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pulp, holding my head with one arm and my stomach with the other, curled up like a child.
    Footsteps retreated down the hall. Try. You gotta try. I forced myself onto my knees, agony splintering through fractured bones, and crawled three feet to my backpack. As my hand closed around my phone, an impact seared the side of my skull. No sound escaped my lips, my broken chest unable to expand and give me the breath to cry out. Through unfocused eyes, I saw diamonds on the floor all around me, refracting the light coming from under the door and onto silver-tipped boots. He bent over me and put his face next to mine. I couldn’t see well but there was something wrong with his eyes. I blinked. He stood and raised his left foot over my head.
    The back entrance burst open, knocking me sideways and then onto my stomach. Light blinded my eyes and I heard the sound of breaking glass. I couldn’t roll over and couldn’t breathe. I felt around for my cell. Diamonds turned into amethysts. I faded.
    Something wedged under my legs and back, the pain reviving me to take sips of humid air. My eyes opened and closed, the intervals of sight stained red. My head was inclined and I barely made out a voice repeating my name over the screams of my head and body. I felt my shirt being inched up my torso.
    Four hands pushed down on my ribcage, my skin prickling before a burning blanket covered my middle and set a fire within me that surpassed the misery I had endured minutes before. Flames raged deep and fierce, devouring my insides. My eyes flew open. I saw a dwarf kneeling at my right, his hands on my stomach. The torches extinguished and air flowed in and out of my lungs, waves of relief spreading across my skeleton. My eyes closed. But then I felt a palm press above my ear. Don’t! Severe heat pummeled my brain, keeping my eyes and mouth shut tight, my body straining to make it stop. The smoldering cinders abated and became fingers brushing over my hair. I drifted off again.
    The wail of sirens was too loud, red and pink lights too frantic, and the ground beneath my head too hard.
    “Miss? Miss?” A man in blue held my wrist.
    “I’m outside?”
    “Yes.”
    “You brought me outside.”
    “No.”
    I swept the air with my hand. “In there. He’s in there.”
    Two other blue uniforms ran inside.
    He asked me too many questions. What was my name? Did I feel nauseous or dazed? What color was the ambulance? What day of the week was it? Did I know what had happened to me? He asked me my name again. I answered the questions, slowly but clearly, lying about the headache and nausea while he probed my neck, chest, and abs. After exploring my head, his antiseptic biting with jagged teeth at the area above my ear, he remarked that the cuts didn’t need stitches. He called to one of the others to help move me.
    Woozy, I sat up and saw my phone by my knee. It had a brand new battery but was about to die. Why? Because I skipped charging it for one stupid night.
    The medic touched my back.
    “I decline treatment. I’m okay,” I said.
    He argued that I had head trauma, that I had to go to the hospital, and something about brain bleeding. I respected him, his profession, but I wouldn’t go.
    “I decline treatment. I’m of age and that’s it.” I rose and steadied myself so there could be no more discussion.
    “But—”
    I didn’t hear what he said. They were bringing out the man who had assaulted me. He’s unconscious? And I’m on my feet? I had started stepping my way to the building to get my backpack when a car barreled into the parking lot at high speed. Derek? He jumped out, leaving the engine running.
    The closer he came to me the more his mouth gaped. “Oh. My. God. What happened to you? What the f—”
    “They want me to go the hospital.” Tears began to form in my eyes.
    “I’ll get you through it. I’ll—”
    “No! Look at me. I am standing. I can hear, see, and speak. You go do your Mr. Persuasive thing on him.” I