Crash-n-Burn Ch. 01

Note: This is a prelude, the first of a six-part series. I should warn the reader that the story is rather long. The first chapter does no more than tease sex, but future chapters will hopefully make up for any shortcomings there. This is my first submission to Literotica, and I welcome any feedback.

*****

ESTELLE

I remember the phone call clearly. It was the day after Canada Day, and we had been going over the check sheet for our trip when it rang. Mom answered immediately.

"Hello, King residence." It was her standard greeting. Back then, we didn't have call display. "Brian, it's nice to hear from you. How are you and the family?"

A shocked and concerned look came to her face. I couldn't make out the voice of the caller on the other end, but it was apparently bad news.

"Oh, that's terrible! Have you heard from her? Is she all right?"

The caller - Brian, apparently - talked for nearly a minute before Mom interrupted.

"How did she get to Niagara Falls?"

The reply couldn't have been more than one sentence.

"Who is she staying with now?"

Another long explanation, which caused Mom's distress to climb.

"That's not right. They shouldn't have put her in Juvenile Detention."

This time, I could make out one word - drugs.

"Oh, God. What a mess. So, what are you going to do now? Did you need help to get her back to Angus?"

She glanced at me as she ran a hand through her hair.

"I don't know, Brian. She barely knows us. I don't think she'll be any more comfortable here than at home. Isn't there any other family she could stay with?"

She listened some more, and her face fell as resignation set in.

"No, that wouldn't be fair to them. I - I'll see what I can do. What's the number?"

Mom nodded her head as she wrote something on the notepad next to the phone. I could hear a 'thank you' just after she put the pen down.

"Of course, you're family. I'll call you after I've talked to CAS. Goodbye, Brian."

She hung up the phone and collapsed into her chair with a sigh.

"Which 'Brian' was that, and which 'she' is in juvie?"

Mom's arm was across her forehead as she stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Mooney and Estelle."

"What? Sweet Estelle, everyone's perfect little star?"

She dropped her hand, nodding. "She apparently took Mary's death badly. My sister was the only grandmother Estelle ever knew, though she was only a few years older than her own mother. And Amy was an only child, so Estelle didn't have anyone she could really call an aunt."

I shook my head. "Aunt Mary's children are Brian's half-siblings, so they're Estelle's aunt and uncles."

"Maybe, but they grew up together and they're more like cousins."

I tapped my fingers on the check sheet on the table. "So, it sounds like you're going to be helping her out. Is she coming here, and how does this affect our camping trip?"

Mom sighed again. "I'm sorry, baby. We'll have to cancel."

"But we've already paid for the campsite!" Even I could hear the whine in my voice. So much for nearly being an adult.

"I know, Cole. But Estelle needs someone to help her. The police made a big sweep of the Niagara Falls downtown, and she was caught with drugs in her possession. She's still in detention now but will be released in a few days. There are reasons that she can't go back to Angus, so Brian's been beating the bushes to find someone able to take her in and be responsible for her. The judge will give her an absolute discharge, but only if she commits to staying with an adult relative for the next year and stays in high school."

"What about Aunt Mary's kids - the twins, Anne and James? They've got an apartment in Toronto."

"It's in Pickering, actually, not that it makes any difference. But it's only two bedrooms and the Children's Aid won't allow her to stay with someone outside of her immediate family unless she has her own room. Anyway, Anne's still working on her PhD, and James is just working odd jobs. They don't have the resources to take her in. We do."

"What about Jonathan? He's married with a three-bedroom house..."

"And his wife's expecting a baby. They're going to be too busy caring for a newborn to even notice that Estelle is around. I'm sorry, Cole. There's no one else. If she doesn't have an approved place to go, she stays where she is until her birthday. And I won't let her stay in Juvenile Detention if there's anything I can do to prevent it."

"Mom, she's going to be eighteen this month. Why does CAS even care?"

"Because she is being released from detention as a minor. They've insisted that the rules be followed to the letter, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"This isn't fair," I yelled, crumpling up the paper in front of me and throwing it across the room. I got up and stomped to the door before turning around. "She's not even really family. Estelle's only a step-cousin."

"Cole David King, sit your ass down this instant!"

I was so shocked at her tone and the swearing that I was in the chair before I even thought to move. I don't think that I had ever heard her curse before, and certainly not at me.

"You will never say anything like that in front of me ever again. And you will never even think about saying anything to that effect in front of Estelle. Do you understand?"

"But..."

"Never!" She slapped the table to emphasise each word. "Do. You. Understand?"

I hung my head. "Yes, Mother."

"Good." Her voice softened. "Now, I want you to treat her just like your other cousins. Don't pick on her or bother her about what's happened or why she was in detention. Don't even ask unless she offers to talk about it. I know you may never be best friends, but I want you to welcome her and at least make an effort to be friendly."

"Fine, I'll try."

"That's all I can ask, baby." Mom smiled sadly and placed a hand gently on mine. "I know that this is going to be hard, Cole. But we'll make it work out."

***

RIDE

Estelle arrived a few days later, but I didn't actually meet her. I mumbled a 'hi' from the other room and slipped out the back for a bike ride before I said something I'd regret. This was the first time since I was four that we had missed our summer camping trip, and I was more than a little annoyed. I was hoping that a short ride would let me work through some of my anger.

Although a lot of kids had recently gotten into mountain biking, I chose to stick to the roads. I had about two thousand dollars invested in my bicycle, and it was pretty darn fast, if I do say so myself. At six-foot-three and 175 pounds, I was tall, with a classic cyclist's lean build. My long legs allowed me to use extra-long cranks for more torque output, and I had won several races at the high school level. I had already managed a metric century a couple times - 100 km in a day - and completed an imperial century (100 miles) just a few weeks earlier. An older third cousin had gone with me, surprising me when he brought his 12-year-old kids with him. If nothing else, the pre-teens did a good job of motivating me not to quit. I'm not sure which of us found the ride more difficult, but we all finished.

I knew that there were only a handful of teens in Hamilton that could hope to keep pace with me on a bike. A couple had beat me at races in the past year, and I had won against all of them at least once. My coach had told me that I could try out for the Canadian Olympic team, but I would need to sink several thousand into better equipment if I wanted to be competitive. My mother had a good job and got paid well, but not that well. Everyone knew that equestrian was expensive, but competitive cycling wasn't as cheap as most people assumed. That being said, I was attending the Cycling Canada tryouts in three weeks, just before my birthday. If I did well enough, I would be eligible for funding to help with the purchase of a new bike. I knew that it would be an immense amount of work, but I was excited at the prospect of potentially riding in the 2000 Games.

I didn't bother getting into my riding gear, I just grabbed the bike and took off. I should have been wearing a helmet but couldn't even be bothered with that. It wasn't a legal issue, as I was over sixteen, but I knew better. The bike had clipless pedals installed, which were designed to work with cleats. But they had almost no traction for regular street shoes - like the sneakers I was wearing. Reasoning that I wasn't doing a hard ride so it wouldn't be an issue, I pulled out onto the street and immediately forgot all about taking it easy. I took a right turn onto Stirton, pretty much ignoring the stop signs at Cannon and Wilson. Those were both one-way streets, so I only had to worry about traffic from one direction and simply took quick glances to make sure I had space to cross. There were a few horn blasts, but no one was close enough to be a threat to me. I had to stop at King due to the traffic - it was also one-way - but I quickly made the right turn and cut across four lanes to make a left onto Arthur, just a hundred metres down the road. Another left and a right took me to Main, and I barely slowed as I turned left onto yet another one-way street. (Hamilton has more one-way streets than any other city I know. It can be annoying, but once you know them it's not that big a deal.)

Now on a major street, I accelerated into top gear. This was a race bike, and I was easily keeping up with traffic. Between the traffic, potholes, cracks in the pavement and sewer grates, my mind was pretty much occupied. A few minutes later, I reached Kenilworth and was forced to stop. I slowly slipped past the stationary cars waiting for the green light, then turned south, heading for the Mountain. (Although we called it Hamilton Mountain, it was really the Niagara Escarpment - a nearly-vertical cliff that ran a couple hundred kilometres from the Niagara River roughly north into Central Ontario.) I was soon turning onto the incline of the Kenilworth Access and had to start gearing down. There was less traffic here, fewer grates and smoother pavement, but now my mind was focused on simply keeping my body moving. The road was mostly straight here, climbing sixty-five metres in two and a half kilometres, with one hairpin turn half-way up. Basically, it was a ten-minute wind sprint. When I finally reached the top, I followed a loop of road onto Mountain Brow, which led along the top edge of the Mountain over to Concession Street.

This was an easy, quiet and level stretch that I used to cool down. But my mind was no longer occupied with survival, and it started to dwell on other things. Like Estelle and my ruined camping trip. I would be turning nineteen at the end of the month, and this was an important one for me. It was supposed to be the last time I went camping with my mother before I was officially an adult. Technically, the only difference was that I'd be able to drink once I was nineteen, but it was the final milestone into adulthood. We had planned everything out, and it was going to be great. Except, now it wasn't going to be at all. By the time I hit East 31st Street, I was seething. A couple more turns and I was heading down the Sherman Cut. A left at the end took me onto the Sherman Access, leading down off the Mountain again.

The first mile was a slight down grade, and I quickly got up to the speed of traffic. Then there was a hairpin turn that dropped more than twenty metres. It was a good place to pick up speed, if you were brave. I was angry, so that was close enough. By the time I reached the lights at Charlton, I was going over seventy kilometres an hour, riding on tires barely an inch wide. There was a green light for the Sherman Access traffic, so I didn't even look left as I grabbed a bit of brake and positioned myself for the turn, signalling briefly with a flick of my arm. There was a separate lane for right turns, and I was using all of it. Since Charlton had a red light, there shouldn't be anyone coming, and I completely ignored the yield sign. As I leaned sharply into the turn, I heard the roar an engine at full throttle behind me and to the left, getting closer fast. I didn't dare look, but leaned more on my right pedal, veering toward the curb. I caught a flash of chrome in the corner of my eye and involuntarily glanced over. In a freeze-frame, I saw a red Mustang barreling toward me on Charlton just as my right shoe slipped off the skinny pedal. My leg snapped straight and the foot smashed hard against the curb. The bike jerked and started to stand up, the miniscule clearance between my path and the car's disappearing before I realized what had happened. The last thing I heard was a crunch as the car's hood and bumper caught my left leg.

***

AWAKENING

I woke up with only one conscious thought - that hurts! It took me some time to actually realize what, exactly, was hurting. Both legs were in pain, but I could not narrow it down any more than that. My arms and shoulders were about the same, and none of my limbs seemed to want to move. Then I turned my head and it felt like someone was driving a hot poker through my temple. I groaned and opened my eyes. There appeared to be something covering them, but it still felt like I was staring into an industrial-strength flood-light, like they used at the Gage Park Greenhouses, where Mom worked. This time, I involuntarily cried out.

A hand touched my left shoulder gently, and I heard a soft voice. "Shh. Close your eyes and don't move. I'll go get Aunt Maisie and the doctor."

I could just hear the door open and close through the throbbing in my head. I took a few raspy breaths and tried to calm myself as I reviewed my last memories. Obviously, I'd been hit by a car. On the bright side, if I could feel pain, that meant the nerves were still working. I focused on moving the fingers of my right hand. Great, they worked. Left hand, same. I tried the toes on my left foot - that bumped up the pain in my leg, but I could feel the movement under the blanket. When I tried moving my right foot, it felt like I was in the movie Misery, tied to the bed just after the sledgehammer came down. It took everything I had to stop myself from screaming. On the up side, I knew that I had all of my extremities. On the down side, I was apparently hurt pretty bad.

The light through my eyelids dimmed, and I heard a male voice.

"You can open your eyes now, Cole. I've dimmed the lights, so it shouldn't be painful."

"Anyone get the number of that bus?" I croaked.

I heard a giggle that sounded a lot like the girl who had been at my side when I woke.

"Not a bus, it was a car," my mother replied coolly. "It may not make you feel better, but the driver's been charged with a half-dozen offences, with running the red light being the least of them. The Crown said that they would not charge you for running the yield, feeling that you've paid enough for that misjudgement already."

"Now, you need to understand that you got hurt pretty bad, son," the man resumed. "I'm Doctor Jones, the surgeon who put you back together. Or rather, one of them. I'm the orthopaedic surgeon and I worked on your arms and legs. The neurosurgeon will speak with you later."

"I can feel my arms and legs, but everything hurts. How bad is it?"

"Well, the morphine is dulling the pain right now, so it's actually worse than you think. That being said, all of your bone injuries will heal, with a bit of time. Your left humerus was fractured, as well as all three long bones of the left leg. Those required surgical intervention. Your right shoulder was dislocated and both the radial and ulna broke when you landed. Your right foot has fractures in the outer two metatarsals. With that kind of injury to the foot, I usually allow weight-bearing in a walking cast after a couple weeks. Because of the other fractures, however, I need to restrict your mobility quite a bit longer. We'll get x-rays at six weeks and assess where you are. We may allow some weight-bearing exercises then, depending on your progress. The left leg will take longer to heal, probably six months before you can try to walk without crutches. But you should be able to start putting weight on it about the same time as the right foot.

"In the collision, the car impacted your leg against the frame of your bike, which acted as an anvil. You have mid-shaft fractures to the femur, tibia and fibula. The femur and tibia have been stabilised using rods, which may need to be removed once healing is complete. The fibula has been returned to its normal position and has a plate to maintain its position." He paused for a minute. "If you had just broken your foot, or just the femur or just the lower leg, I could allow you to start walking with weight on that injury in four to six weeks. And you'd be able to walk with crutches almost immediately if it was just a lower-leg fracture. However, with injuries in both arms and both legs, you have no way to recover if a leg gives way. I'm afraid it will be at least four months before you can even attempt walking with crutches. You will probably want to use a wheelchair at least until January. But we'll be starting physiotherapy almost immediately. Your muscles are strong, so that will help. We need to get your limbs moving and get the swelling down, or recovery will take even longer. I can promise that it will not be pleasant, but we have one of the best physio programs in the country."

I had been listening quietly, cataloguing the injuries and what I knew of them. I had been riding with the Hamilton Cycling Club for several years, and in that time, I had heard several stories about recovering from fractures.

"Doctor, is there anything that will stop me from riding again?"

He paused before answering. "Your bones will all heal, but it will take about a year and a half to reach full strength. We won't even consider removing the rods in your leg before then. I would not recommend that you attempt any strenuous cycling until then, to make sure that the bones are fully healed. I expect that you would be able to begin light riding by next spring, at the latest, based on my orthopaedic assessment. But you will also need to talk to the neurosurgeon before resuming your exercise regimen."

"Can you tell me anything about the head injury?"

"Sorry, but that's not my area of expertise. If you have any other bone questions, I'll be by later to check on you."

I heard Doctor Jones leave the room, closing the door behind him.

A hand moved to my left shoulder again. The soft voice said, "Don't worry, Cole. Your mom and I will take care of you."

"Who..." Something clicked in my head. "Estelle?"

She giggled again. "Yeah. You didn't have to go and almost get yourself killed as a way to welcome me, you know. A hug would have been fine."

I felt lips touch my cheek, apparently one of the only places that didn't hurt. A scene from Indiana Jones flipped through my mind, and I couldn't help smiling. "Sorry about that. I just needed to burn off some steam."

"You were coming down the Sherman Access," my mother said quietly. "What route did you go up?"

"Uh, Kenilworth."

Mom's voice was still cool. "How fast were you going? The 911 call was just half an hour after you left."

"I was riding hard. If I was wearing my cleats I would have missed the car. My foot slipped off the pedal and I couldn't avoid him." I suddenly got angry, "The fucking light was green for me before I started the turn. What the hell was he doing?"

"Apparently, trying to steal a car." She sighed. "Cole, why did you take off like that? I can't tell you what it felt like, watching them working on you for hours. I thought my heart was going to explode."

"Sorry," I whispered. "I just wanted to leave before - before I said something to Estelle that I'd regret."

"I'm still here," the soft voice said.