Left for Dead by My Brother

On New Year's Eve, a crowd crush broke out, and I was carried into the field treatment tent along with Maya Bellamy, the underprivileged student my family had been sponsoring. My own brother, Derek Calder, the incident commander, glanced at me. My ribs were caved in, and I kept coughing up blood. Then he called every medic over to put ice on Maya's slightly twisted ankle. "Maya's dance final is coming up. Nothing can happen to that foot!" When I weakly begged him for help, he gave me a stern, self-righteous lecture. "I'm your brother. If I'm the first one to give you special treatment, what will all the injured people out there think of me? Act your age, and don't make trouble for me right now!" The pain had me on the verge of passing out. All I could do was grab my boyfriend, Ethan Kessler, when he rushed over. "Ethan, I can't breathe..." But he pried my hand off him, his face full of impatience. "You've had asthma since you were a kid, and you don't even carry your inhaler. How can you blame anyone else? "Maya was in the most dangerous part of the crowd, right in the middle. You were stuck out at the edge by the planters. How could you be hurt worse than she is? Why do you always have to compare yourself to her?" Then he carefully scooped Maya up in his arms and ran to the ambulance that had just arrived, without looking back. But he seemed to have forgotten that when the crowd went down, he was the one who shoved me into the surging mass of people, just to clear a safe spot for Maya. And my brother never noticed that the strange heaving of my chest meant my broken ribs had already pierced my organs. Chapter 1 The air in the field treatment tent was thick and foul. It felt like someone had packed my chest with broken glass, and my whole body wouldn't stop convulsing. Warm liquid kept spilling from the corner of my mouth. "Doctor! There's someone badly hurt over here! I think she's dying!" A college volunteer in a red vest spotted me. She was a young woman, and she stared in horror at the caved-in side of my chest before spinning around to drag over an empty stretcher. "Excuse me, please move! Somebody help me get her onto this..." Her voice was close to breaking. But the moment her hand touched the edge of the stretcher, a strong hand yanked her away. It was my brother, Derek. He still had the incident commander's radio clenched in his fist. His face was dark, his brows knotted tight. "What do you think you're doing? That stretcher is being held for critical casualties!" The volunteer pointed frantically at me on the ground. "She is a critical casualty! She's coughing up blood, and her face is turning purple!" Derek followed her finger and looked at me. His eyes rested on my face for one second. Only one. Then they filled with disgust and impatience. "She's my sister. I know exactly what's wrong with her! "She's been faking illness for attention since she was a kid. She just saw Ethan carry Maya to the ambulance, and she's jealous, so now she's lying here putting on a fake asthma attack to scare everyone!" He snatched the stretcher out of the girl's hands and shoved it aside. "Do you know how many people are still waiting to be rescued out there? Use your heads! Don't let someone like her fool you. She'd fake a near-death experience just to fight over a man!" "But..." the girl tried to argue. "No buts!" Derek cut her off sharply and pointed outside the tent. "Right now, go find two spare cold packs for Maya! If her ankle swells and she can't dance in next week's final, which one of you is going to answer for it?" The girl shrank back from his glare. She bit her lip, then turned and ran out. The medics hurrying through the tent had heard the incident commander's verdict. One by one, they looked away and went back to the other wailing casualties. No one looked at me again. I lay in the muddy water and stared at my brother. I wanted to tell him I wasn't faking. My ribs were broken. My lung had been punctured. But when I opened my mouth, no sound came out. Only mouthfuls of bloody foam ran down my chin into my neck and stained my white down jacket red. His radio crackled with static, followed by a report from a rescue team at the scene. Derek rubbed the bridge of his nose in irritation, raised the radio, and strode out of the tent. He never looked back at me. He never noticed that the mud beneath me had soaked through, dark red with blood. The air was being squeezed out of my chest, little by little. The suffocation grew heavier. My oxygen-starved brain filled with a shrill, roaring noise. I strained to move my eyes. Less than ten feet away sat an open emergency kit. On top of it lay a simple oxygen mask. If I could just reach it. If I could just get one breath of oxygen... On any other day, ten feet would have been two steps. Right then, it might as well have been a canyon. Behind me, I left a long, horrifying streak of blood across the mud. My fingertips finally touched the edge of the kit. My heart leapt. I gathered the last of my strength and reached up to pull the oxygen mask down. At that moment, a foot came down mercilessly on the back of my hand. "You followed us here too?" Chapter 2 A familiar voice sounded above me, thick with irritation. I forced my head up and found myself looking at my boyfriend, Ethan Kessler. Hadn't he already carried Maya into the ambulance? Why was he back? Ethan didn't even glance down at me. His eyes searched the treatment tent until they landed on a pair of custom dance shoes in a corner nearby. Maya had them made specially for next week's final. She'd lost them in the chaos. He had come all the way back just to find her shoes. Ethan walked over and picked them up. When he turned and saw me sprawled on the ground, his brow creased deeply. "Jenna, was the set outside not big enough for your little show? You had to move it into the medical tent?" His voice was full of mockery and exhaustion. I shook my head desperately. I tried to pull my hand, red and swollen where he'd stepped on it, out from under him so I could point at the caved-in side of my chest and beg for help. But he misunderstood. He thought I was about to start complaining again. "Enough!" Ethan cut me off, his tone heavy with reproach. "Jenna, can you please stop competing with Maya for attention? "She's an orphan. She has nothing. Dance is the only way out she's got. "And you? You're an heiress. You have everything. Why do you always have to go after her?" Waves of pain crashed through my chest. I gaped for air as tears of despair slid from the corners of my eyes. Ethan looked at my tears and sighed, his face weary and resigned. "How did I never notice how manipulative you are? I could tell you I love you a thousand times, ten thousand times, but I can't take these endless little schemes of yours anymore. "You think if you lie there looking pitiful, I'll feel sorry for you and abandon Maya?" His eyes slowly turned cold. "Jenna, this kind of behavior only makes me think you're vicious. It only makes me want to get away from you. "Is that really what you want?" Every word was a knife. I looked at the man I had loved for years, and suddenly he felt like a stranger. I didn't want to hear his self-righteous lecture. I just wanted to live. With every ounce of strength I had, I pointed at the pocket of his suit jacket. I'd always kept my asthma inhaler in his pocket. "Inhaler..." I pushed the word out through my ruined throat, barely more than a breath, and looked at him, pleading. Save me. Even if it was only for the sake of our three years together, just give me the inhaler. Ethan looked down at my paper-white face and my lifeless eyes, and his expression finally softened a little. He seemed to sense that something was wrong. A flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes. "Are you... really having an attack?" Slowly, uncertainly, his hand moved toward his pocket, and he started to crouch down to check on me. Just then, the phone in his pocket rang. "Ethan..." Maya's voice came through the line, weak, tearful, and stuffy from crying. "Maya, what's wrong? Is your ankle hurting again? What did the doctor say?" Ethan's voice was gentle and anxious. "I'm fine. The doctor said it's only a soft-tissue bruise..." Maya sniffled, sounding terribly wronged. "Ethan, don't worry about me. Go check on Jenna. "When the crush started, she tried to take the safe spot where I was standing and fell by accident... She's always been so scared of pain. She must be suffering so much right now. Go be with her. I'll be fine here at the hospital by myself." Chapter 3 When I heard that, my eyes went wide in disbelief. It was Maya who had deliberately stuck out her foot and tripped the person in front of her to grab the best viewing spot. She was the one who set off the chain reaction! How could she make something up out of thin air and dump all the blame on me? I wanted to fight back, furious, but my shattered lung couldn't push out any air. All I could manage was a ragged wheeze, and more bloody foam welled up from my mouth. Ethan's face went cold. The tiny bit of pity that had just surfaced in his eyes turned instantly into intense disgust. "Maya, you're just too kind. Even now, you're defending her," Ethan said softly into the phone. "Just wait for me in the ambulance. I'll be right there." He hung up, then jerked his leg up and flung off my hand, which had been clutching his pant leg. "Jenna, drop the act!" He glared at me through gritted teeth, his voice full of disappointment and scorn. "I almost believed something was really wrong with you! I never thought you'd go this far, putting on a whole show of suffering just to pin the blame on Maya! "You were pretty capable when you were fighting for that spot earlier, weren't you? So why are you lying on the ground playing dead now?" He held Maya's dance shoes protectively against his chest, turned, and strode out. Just before leaving the tent, he stopped. Without looking back, he tossed one last line over his shoulder. "You'd better get up right now and stop embarrassing yourself. I'll come check on you once Maya's settled." As I watched him walk away without a shred of hesitation, my mind drifted back, against my will, to where this whole tragedy began. I'd met Maya at a charity event. She was poor, and it had left her timid and insecure. I felt sorry for her. I didn't just pay for her education. I brought her home and treated her like my own little sister. At first, Derek and Ethan only had eyes for me. They strongly disapproved of me bringing a stranger into our home. Then came the freshman welcome showcase at our university. Maya danced onstage in an expensive dress I'd bought her, and she was dazzling. I pointed at her proudly and showed her off to Derek and Ethan. "Well? That's the girl I sponsor. Isn't she amazing? Isn't she beautiful?" That was the first time neither of them looked at me. Their eyes were fixed on Maya onstage, lit with an amazement I'd never seen before. They answered in unison. "She's wonderful. She's really beautiful." From that day on, everything changed. Their eyes lingered on Maya more and more. One offhand complaint from her would send them all over the city hunting down a limited-edition cake. One bad quiz grade and they'd cancel important meetings to take her out and cheer her up. I sensed something was off, so I carefully let them know I wasn't happy about it. What I got back was the same doting, exasperated answer from both of them. "Jenna, weren't you the one who brought her home? Didn't you want us to look out for her? "She's an orphan. She has it so hard, and she works so hard. Now that we've seen how great she is, we're helping you take care of her. We're all like one family. Isn't that a good thing? How can you be jealous of the girl you sponsor?" I didn't have an answer. But it left a sick, sour feeling in my stomach. From then on, I started competing with her in secret. I wanted to prove that I still mattered most to them. Chapter 4 But every time, I lost badly. Once, I was in bed with a 102-degree fever. Maya nicked her finger peeling an apple, and Derek and Ethan panicked, left me behind, and drove her to the hospital in the middle of the night to get it bandaged. Another time, I accidentally ate some seafood chowder Maya had made and had a severe allergic reaction. I broke out in hives all over. All Maya did was shed a couple of tears and say "sorry," and they pulled her into their arms to comfort her. Then they turned around and blamed me. "Jenna, you know you're allergic, so why would you eat it? You just can't stand us being nice to Maya, so you're throwing a tantrum on purpose, aren't you?" Favoritism, again and again. Blame, again and again. I should have understood long ago. Their hearts had belonged to her for a long time. But I refused to believe it. I stubbornly kept begging for a love that had gone bad a long time ago. Until today. Until this very moment. The tide of memories receded. All that was left was pain so brutal I wished I were dead. My face went from bluish purple to ashen gray. My arms and legs began to jerk uncontrollably. Just as I was about to lose consciousness completely, the flap of the tent was thrown open. "Hurry! Triage by severity! Critical patients first!" Dr. Finch shouted orders as his eyes swept the chaotic tent. In a single second, his gaze locked on me, collapsed in the corner. "My God! I've got a critical patient over here!" His face changed. He covered the distance in a few long strides. He ripped open my blood-soaked down jacket. When he saw the horrifying cave-in of my chest and how unevenly it was rising, he sucked in a sharp breath. "Distended neck veins, trachea badly shifted, no breath sounds on this side..." His voice cracked with tension. He whipped around and shouted at the nurses behind him. "It's a tension pneumothorax with severe internal bleeding! She's in deep shock! "Quick! Get me a large-bore needle! We have to decompress her chest right here, or she won't last three minutes!" The nurses scrambled to open an emergency kit, pulled out the largest needle, and got the antiseptic ready. Dr. Finch knelt in the mud and pressed his hands along the edge of my ribs. Through my blurred vision, I saw cold sweat on his forehead. Someone was finally here to save me. My heart, which had been slowly giving up in despair, seemed to feel a faint flicker of hope again. But the instant he took the needle and got ready, the loudspeaker above the tent suddenly let out a piercing screech of feedback. Then my own brother's voice, cold and commanding, boomed through the loudspeakers across the whole disaster site and the treatment tent. "Dr. Finch, listen carefully. This is Derek Calder, incident commander! "I'm ordering you to stop everything you're doing right now and take the orthopedic team you brought straight to the private suite at Central City Hospital! "Maya's ankle needs an immediate consultation with multiple specialists! Her dance competition next week can't be put at risk!" The sudden order stunned everyone in the tent. Dr. Finch's hand froze in midair, still holding the needle. In disbelief, he grabbed a radio and shouted at my brother. "Commander Calder! Are you out of your mind? "I have a dying trauma patient here! Tension pneumothorax! Massive internal bleeding! She's barely breathing! If I don't treat her right now, she's going to die! "How is a sprained ankle an emergency? You want me to leave a dying woman so I can go consult on a twisted ankle? You're killing her!" The radio went silent for two seconds. Then my brother's cold, contemptuous laugh rang out clearly in every corner. "Dr. Finch, stop fearmongering. "That woman lying on the ground is my sister. Her name's Jenna. She's been faking illness to fool people since she was a kid. I know what's wrong with her a hundred times better than you do! "She just can't stand to see Maya do well, so she's playing dead to stall for time!" His voice grew harder and colder. "I said leave her! If you don't bring your team over for Maya's consultation right now, I promise you'll be out of that white coat by tomorrow!" The loudspeaker cut off abruptly. Dr. Finch stood there holding the radio, staring down at me as I lay dying. His eyes were full of shock, disbelief, and deep pity. And me? The moment I heard my brother say "Leave her," something inside me finally snapped. The pain in my chest suddenly disappeared. My body felt light, so light it was as if I might float away. Slowly, I closed my eyes. "Beeeeeeep—" The portable heart monitor hooked up to me let out one long, piercing, shrill tone.