looking at his boyfriends parents. “He wanted to spend the night...and I just ... found him.”

Craig looked over at Sterling and by that point Maxine was all but forgotten by him as he took his wife’s hand and walked over to where Sterling was.

Craig was quiet as he stared at Sterling and then he finally spoke. “I don’t even know what to say to you.”

Sterling wasn’t afraid and he was ready to take any consequences Miracle’s father had to throw at him. “How about the truth. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. So all you can have is a suspicion.”

Craig nodded a second later. “How about just telling me what happened?”

A single nod came from Sterling. “Well, Sir, to be perfectly honest with you I have been Miracle’s friend for a long time, ever since the first day he came to school. He’s a really fragile kid.”

Sterlings eye’s started to water up but he pushed on. “And because of that, I became stronger because I had this need to protect him. I didn’t know why, I just had to but I made one very bad error in judgement, a mistake that I would give anything to take back.”

Sterling looked towards the window and sighed. “I left him with Brian, even worse than that, I took him to that club to begin with. It was just at that time, he seemed so sure of himself, so in control. I thought, stupidly, that he could handle himself.

Craig kept his eyes focused on Sterling. “And tonight?”

“He came over, told me that you guys wanted to imprison him and then he just grabbed at me and he said he wanted me to take the pain away, he said for me to take him to a place where only we could go.”

Sterling shook his head. “I really didn’t understand what all of that meant. I made that clear, I asked him what he was talking about. He took me to my bed room and he wanted sex.”

His eyes shifted to Craig. “I didn’t use him, I never would, I’ve never asked him of anything like that. He was hurting and it was like he was trying to tell me that was the only way to make it stop. I remember him saying ... take me away, just take me away.”

Martha by this point had sat down in a chair, her eyes were burning by how wide they were in the shock of all of these details and she covered her mouth with a hand as she seemed to stare off into nothingness, it was a very passive reaction from the quiet house wife.

Craig looked over at Martha and then stepped closer to Sterling, grabbing him by the arm to bring some distance between them and his wife. Unsure of how he particularly felt at the moment but mentally he saw a chance to connect some dots.

“What happened after?” Craig asked.

Sterling moved along with the man and then shrugged. “We were quiet, I know I fell asleep, until I heard the breaking glass that he drank water out of and that’s how I found him.”

“Did he ever tell you about what happened at his last school?” Craig asked.

Sterling shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Well he supposedly had an affair with his teacher who counter claimed that Miracle was stalking him. There was no evidence of anything on either side so it came to reputation versus reputation when it went to the school board. Miracle’s claim was invalidated and he was expelled.”

Sterling thought about this and he looked at Craig with a perplexed expression.

“No, that’s to careless of Miracle. I bet there is evidence somewhere, if he didn’t destroy it by now. I say that because the reason Brad and his friends did what they did to Miracle was because Miracle got them on camera having sex and he tried to black mail Brad with it only Brad stole it back.”

Craig suddenly tensed with concern. “And now Brad’s dead. So ... who has the video?”

Sterling looked up at him. “I don’t know. If one of his friends had it I would think they would of turned it in for motive. Miracle said he sticky labeled it, black mail, he also said the night of the rape, the last he saw of it, Brad threw it at Brian.”

This was when Melanie had chose to save Miracle, oh but the girl never did anything without reason or intention and her hatred for Brad spun so far that she did end up taking Miracle's side.

"Damn, Brad ... That's hot, now you can be someones little bitch." She paused. "Or well aside from figuratively speaking, you'd have to be alive." The image on her media player froze when she hit a button and that little disc came popping out.

Melanie grabbed it. "Black mail." She said, looking at the disc and then back to the screen. "I wonder who did it? Miracle or Brad?" She shook her head and shrugged. "I'll figure it out."

That was when her phone drew her attention. "Damn! Hold on!" She exited the video and then moved over to hide the disc in her night stand for safe keeping, at least for the moment.

"Brian, you impatient little bastard." She said once she had answered.

"I have damn good reason!"

Melanie rolled her eyes and fell back on her red satin bed set which caused her to bounce in waves with how the water within rippled due to her weight of about one hundred and twenty five, give or take a few pounds, she was fit at least.

"Really? Well why don't you tell me about it while I ... think about taking a ride to the candy shop to get me another lollipop."

"Be stupid, no candy shop can give you what I got." Brian said, almost wanting to laugh at her.

"Want to bet on that? Half the shit you get is from my Dad's prescription pad from his pharmacy, dumbass."

"Just listen for a god damn second, okay?!" A large portion of air being pulled in and let out. "I got a call from Sarah and something really bad has happened."

Melanie grinned and pushed herself to sit up. "So you're talking to that blonde bitch now? That's dirty...very dirty to take your cousins girl when he's barely settled into the ground."

Melanie pulled out the disc and tried to contain her laughter. "Though it's not like Bradley hasn't done any of his own dirty deeds before his ultimate demise."

"Seriously ... shut up so I can explain, please?" Brian asked in a somewhat desperate tone.

"Fine but if something bad happened to her, I have to start my party planning with a nice banner hanging from wall to wall. 'Blonde Bitch is Ded.' and yes I would spell it dead without an A just because it's Sarah and that is how it must be for her."

"Miracle, you wouldn't know him I don't think.."

"Kangaroo country? Poor guy must have been humiliated, me and the girls thought it was adorable, in fact I got the perfect picture, the second where he puts both thumbs up. I couldn't resist."

"Yeah, well poor, cute, adorable guy was just rushed to the hospital. Sarah was there, she works as a half nurses assistant and does cleaning and other sorts of things."

"Maybe I should fall down the stairs and blame it on her and mark her for the rest of her life." Melanie fell back on the bed and rolled over, laughing uncontrollably.

"Cute, baby that is .. yeah, really cute."

He waited for the laughing to subside. "Bad thing is? He tried to over dose, look I gave him a bottle of pills, it's an orange bottle, label ripped off and Sterling came in with him."

"So let me get this straight, Miracle tried to OD off your stupid pills that you probably wrote off of my Daddy's prescription pad?!" Her eyes narrowed.

"You better hope my dad's prints are not on that bottle."

"You better hope no one there touched it. If it's linked to that pharmacy, it will be linked to your Dad and then eventually to you and then me should you so choose to rat me out."

Melanie looked at the disc as the clock was ticking in her head. "And you think he did it at Sterling's? And so long as no one finds it, they can't link the bottle to anything?"

"Ding ding ding! Pass go and collect your two hundred dollars."

"Try going into the thousands, I'm not a petty street walker."

She hung up and grabbed a black leather trench coat to use in order to cover up her tank top and booty shorts and then slipped her feet into a pair of delicate Hawaiian sandles, the heels of which were elevated from the ground but not so much as to give them the title of being heels.

"Stop here." Jaemin demanded, stern yet calm.

The man pressed the break and pulled over to the side of the road and shifted the gear stick into park. "Okay.. we're here." The man said nervously.

Jaemin grinned at that and flicked his pocket knife out. "I am ... but you're not." And that was when he moved forward and slashed the guys throat.

"Sorry Sterling's Mom, but you'll just have to find a new guy." He wiped the blade clean on the man's shirt, closed it and returned it to his pocket and climbed out.

Jaemin walked around the car, opened the gas chamber and twisted off the lid. "These come in handy." He pulled out a cigarette and a zippo.

A nice drag was taken before he threw the cigarette into the gas tank and tilted his head to the side for a second. "Fuck, it worked in that one movie."

He snatched a beach towel out of the back seat, it was stuffed into the opening of the gas tank and set on fire in a trail from the bottom and up before he flipped the zippo shut.

Moments later the car blew up, leaving a trail of hell's fire in it's wake as Jaemin went and shifted through and faded into the darkness of the forestry that separated the small but desolate part of the road that lead to the hospital.

Sterling found himself getting hungry, his stomach was growling at him and for a second, he thought of it as a living being that was bitching him out for neglect. He looked over to see both of Miracle's parents asleep in the waiting area.

The cafeteria was on the first floor and so that was where Sterling chose to go, he wasn't leaving until Miracle woke up. And so with that thought in mind, he would push the button on the elevator and wait for those doors to slide open to reveal the small mobilized room.

What Sterling probably didn't expect to see when those doors slid open was Jaemin standing on the other side. Shocked? Jaemin was a little surprised but he was rather good at keeping up his well practiced persona, how could he not be? He made it and it was what he had become.

A grin appeared as Jaemin's head tilted to the side. "How very scary movie like."