One Californian's Summer

~*Achromatic

I woke up once to hear the sirens wailing over my head. With my vision blurred, I couldn't make out much in the white ambulance I was in. A couple faces hovered over mine, but faded as my vision blacked out again.

I woke up again to hear my heart beeping at a constant rate. The slow beep...beep...beep...told me I was alive and well. I barely smiled. I never wished to be dead. It was good I was still alive, because as soon as I got out of this hospital, I had a mission.

The walls around me were a spotless white, no dark mark of a dirty hand anywhere on the walls. They were so clean and sterilized. Supposedly it was germ free, but it's not like humans had micro-vision. Probably the only germs here couldn't do me any more harm than the bullet had.

I didn't bother to look at what I was hooked up to. I felt a needle in my arm, but ignored it, as annoying as it was. My shoulder was bandaged up by plenty of gauze, as was my cheek, and my side. Nobody wasted any time. I wondered how long I was out there on the beach before somebody had found me.

I wondered who found me and how they even managed to.

Groaning, I did my best to sit up. Amazingly, my side didn't hurt too much. They must have given me some painkillers when I was only half awake, but I didn't remember. All I knew was that my arm didn't work, and it still wouldn't for a while until the muscle tissue could grow back and allow me to move again. It was only my left arm anyway. Lucky I'm right handed.

"Oh, she's awake," said a woman's voice, just right out the door. I didn't recognize the voice, nor did I care about the voice. It was just a nurse's voice, whom I was going to forget anyway. "You can come in," And just after that sentence, my dad was right there by my side, holding the hand of the arm I couldn't move.

"How are you, baby?" he asked. As if I was still a defenseless child who couldn't yet walk. I sighed, and decided on the obvious.

"I'm fine," I didn't say much more than that. I wanted to know what happened to Miranda, but I didn't think Dad would know that. I don't think anybody would know that. I'm sure all they found was me, and blood, and those who only looked at the surface would say I got in a knife fight, and was shot twice, before I finally fell unconscious and the other person ran off. But if anybody had a refined sense of smell like I did, they would know there were three types of blood, rather than just two.

I curled my nose, finally looking at the bag of blood by my side that dripped into my veins to make up for lost blood. I didn't like this idea. Now someone else's blood was being mixed with my blood, and it wouldn't ever be the same anymore. I did not like this idea one little bit.

"What happened?"

That was an expected question. I looked at Dad, watching his careful worried face. For some reason it looked like an act, like it wasn't really angry. But my eyes were a little faulty sometimes, so I could be wrong.

"Tell me what they told you first," I requested--or demanded--in a cool voice. Dad sucked in his breath as he tried to think of a way to explain what they had told him.

"You got into a knife fight," he said. I smiled, knowing that was exactly what I expected them to think. He should know me better than that, though. He didn't actually believe these people, did he? For one, that knife was not mine. For two, I don't own a knife. For three...It was more like a knife verses a gun fight.

"I was on the cliff at the beach, waiting for the sunrise, when I heard a scream. I went to see who it belonged to, and found Miranda's blood in the sand after I'd turned by the rock face. Then I was attacked by a man. I took his knife and fended myself with that, until he pulled out his gun. But I scared him off."

The simple truth held more power over him than I had expected. Dad's tiny little mind tried hard to wrap around my story, and tried to put it against the one he was told about the knife fight. He pressed his lips together, like he didn't know what to believe.

"Miranda wasn't--"

"Miranda was kidnapped," I cut him off. Dad furrowed his brows this time, to add to his pursed lips. It seemed my story was too hard for him to comprehend. Me, who could have made up just a lie, even though I was right there in the middle of everything; me, his own daughter, who's never told a lie. I could have laughed at this, if my side had allowed it, but I didn't feel like laughing anyway. Miranda was missing, and I needed to find her soon.

"Am I free now?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. It was clear that I didn't like being in the hospital, and I hated even more the fact that I was trapped to the bed like a prisoner behind bars. It was seriously irritating, though I knew they thought it was for the best. But it wasn't like I had 37 fractures is my left foot along with a broken collar bone and three breaks in one arm. Just wounds I could have gotten if I had been in a knife fight. And the only reason they knew there was a gun involved was because someone heard a couple bangs not too far away. I still wondered who that was.

"The doctors said they're going to keep you for a couple more days," Dad answered my question. I gave a sour look. They were going to keep me for a couple more days, huh? That's enough time to make a girl go crazy. And enough time to plan a murder...

"Dad, I have to get out of here," I demanded, staring sternly in his face now. "I'm fine, nothing serious; I'm alive, am I not?"

"And thank god you are!"

I almost hissed. He wouldn't care less if there weren't three nurses standing right there in the doorway; each giggling and cooing together at the man that was supposedly my father. He didn't look much like a father. His thick blonde hair fell over his eyes like he was still a teenage skater kid. He was long and thin, with great muscles, and he had the face of an angel's.

A face which I spat at every time I looked away. He only kept me because it made him look good among all the pretty women he allowed come over. I wasn't even sure if I really was his daughter. But the fact my face was just like his, and the fact that my eyes were the same color as his, betrayed me as his daughter. I didn't like that. He only wished I could have stayed at the hospital longer, that would have given him some alone time.

He had no color in his life, just like the hospital. I wasn't scared of him. I just preferred staying away from him while I let him do his own thing, which is one reason I was able to be out of the house this morning. He didn't care where I was or what I did, just as long as I was away.

And now he was trying to make me stay in the hospital.

"I can walk," I insisted. Really, I could. I wasn't lying. It was up to the nurses whether or not they believed me. The three looked at each other, though, like they were trying to believe me, but they didn't know if they should. An inspiration hit me! Like the bullet that had dug into my side. "Dad, if I don't get out of here soon that means the doctor bill is going to be bigger," I hissed under my breath. He sucked his in again, thinking about it. He knew I didn't have a job. He knew I didn't have any money to pay the doctor. He knew he was the only one who could.

"Fine," he said, gritting his teeth. I smiled sweetly, as if that could get me out of there faster. Dad stood, and walked over to the nurses, speaking with them in a low voice. I didn't know what he told them, but they giggled and awed at me. I raised an eyebrow, wondering what that man was saying. But, to my relief, I was set free from the blood that wasn't mine, and I was able to go on my way. But I was due back for a bandage change. I sighed. I least I could walk. I was sure of that now as I walked alongside my father, without any support from the jerk, to the car.

Pfft. I wasn't even dizzy. The only reason they thought I needed knew blood was because they didn't know how long I was on that beach, and all that blood that was lying around me, they thought all of it was mine! Now I wondered how they were smart enough to come up with that story about the knife fight. I could have easily killed myself. But I wasn't dead, and there was no gun around; so they came up with "Someone brought a gun to a knife fight."

I was amazed at these people.