Chapter 3

Ace wouldn't stop ruffling his hair as he impatiently paced from one end to another. His brand new costly tee had begun to soak up with sweat as he did with fear.

He knew not what to think, was she really dead? 

Mike earlier said she was and Nelson confirmed. He, on the other hand, was too scared to even look at the gruesome sight.

One thing he avoided in his existence was to take away human life, well, he couldn't entirely say he took away the young girl's life as it was, he wasn't the one on the steering wheel yet, he was involved.

"G, will you just chillax and stop pacing, it's getting me more nervous than I already am," Mike urged.

"The fuck, it ought to, Micheal, you and your reckless driving is the reason we are in this goddamn mess anyway."

Mike, Capello and two other guys—TJ and Nelson—he hadn't quite made acquaintances with, had come to his hotel room earlier for a little warm-up with some harmless bottles of beer after which Mike had opted to drive them to the club. 

He knew it was a bad idea to let Mike drive considering he sucked at it and not because of the booze since Mike needed more that two bottles to get him off, yet, he stupidly agreed knowing full well that there weren't any souls to decapitate and cars to await panabeating at that ungodly hour of the night.

"What? It's not like I knew there was going to be a pillar of dust standing right in the middle of the road at twelve in the morn and hey, where were your eyes at? You could've at least made use of them for me," Mike spat.

"What the hell, man."

"Guys, guys, guys," Capello interrupted. "First of all this is a hospital and you guys are loud, you don't want everyone in here to know that we hit someone to the point of death and secondly, it's not going to take us anywhere pointing fingers at one another ok? No one, in particular, is to be blamed for this. We are all in this together."

"Fuckin' shit!" Ace cursed, abruptly seating on one of the rusty iron chairs in the hospital's tiny waiting room. 

With both elbows on his knees, he supported his chin with intertwined fingers as his feet impatiently tapped the not-so-white ceramic tiled floor from broken cleaning routines.

There was silence, with a tinge of anticipation and fear for as long as fifteen minutes before a nurse on duty, thin and giraffe -like, walked up to them. Upon seeing her, they all got alerted and rushed to her before she wasted anymore second.

All his life he had known nurses to be smart and efficient until he stepped foot in there. The first one they encountered was a hippo in white; sluggish and effortless. He even noticed a frown etch on her meaty face when she sighted them knowing that she was going to be long termed distracted from her late Filipino series and the cracking of egusi seeds.

"Good evening gentlemen." Her smile was persistently irritating.

No one retorted. If man was an open book, or rather, if she could read five open books, she would have clearly seen the evening was far from good; It was freaking one-thirty in the morning with five boys rushing a semi-dead girl to the hospital instead of relaxing in a pool of hot girls and drinks. Nothing absolutely good.

"Who's a relative to the patient?"

The nurse's questions had them shooting stares from one person to another which all boiled down to Ace. 

Great!

From driving a total stranger to the hospital to settling the bills to laying claims, what more could get the morning any better than it already was?

"I am," Ace stepped forward, stammered, "She's my neighbor's first daughter."

WTF! Ace.

"Come with me," the brown-skinned skinny nurse with marble beaded eyes led him away from the earshot of the others to a small cube-shaped office. "Sit," she ordered.

The paint peeling office contained a tiny rectangular table carrying the world's files and papers, two chairs at opposite ends of it and a stretch bed.

"I must say, the victim is fortunate to have you, young men, rush her to the nearest hospital as soon you could. In as much as I'm sorry and ought to admit, she's into a really critical condition, I have to say, be rest assured we tried our very best to attend to all visible wounds. If she is quick to recover, she'll be out of here in less than two days."

Ace's lips broke into a smile with his face coming back to life. He wasn't just delighted that his so-called neighbor's first daughter had finally shown signs of life, but in addition to it, he was going to attend his party happier and merrier than ever before. 

The night proved promising after all.

Truth be told, he and his friends had rushed the girl to the hospital claiming to have found her semi-lifeless body already laid on the highway. 

"But there's more to her condition we can't seem to disclose until we have her family or a closer relative come to the hospital and also until the doctor shows up in the morning for proper confirmation of lab results."

Like I care. She's good and that's all that matters. Now can I get the hell outta here?

"Well, ok. I'll get her parents informed as soon as possible, may I leave now?"

"Yeah sure."

"Have a good night," Ace exited the office feigning anguish. He heard Nelson mutter two words 'we're screwed.' which almost cracked his facade.

Ace approached his friends shaking his head in total despair.

"Guys I...I don't know how to break this news to you, honestly."

"Use a hammer, stone...anything, but just break it," Mike anticipated.

Ace rubbed his eyes with his thumb and index with a hand resting on his hips.

"She's uhm...how do I put it...living? Alive? Breathing?" 

"You serious...right?" Capello unbelievably quizzed.

"Boy, eske man di joke with that kind thing?" Boy, does one joke with something as such? TJ added.

"I'm serious right here," Ace confirmed. "Her wounds have been attended to and she's likely to leave the hospital in two days or less depending on her rate of recovery." He explained.

"Whooo," Capello began fanning himself. "Nah, this kind of news needs to be commemorated, I mean...we ought to drain that club out of every possible beer there is in there, don't y'all agree?"

"Right, but I'm driving," Ace finalized shooting Mike the deadliest glare he ever owned and daring him to contradict.

"Yo! Lavida just bombarded my phone with forty-five missed calls and ten messages," Tj said, scrolling through his phone.

"I don't even want to check mine, just call him back and tell him we're on our way. We'll justify ourselves once there." Capello said.

"Man, that shit scared the hell outta me," Mike confessed, leaning his head on the car's windscreen.

"It scared us all bro," Ace said.

"What the..." Nelson cursed from the back of the car. "G, you got expensive bloody leather chairs, and, what hell keeps hindering me from...ooohhh look what I found," he cooed after picking up the item which hindered his legs from laying flat and comfortable on the car floor.

"Will have the shit sold after washing," Ace replied referring to his car.

"Guys, Cinderella dropped her glass flip-flops," Nelson mocked, lifting a pair of white turned brown thin-soled tattered perforated flip-flops from the car floor. 

Ace gave it a glance then returned his focus back to the road. "Throw it away," he said, irritated.

"Don't do that," Mike contradicted earning a vicious look from Ace. "Keep it, she'll need it."

"Are you indirectly saying I'll go back to that hospital to give it back to her?"

"Not really, this world is a small one, you might see her somewhere, someday, who knows,?"Mike shrugged. 

"She must have bought another by then," said Ace.

"Just don't sell the car with it," Tj added. "But then again, if at all you wish to, who am I to go against it? Just make sure to add some extra coins to the car's selling price though; say six million and two-fifty francs." he laughed out loud resulting in the remainder following suit except for Ace.

"Y'all won't make heaven," Ace said.

"Says the king of Sodom and Gomorrah," Capello fired.

Ace sighed, defeated. He leaned his elbow on the lowered windscreen whilst driving with the other.

Finally, at Burj Khalifa, the guys hopped out of the Darcia duster straight to the city of life; As always, the music was at full blast upon entry, blended with screams of enthusiasm. The gloomy light mixture of faint red and blue made it almost impossible to recognize one's face unless closer to him or her. The ladies who had owned the dancefloor wiggled their waists in an erotically mesmerizing way against sensitive surfaces.

Now, this is life.

"Guys, guys, guys...I'm so mad at y'all," Lavida pinpointed them. "Take a look at my VIP booth, does it look appealing to you? Even the girls are bored,"

"Don't get mad," Tj said. "Be happy we made it. It's better late than never."

"We still have two hefty hours ahead of us, which is enough time to explain everything to you as we squander to nonsense." Capello wrapped an arm around Lavida's neck, leading the rest of the crew to the VIP booth.