Seulgi’s phone rang.

  Looking at the caller ID, she saw that it was Katie. She didn’t know much about the girl other than she worked with Wendy, she was as upbeat and energetic as her Terrible Twins and nearly as mischievous. She could probably teach them a load of things to be even more obnoxious.

  Seulgi answered. “Katie? What’s up?”

  With absolutely no subtly or warning, she responded: “Get to the hospital’s emergency room. Wendy fell.” She gave the hospital name, address, and the bed number.

  “Change of pns, Nayeon – get to the hospital. Now. Wendy fell. We’re on our way, Katie. Give us about twenty minutes."

  The answer she got was a click.

  Seulgi ran through a mental checklist of who on her side needed to know. No one was on the need-to-know list. She would wait to bring her people into the information loop until she knew what actually happened. No need to have everyone worried when they cannot do anything. Swarming the ER would only cause chaos as no one could do anything, which she was aware of, yet.

  Nayeon sped up. Not enough to get a cop’s interest, but enough to get there faster.

  Wendy was someone that Nayeon wholeheartedly approved of. Wendy was calm, level headed, cheerful, and humble to the point of self-effacing. And she could sing with a god’s gift. But that was not relevant right now.

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “No, you know all that Katie told me.”

  With a look even grimmer than she had earlier, she sped up a bit more.

  They made it to the hospital in eighteen minutes. They both calmly approached the doors and went through. This was not the time to panic, they did not have the barest information to start worrying yet.

  Upon entering, they looked around the waiting room, looking for Katie. It was fairly quiet, for an ER waiting room. There was the soft wailing of a child who looked like they had chickenpox. There was a man who was bleeding profusely from the forehead. An attendant was taking his information from his wife before rushing him into the back. There was a young teen sitting next to his mom with an extra elbow in the middle of his forearm.

  Both Nayeon and Seulgi thought that if their arm was bending like that, neither of them would be as calm as that child. The invincibility of youth, right? Or that the natural endorphins, they guessed. Maybe not screaming in pain, but definitely crying. The girls looked at each other and winced at the same time.

  That’s when they saw Katie rushing over to them.

  “I’m sorry, Nayeon, but there can be only two visitors at a time. Let’s get you both of your visitor passes then I’ll take Seulgi back. Then, after a bit, I’ll come back to get you to the room and I’ll wait out here.”

  Seulgi asked: “What about her family?”

  “Most of them are in Canada. I think she has a cousin or two still here, but they are a few hours away. They might not even know yet. I have not called her parents yet. They would be worried, obviously, but I need more information before I do that to them.”

  Taking a deep breath, she looked into Seulgi’s eyes. “This was deliberate. I was there when it happened.”

  Seulgi to Nayeon: “You’ll know when I know.”

  Nayeon just nodded and shooed them on.

  On the way back to the ward room, Katie expined that they had been jogging. They had taken a small breather on a bridge because Katie’s Spotify had stopped working. They stopped so Katie could reset it. Then someone huge ran up to them, crossed his arms, and literally lifted the unsuspecting Wendy up and over the side of the bridge. She was hit hard enough by a man the size of an American football linebacker, that she was knocked out of her shoes as she was dropped three meters on to the bike path below them.

  The sound of impact was as terrible as watching her drop. Her arm sounded like a snapping green onion. The only good thing was that she passed out from the impact of the hit before she crashed into the ground.

  Katie was knocked onto her butt by the man’s passing. She hit her head hard enough to be momentarily senseless. Once she came back to herself, she still had a start in front of her eyes. Even so, she still managed to yell Wendy’s name at the top of her voice.

  Still wobbly, she managed to maintain enough presence of mind to call the emergency line to report what happened. She requested an ambunce as fast as possible because her friend was not moving or making a sound. The offender was already long gone.

  She made the call as she was running to where Wendy y unmoving.

  Katie was in a panic but still saw that Wendy was breathing. So, she calmed down enough to start thinking and not reacting. She checked Wendy’s pulse. Weak but steady. Breathing was the same. She knew better than to move her friend without someone with medical training present.

  She made a call to the police, telling the emergency line operator what happened. She gave what little information that she had. She gave her location and that she already called the medical service, requesting an ambunce. She thanked the operator, who said that they would send an officer as soon as possible.

  Katie y next to her broken and crumpled friend, stroking her hair and cooing at her in case she could hear her. She doubted it but had to do what she could as she could do it.

  The cop showed up first. He had been a cop for over ten years and had seen some bad stuff. What made it worse was that this was deliberate. He didn’t try to move either woman, but he tried to get an idea of what happened so he could proceed.

  Katie was trying not to sob. She was not entirely successful. But, being an iron-minded young dy, she still managed to tell the cop what happened. Mid-conversation, the ambunce showed up. Katie didn’t ask, she got into the ambunce with them. The cop said he’d meet them at the hospital.

  While Katie was able to give the stark details, Seulgi was able to infer the rest.

  When they got to Wendy’s room, she was on oxygen, had an IV in her arm, EKG electrodes all over, and a blood pressure cuff attached.

  Simply put, she looked ghastly. She was literally broken, bloody, and bruised. There was no hint of the bright young woman who had a smile for everyone, sang at the drop of a hat, can ughed with her whole body. She looked like she was a hair's breadth from death.

  Because she was.