SPARKS: The Smoke & Fire Series (Prequel Book 1) (2 page)

After a few months with no
mention of future movies, Sori still couldn’t relax. Her foster parents looked
at her differently now. They were more cautious about their actions toward her.
Instead of beating her about the head and body for disobeying, they yelled
more, threatened bodily harm, or sent her to her room. They never mentioned
anything further about the incident or the injured man. Were they acting
differently because she had fought back? Were they afraid she would hurt them?

The dynamic in the house shifted,
but only a little.   Although Rodney and Debra had put away the camera, it
didn’t mean they weren’t still horrible people. Sherri overheard the couple
negotiating with a case worker. They were proposing to trade Sherri and Sori
for two other foster girls, but their request had been denied.

The prospect of her foster
parents restarting the movies kept Sori on edge.  She believed the couple had
filmed girls in the past and planned to use future foster daughters in their
films. Sori made a solemn vow to herself; she was going to find a way to stop
Rodney and Debra.

****

Two years later. Sori smiled as
she continued to enjoy her dream. Suddenly, a piercing hot pain shot through
her head, but slivered away just as quickly as it had come.

Instinctively, she reached for
her head. The amount of effort it took to raise her hand confused her. Unable
to process what was happening, she flipped the covers back so she could get out
of bed.

Her bedside digital clock flashed
11:09 brightly as she struggled to sit up. Getting out of bed shouldn’t have
been this difficult. Her legs dropped over the edge of the bed as she sat up. 
She said, “Finally. What’s wrong with me?” Slumped and moving sluggishly, she
pushed forward but failed at her attempt to stand.

A warm liquid crawled down her
shoulder, reminding her that something was wrong. The slight chill and it being
January in Detroit let her know she wasn’t sweating. When the rusted scent made
its way to her nose and coated the back of her throat, Sori realized she was
bleeding.  Pain and discomfort declined to make their presence known as she sat
confused. Wanting to but not able to reach the light switch, she sat staring towards
it across the dark room.

Finally connecting with its
target, she searched around the contours of her head.
Where is blood coming
from? Maybe I am still asleep?
Sleep would definitely explain why everything
seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace.

Suddenly, the room was flooded
with light.  Debra stood in the doorway.  Instantly raising Sori’s concern, the
look of pure shock was frozen on Debra’s face.

Afraid to know what caused
Debra’s look, Sori decided to ask anyway. “What is it? What’s wrong with me?”

Eyes aimed at Sori’s head, Debra
covered her mouth, apparently too stunned to do anything but stare.

Fingering the contours of her
head again, Sori found blood. It inch down the side of her head like a trail of
slow moving insects. Her fingertips were drenched as the thick liquid painted
her fingertips crimson.

A few seconds later, Sori watched
Rodney push Debra aside and entered her room. Just as Debra’s, Rodney’s face was
instantly seized by horror.

Sori could hardly hear Debra and
Rodney as they looked at her and talked about her as if she couldn’t hear or
see them. Their lips moved as the sound of their words floated over her head,
leaving muffled whispers of broken sentences. Only half their words made it
into her ears, although their body language indicated they were yelling.  
Frustrated, Sori asked, “What’s wrong? What is it?” Tilting her head slightly,
she saw no change in the couple’s actions.

As her brain digested the little
it could retain, Sori watched closely as Rodney pointed Debra towards the
living room and literally shoved her out the door. Walking towards her,
Rodney’s perplexing stare increased the level of anxious energy that surrounded
her.

Snapping out of some sort of
trance, Sori’s senses intensified. She could hear things more clearly, even
fragments of conversation outside her window. Glancing at the window, she
noticed flashing lights through her thin dingy drapes. Seeing lights flashing
outside her window, she wondered if they had been flashing the entire time.
Focusing on bits of conversation, she fought to bridge the pieces together.

A shootout that started a few
blocks away had ended in a foot chase. Both gunmen ran, shooting at each other
as their bullets flew recklessly over the neighborhood.  Taking a popular path
between houses, the final exchange of bullets had taken place outside Sori’s
window.  One of the men had been killed and the other had fled the scene. Now,
she was likely the unlucky recipient of a bullet from the shootout.

She whispered to herself, “So
that’s it. I’ve caught a stray bullet.” The thought of the bullet being in her
head was unimaginable.
Why am I not in pain?

It wasn’t uncommon for innocent
by-standers to die in random shooting in their neighborhood. Only a year prior,
an eight year old had been shot in the chest and died instantly while playing
in his own front yard.

Closing her eyes tightly, Sori
concentrated. She rocked her body forward, but her legs wouldn’t corporate as
she pushed to stand again. Rodney quickly and firmly placed his hands on her
shoulders, forcing her to stay down.

In another trance, she watched
Rodney’s lips closely as he talked. His voice pinged off her eardrums as his
words reached her brain after he’d spoken, making it appear as if he was part
of an old Kung Fu flick. He said, “Girl, stay your ass down until the
ambi-lance come.”

Soft and kitten-like, Sori said,
“Why is an am-bu-lance coming?”  She pronounced the word ambulance slowly and
correctly on purpose. It pissed her foster parents off that she spoke with
proper grammar. Most of the time she mocked them and they didn’t even realize
it.

She couldn’t figure out how the
system had placed an honor roll student in a home with two people who weren’t
equipped to help her with her homework, let alone provide good parenting
skills.

Rodney continued, “You been shot
in the damn head. You need to sit your ass down and keep still until help get
here. You must have a hard head cause you ain’t dead yet.”

A bystander in her own body, Sori
fought to stay calm when all she wanted to do was look in a mirror.

****

Debra returned with two police
officers. The cops arrived quickly, since the shooting had ended right outside
her window.  Sori watched the cops enter her room. Interpreting their concerned
faces chipped away the calm she fought to maintain.  Why did only she believe
things weren’t as bad as the way people looked at her?
Is half my head
missing or something? It couldn’t be, there isn’t any pain.

The cops approached her guardedly.
They asked questions about how she was feeling as they checked out her head.
One cop directed Rodney to gather some towels, while the other walked around
checking out her room.

While one of the cops wrapped her
head in a towel, she heard the other behind her at the window. Once he pulled
back the curtain, Sori caught a glimpse of the broken window pane before being
told to turn her head back forward.  The cop behind her seemed to be figuring
out the trajectory of the bullet.  Her bed was close enough to the window to
make her earlier stray bullet scenario true.

Sori thanked her lucky stars for
the whine of approaching sirens. If she looked half as bad as everyone’s face
suggested, she was thankful more help was on the way.

A few minutes later, paramedics
swarmed her room like angry bees in an attempt to treat her wound. Treating her
with a sense of urgency, they acted as if she were knocking at death’s door.
Once they discarded the towel that was now drenched in blood, one asked, “How
do you feel?”  Unsure of how to response, Sori answered, “I’m okay, nothing
hurts.” Touching her head, the medic continued, “Does this hurt? Can you tell
us your name? Birthday?” Sori answered all the questions, yet the concern on
their faces never disappeared.

Cleaning the side of her face and
neck, they wrapped bandages around her head while speaking kind words the
entire time. Sadly, this was the most human-to-human contact Sori had
experienced without being abused or beaten in the process.

As she was being wheeled out of
her room, Sori got a look at the scene she’d been in. Her pillow was drenched
in blood. Her bed didn’t have a headboard so the wall just above her head
displayed small splatters of blood and tiny chunks of what could have only been
pieces of brain or skull or both. It was a scene straight out of a horror movie
that led Sori to understand everyone’s reaction to her.  Despite the horror she
saw, she still felt no pain.

Sori was taken to Crush Memorial
Hospital, about five miles away from her block, one of the most dangerous in
Detroit. The crime in their area was so bad, she often thought of their neighborhood
as an outdoor cell block.

Before the ambulance came to a
complete stop at the hospital’s emergency entrance; medical personnel were
opening the doors and pulling her out as fast as the gurney’s shaky wheels
could turn. She stared as people scrambled about, screaming and shouting for
different meds and equipment.

The scene was total chaos. Sori’s
attempt at making someone aware that she wasn’t in pain was ignored. A mask was
placed over her face and her world faded to black.

****

Struggling against a crippling
force holding her down, Sori’s body sparked back to life. Her eyes moved
rapidly but she couldn’t open them. Her awakening took too much effort. She
relaxed, taking deep steading breaths to ease her tension. First, she managed
to move her hands, then lift them, and finally her eyes opened.

She took in the antiseptic scent
and searched her surroundings. A thin white curtain gave her privacy, but Sori
could vaguely see and hear machines assisting someone on the other side. She
was in the hospital.

The sting of a needle in the back
of her hand made her more aware. Without reaching up, she felt the press of
bandages wrapped tightly around her head.

Sori jumped, when her curtain
went flying open. An older white man entered. The long pocketed white coat and
stethoscope around his neck told her this was the doctor. The nurse stood next
to him.

The doctor’s voice boomed loudly
as he introduced himself, making Sori cringe. He noticed, “I am sorry, Miss
Knight, for speaking so loudly. I am Doctor Stevenson.” The doctor went through
a series of questions mechanically. When his face flashed concern, Sori gave
him her complete attention. She had been unconscious for a week after the
doctor had induced a temporary coma. He stressed that she’d been lucky. Her
foster parents stopped by the hospital only once, which Sori attributed to them
checking to ensure their public assistance investment was still alive.

After the doctor and nurse
completed several series of tests, Sori thought about her situation. Something
inside hervhad shifted or re-aligned, but she couldn’t figure out what exactly
had changed.

Sori spent a second week in the
hospital under the watchful eyes of Doctor Stevenson and the nurses. The doctor
seemed amazed that she survived the gunshot.  He explained that she had been
shot at close proximity with a .357 magnum soft point bullet. Sori didn’t
exactly know what that meant, but the doctor’s concern and uncertainty piqued
her interest.

Seeing confusion on the doctor’s
face as he attempted to explain her gunshot let her know that he didn’t have
all of the answers. From what the doctor could explain the bullet entered her
skull, shattered, and a few pieces exited, expelling small pieces of her scalp
and skull. Pieces of her brain had been blown away as well. The doctor marveled
at the fact that she was still fully functional and not brain damaged. She
watched the doctor study her like a newly discovered medical mystery. Sori
didn’t mind it; being in the hospital was like being on vacation. Two weeks
without her horrible foster parents was a gift she gladly accepted.

****

After her release from the
hospital, it wasn’t business as usual for Sori. Struggling, she had trouble
reacquainting herself with her surroundings. She found herself becoming easily
angered by things that didn’t bother her before. It was as if the bullet had
taken away her ability to be patient.

Although years of neglect and
abuse made Sori tough, she was known for being soft spoken and quiet. She
usually internalized how she truly felt about situations and back-talked when
no one could hear her. Now, there was no telling what was going to tumble out
of her mouth. She was left wondering if the bullet was delivering a message of
peace or if it were announcing the beginning of more pain. Either way, it was a
message she was determined to decode.

There were days when she’d sit
and stare at her bedroom wall for hours, wondering if she had lost pieces of
herself. The memory of seeing tiny specks of her brain and skull expelled over
the wall was a vivid reminder that pieces were literally missing.

Sori’s most amazing discovery was
that she could switch off her emotions. Letting go and going blank was like
letting herself blow freely in the wind. To exist and function and not deal
with the harshness of her environment was a blessing. When the pain and anguish
of her life came searching to torture her, Sori could turn off her emotions and
not acknowledge a thing.