The first thing was pain, so much pain. God how can I hurt so much? she thought. Her eyes were closed but the light of the room made a hazy orange glow against her eyelids. It was a warm color, almost relaxing. She could have easily fallen back asleep staring at that color. Though that was impossible with the way she hurt. She felt like her left leg was on fire. Her right side felt wrong somehow, stiff maybe? Those were the two main areas to focus on, but her head also throbbed and several areas of her skin felt like they had been skinned with a filet knife. She kept her eyes closed, that wasn’t due to the pain. It was the sound of crying in the room that made Carly want to stay in that shadowy orange cocoon of diffused light. Somehow she knew it couldn’t be good. Of course there were very few times when crying was good. Had her side and chest not hurt so much she probably would have sighed. Instead she only opened her eyes.

It was a hospital room, that much she had guessed. The light overhead was on, but the rest of the room was in a shadowed gloom. In the corner, where the sound of sniffling and crying came she saw two hunched figures. Even in the darkness she could see they were wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“Mom? Dad?” Jesus, her throat hurt. It felt like someone had poured a cup of salt down her mouth.

The sobbing was interrupted by a feminine gasp, and a deep voiced grunt.

“Oh sweetie, Carly baby how are you feeling?” It was her aunt Shanda, as the man stood she saw it was uncle Ted.

“I...hurt.” Was all she could manage.

Shanda waved a hand at Uncle Ted, “Teddy, get a doctor! She needs medicine, for the pain. Hurry.”

Uncle Ted gave Carly a sad little smile, and vanished out into the corridor. Shanda wiped at her eyes and put on, what Carly thought was a very disconcerting smile.

“Mom and Dad? Are they okay?” Carly’s voice sounded like an old lady’s, tiny and whispery.

Shanda put her hand on Carly’s shoulder, “Carly, baby girl. You all were in a terrible accident. A semi truck lost control and t-boned the van.” Her face clouded and fresh tears welled in her eyes. “Sweetheart, they didn’t make it, they’re gone. They’ve gone to heaven. I’m so sorry, so sorry.”

Aunt Shanda lapsed into a new round of sobs and laid her head on the uninjured part of Carly’s chest. Carly stared up at the ceiling, breath coming in short little gasps. Silent tears leaked out the far corners of her eyes and dripped down, pooling in her ears.

Gone? How could they be gone. They had always been there, they couldn’t be gone. She felt like a piece of her had been cut out. No not cut, carved, with a jagged stone. She felt like everything around her seemed so unreal. If not for the throbbing pain in her leg she could have talked herself into thinking this was a dream. She also felt a strange need to comfort aunt Shanda. With that feeling Carly felt a surprising, yet incredibly short, surge of anger with her aunt. She didn’t want to comfort anyone else. She just wanted to be alone, just alone.

The anger was washed away, with a single thought. Devin?

“Devin. What about Devin? Is he okay?”

Shanda lifted her eyes and stared into Carly’s face. She shook her head sending tears tumbling down her cheeks and off her chin. Carly felt her face screw up in that painful way it does when you are getting ready to really, like for real, cry. The cobs sent pain shuddering down her chest, but somehow it felt good to her. Devin was gone, somehow this was more heartbreaking for her then losing mom and dad. She didn’t know why, and felt and awkward sense of shame for the feeling.

She lifted her good arm and clutched aunt Shanda in a hug as the hot tears poured out of her eyes. Through the blur, she could see the lower part of the bed. It was strange. Her right leg made a neat little log shaped hump in the blanket. The left leg, the one that was throbbing, looked like it ended at the knee.

Oh god! It’s gone too! This fucking day just keeps getting better. This thought was the last she had as she slipped back into sleep.

Two hours later Carly sat staring at a plate of what looked like dog food, with a side of mashed up green boogers. Her eyes darted from the tray to the empty space where her lower leg used to be. The tech from the prosthetics department was supposed to come in the morning to discuss options. The doctor told her that there were tons of options she could probably still run track if she wanted. She tuned him out when he started rambling about his cousin who had competed in the Special Olympics in Beijing. In truth it wasn’t the leg that bothered her. It sucked, yeah, but it felt more like a symbol. Part of her was gone and it was never coming back.

She’d almost summoned the courage to try to eat the slop in front of her when she heard a knock at her door. Looking up she saw a nurse leaning in.

“Miss Masters. There’s an officer her to speak with you. Do you feel up to it?”, the nurse was a large black woman. Carly knew her name was Terry and had spoken to her a few times. She liked her, and for some reason that made Carly nod her head.

The nurse smiled and nodded back. She stepped out of the way. Through the door stepped what must have been a police officer, though he didn’t look like what she expected. He was tall and gangly with close cropped military crew cut of salt and pepper hair. His old scuffed work boots looked like they would have made more sense on a construction worker. The jeans were, in contrast, so new they looked like they’d yet to be washed and still had the department store crease down the center of each leg. The only thing that looked slightly professional was the button up dress shirt, though that was negated by the fact that it was short sleeve and he had it buttoned all the way to the last button and had what looked like a clip on tie at the throat. All in all he looked kind of ridiculous. Carly might have laughed, except for the look in his eyes. A deadly seriousness, yet just enough sorrow that Carly felt a lump try to form in her throat. He may have dressed like a ten year old boy, but he most certainly was not.

He nodded, “Carly Masters? I’m Detective Turner Shaw, Blinn County Sheriff’s Department. It is good to meet ya, even if circumstances are not the ideal. May I sit with ya?”

Carly nodded. His voice was rough and harsh, she could imagine him puffing away on cigarettes day after day. But there was a kind warmth to it. He was nice, she told herself.

Shaw flipped open a small wire notebook and pulled a small pen from the pocket of his dress shirt. He rubbed his hand across the red-brown hair of his beard and looked back up at Carly.

“So, I don’t want ya to have to relive this, but I do need to ask some questions. That be a’right?”

Carly nodded, feeling a knot beginning to form in her throat already.

“Okay, miss. When the accident happened what was the intended destination?”

“Um, we were on the way to Charleston for a week at a beach condo my dad had rented. We’d only been on the road about an hour and a half.”

Shaw grunted and nodded, “Little late at night to be getting started on a trip like that ain’t it?”

Carly surprised herself by smiling, “My dad prefers to start road trips after all chance of traffic jams have passed. We were going to drive until about midnight and stop at a hotel, then start the next morning before nine. It’s one of my dad’s things.”

The smile faded from her face, “Well I guess it was one of his things.”

Shaw, simply nodded, “Your aunt and uncle say ya live in Nashville, that right?”

Carly just nodded this time, not trusting herself to speak.

“The truck that hit you. Had it been following you at all? Do ya remember seeing it at all along the trip. Black truck, hauling a trailer with big red words on the side said Maybury Meats?”

Carly tried to remember, she and Devin had been watching that cartoon like a couple of little kids. Plus it had been full dark outside. She couldn’t remember anything.

“I’m sorry detective, I just don’t remember seeing anything.”

“Don’t be sorry, s’ok. What about any rest stops, did you guys stop anywhere on the way?”

Another shake of her head, these questions were getting strange. It seemed like a pretty straight forward auto accident, of course it was an accident that had ruined her life forever, but an accident nonetheless.

“Okay, I think everything else I can get from your aunt and uncle.” He stood and straightened his jeans aligning the crease above his knees again.

Carly had a sudden thought, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before now.

“Detective?” She said.

He looked up while putting the small notebook in his back pocket, he’d never even written anything down.

“What happened to the driver of the truck that hit us? Is he dead too?”

The question was blunt and harsh. Before today Carly had never wanted anything terrible to happen to anyone, but now a dark scary part of her truly wanted to know that the person who had killed her family , accident or not, was dead. It scared her, but she didn’t really care.

Shaw pursed his lips and stared at Carly, there was an uncomfortable pregnant pause before he finally spoke.

“Carly, thing is, the driver that was assigned to that truck was named Clarence Tipton. Father of two, grandfather of three, four years widowed. Had a perfect traffic record. He was eight months from retirement. Thing about it though, he was found murdered in a gas station bathroom ‘bout fifteen miles west of where your incident happened. So he wasn’t drivin’ when the accident happened. Only one witness to the whole fiasco. A miss Rosario Camille, saw the crash.”

He paused and continued looking at Carly as if weighing whether or not to tell her the rest. Making some decision he sighed and went on.

“She says the truck crossed the median went into oncoming traffic then hauled the front end around and came at your family’s van. She says it looked like he aimed right for ya’ll.

“I don’t know if it makes it better or worse, but we are treating your family’s case as a murder. Miss Camille said the driver hopped from the cab and ran straight for your van at the bottom of the embankment, she thought he was coming to help. She got out too. Ran over, caught him leaning in the passenger side window. She said she couldn’t see what he was doing but he was acting strange. When she called down he bolted into the forest that runs along that stretch of road. We’re running the prints found in the truck, but we found over twelve sets in the cab alone, so it will take some time to try to sort this out.”

Carly lifted her hands and pushed her hands through her hair, she didn’t think it could possibly get worse, but it seemed the world was made for tragedy. Murdered? Why would someone want to kill them?

Shaw could see the look on her face, “I probably shouldn’t have told ya that, but I know if it was me I’d want to know. I’m sorry if I’ve upset ya.”

Carly shook her head, fresh tears rolling from her eyes. Jesus, how can I have any tears left, She thought to herself.

“No, it’s okay. But I’m really tired. Can I take a nap now?”

Shaw nodded and without another word turned and closed the door. Carly didn’t nap, she didn’t even close her eyes. Her head lay on the spongy foam hospital pillow and she stared at the ceiling. Rage, anger, hate, all boiled in her. In a way she was grateful for it. The edge was taken off the pain. Her mother’s smile, dad’s goofy laugh, Devin’s calm love. Their sharp loss was softened, polished smooth, and pushed away into the back of her mind. Still there, but not the sole focus of her mind. Someone had killed her family, purposefully annihilated all that she held dear. Who were they? And how could she find them?