chapter six

The kids are setting the table while Cordell finishes up making pancakes.


"All right... breakfast is served!" The father announces. "Our... piece de resistance." Cordell says making the kids chuckle as he brings the pancakes over to the table. "Didn't know I spoke French, did you?"


"That was good, dad." Stella compliments.




+++




Janie is in the backseat with Flynn while his mom drives him to the dance. Being 14, they unfortunately can't drive yet, so his mom offered to drive them.


"This storm's looking like it's gonna be pretty bad." Flynn's mom, Julia, comments. Janie sends her text to her dad, assuring they're okay and will be at the school soon.


"Hopefully it doesn't completely ruin the dance." Flynn says.


"I'm sure it'll be fine." Julia assures.


However, it started heavily storming while they were still driving. Julia was barely able to see where she was going while the two teenagers conversed with each other in the backseat, making jokes and laughing which brought joy to Julia's heart, hearing her son be happy.


A tree branch comes flying and crashes through the windshield making Julia and Janie scream as Flynn flinches in shock. The car hydroplanes making them serve and roll off the road, landing on the side in the grass.




Janie groans, waking up. She looks around, finding Flynn and his mom knocked out. Janie is held up by her seatbelt, it being the only thing keeping from falling. She checks herself for any injuries, putting her hand to the side of her head, pulling it away to find a little bit of blood. She groans, knowing she's going to have a headache the rest of the night, if not the next few days.


"Flynn? Mrs. Hunter?" Janie groggily calls, but doesn't get a response. Janie searches for her purse which contains her phone, spotting it on the ground by Flynn's head.


"Damn it." She curses under her breath. She huffs, thinking of how to get out of this and call her dad or 911 for help. Janie holds onto the handle on the ceiling with one hand and unbuckles herself with the other one. She keeps her face firmly planted to avoid crashing. Janie holds the handle with both hands and lifts her feet so she dangles above Flynn.


"Oh, please don't step on him, please don't step on him." Janie mutters as she angles herself so she falls just to the right of Flynn. Her heels crack the glass which makes her fall on her butt, causing a little cry of pain to escape.


"Okay, deal with injuries later." Janie mutters. She opens her purse and takes her phone out. She unlocks it, only to find no service.


"Oh, come on. I can't get a miracle and have service." Janie complains. "Crap." She whispers before standing up. She grabs a blanket and throws it onto the broken window up above. She grabs another one, throwing it up as well, just for good measure.


Janie has to jump a few times, but eventually grabs ahold of the handle which she's thankful hasn't broke yet. She pulls herself up and carefully lifts herself out of the window. She avoids her abdomen touching the window, but as she lifts her leg to rest her knee on the outside of the car, she feels a cut making her cry in pain.


She finishes getting out of the car before looking down at her left leg, seeing blood come out of her shin. It's not enough to make her that weak, but she knows if it isn't treated, she could lose a lot more blood than she wants.


Janie looks at her phone, but still has no service. A lightning bolt strikes fairly close to her making her shriek and duck. Janie gets an idea and takes her heels off. She climbs so she's on top of the car and holds her phone up, hoping for just one bar of service.


She sighs, getting nothing and attempts to text her dad anyway. She texts him her location along with "EMERGENCY! HELP!!" and watches it try to go through.


Janie groans in frustration as it fails to send.


"Come on!" She yells at the phone. Janie realizes that they're about 20 feet from a telephone pole. She quickly gets off the car and sprints to it, holding her phone up as she leans against the pole.


The message eventually sends making her sigh in relief. She sees that her message was read by her dad so she goes back to the car. She climbs on top, peeking in through her broken window to see Flynn groggily waking up.


"What happened?" Flynn asks. "Mom?" He worriedly calls, seeing her knocked out in the front seat.


"Flynn!" Janie calls, getting his attention.


"Hey. What happened?" Flynn asks. He can't unbuckle himself, but has a pocket knife in his pocket and cuts through it, getting it eventually.


"Hey, I need you to cover your mom in blankets and coats. Then I'm gonna need you to kick the windshield as hard as you can so you two can get out." Janie instructs.


"Okay." Flynn nods. She watches as he covers Julia up with blankets and a few coats that were in the trunk. Flynn sits down as best he can and harshly kicks the windshield. After a few tries, he finally gets it, breaking it, allowing an escape for the two.


Janie gets off the car and goes over to the windshield. She helps Flynn lay a few blankets down so they don't step on the glass.


"Why didn't you do that earlier?" Flynn asks after he gets out of the car while he attempts to wake his mom up.


"Adrenaline and no thinking." Janie shrugs, wondering the same thing herself.


They see headlights and a truck pulls up. Soon Cordell, Micki, and Trey race out, Cordell getting to them fastest.


"Hey. Are you all right?" Cordell asks over the storm, pulling Janie into a hug.


"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good." Janie nods. Cordell pushes her back a bit to inspect for injuries, finding the blood on her head and her leg.


"What the hell happened?" Cordell asks.


"Can I maybe explain when we're not outside in a storm?" Janie asks and Cordell nods.


"Micki, help me get her out of here." Trey calls after seeing if anything seemed broken in Julia's body, but assessing that she's only knocked out with a head injury more than likely. Micki helps him get Julia out of the car. Trey carries Julia to his truck, the other four following.


"Is she gonna be okay?" Flynn asks.


"She should be fine. We'll check over her injuries at the school." Trey says. He puts Julia in the seat before shutting the door and getting in the car, Micki already in the passenger seat. Cordell leads the two teenagers to the other side of the truck, letting them get in first before he gets in, the kids squished between each other and their respective parent.


Trey starts to drive and they soon enough get to the school.


"Shouldn't we go to the hospital?" Flynn asks.


"The hospital's too far with this kind of weather. School is only a few minutes. We could end up in the same situation you guys just got out of. I'm a medic, I can check over you guys at the school and tend to your injuries until the storm lets up." Trey explains.




They get back to the school, Trey carrying Julia in, Flynn close behind, worried for his mom. Mick follows as Cordell leads Janie in.


"Janie?" August calls, rushing over and hugging her, not caring that she's soaked to the bone. Stella turns at her brother's call, rushing to her family.


"Are you okay?" Stella asks.


"Yeah. Yeah, you know, One Tree Hill did actually come in handy so suck on that, you non Tree Hill watchers." Janie says. "Brooke Davis taught me how to break out of a car accident in a giant storm. Granted... I didn't even break the windshield and I made it a lot harder on myself, but you get it."


"You're bleeding." August notes.


"Yeah, we're aware of that." Janie says, wincing at the pain she suddenly feels now that her adrenaline is wearing off. "Yeah, no, that actually hurts." She grimaces, holding her head.


"Okay, let's get you fixed up." Cordell says, leading her over to where Trey is dealing with Flynn's injuries, after having checked over Julia already. August follows, wanting to make sure his twin's okay.


Cordell sets Janie on a chair and Trey begins to check over her injuries after being done with Flynn. He tends to her leg first, putting a bandage on it. There's a flash and Janie looks up to see that August took a picture.


"Really?" She gives him a look.


"What? It's memorable." August shrugs.


"Yeah, almost dying. It's a great memory." Janie sarcastically comments.


Trey goes over her head injury, putting a bandage on, and diagnosing her with a mild concussion.


"Nothing super serious. You'll be fine in no time." Trey promises. "Go enjoy your dance while you can."


"Thank you." Janie tells him and Trey nods and smiles.




+++




Trey, Micki, and Cordell are out, having gone on a search for Ruby's grandfather who didn't pick up.


August was taking pictures of Stella and Bel when Ruby informed them that her grandfather texted that he's okay.


"Where's Trevor?" Bel asks, noticing he's the only one not here.


"Come hither, my lady." Trevor says, holding his hand out to Stella.


"Okay." She says, holding his hand and he leads her away.


"Bye, guys." August calls.


"Come on." Trevor calls back to them. Bel, the twins, Ruby, and Flynn all follow. Trevor leads them to a room to find a fort made out of gym mats with lights on it.


"Holy, crap." Janie laughs in amazement.


"Okay, I'm going in." Bel states.


"Wait. Wait for me." Ruby says, following Bel in.


The 7 teens continue to enjoy their night with the fort and dancing. At one point, the siblings all dance together in a small circle, holding hands and laughing.




+++




The medics are now here as Cordell, Micki, and Trey finally returned with Ruby's grandfather and a couple of other people they found.


The medics are checking over Janie, Flynn, and Julia, only checking on the kids mostly for good measure.


"Thanks for, uh... everything you did back at the car." Flynn says. "Never thanked you earlier."


"No problem." Janie smiles.


"Did you really learn all that stuff from One Tree Hill?" Flynn asks.


"Well, technically... I took a safety class when I was 12 -- with parental consent -- and we covered basic first aid and how to escape a car accident. But, Brooke Davis did inspire me to take the class because if I were to ever get into an accident, I wanted to be as badass as her."


"Solid reasoning." Flynn nods.


"I did just completely forget about the whole windshield thing and made it a lot harder on myself, though." Janie says.


"Kinda just makes you more badass. Little stupid... but still badass." Flynn says making Janie smile.


"Thanks." She mumbles.

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