Steelz

  A bring through everything… sharp, relentless.

  My head inning, the edges of my vision blurred, and for a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was.

  Something warm trembled against me. Soft, broken sobs filled my ears.

  I adjusted slightly. My arms were ed around her, holdiightly. She was shaking hard enough that I felt even with my numbed senses.

  The st thing I remembered ulling Nainst me, a st ditch effort to save her. She at least wasn’t bleeding.

  Pain shot through my back. White-hot and searing. Every breath dragged fire through my ribs.

  Something sharp pressed into my skin, gss maybe, or worse. I tried to move, but it felt like my muscles were tearing apart.

  I had to get up. Had to move.

  “Nora…” My voice came h, barely above a whisper.

  Her head jerked up, and the look on her face. Pale, tear-streaked, her eyes wide and red, khe air right out of me.

  Her antewitched violently as her fingers curled tighter into my shirt. "B-brother?" Her voice cracked, small and fragile.

  “I’m here,” I forced out. “I’m… okay.” It was a lie. I didn’t feel okay. Not even close.

  The bring sound pressed in harder, making my head throb. I sucked in a shallow breath and turned my head toward the fros.

  Empty.

  Dorian and Cassandra weren’t there.

  My stomach twisted. Where… were they?

  I tried to shift, to move us both, but the sharp bite of gss dug deeper into my back. My vision blurred at the edges, but I couldn’t sit here. Not when I didn’t know what happeo them.

  “We o get out,” I said, pushing through the burn g up my spine.

  Nora’s grip oightened. Her face at a loss on what to do, as if she had regressed to her old self.

  “We have to,” I repeated, softer this time. If the car was this bad inside, I didn’t want to think about what might happen if we stayed.

  She hesitated, but then she gave a small, jerky nod and slipped out of my hold. The sed her warmth left, the cold air bit into me, and the pain fred up like it had just been waiting.

  I gritted my teeth and followed her, dragging myself through the mangled door. Every moveme fresh spikes of pain through my back, but I kept going. One hand. One knee. Whatever it took.

  The air outside felt colder, heavier somehow.

  Dorian’s voice cut through the ringing in my ears—a choked, frantic sound.

  “Fuck… fuck… fuck…”

  He ag, just a few steps away. His face was twisted, half g, half furious, like he couldn’t decide whether to scream or break apart pletely.

  His hands tore through his hair, firembling as they curled into his scalp.

  A chill crept through me, colder than the dawning night against my skin.

  My back throbbed with every breath, but it barely registered. Something else, something worse, pulled at me.

  I didn’t want to look.

  I shouldn’t look.

  But my eyes drifted downward anyway, drawn to the edge of my vision.

  There, beside the wreckage, half-hidden in the shadows.

  At first, I couldn’t make sense of it. My brain refused to.

  My stomach twisted into a knot. My heartbeat pounded against my ribs, loud and deafening.

  No.

  I swallowed hard, trying to breathe past the rising dread curling in my chest. My head felt heavy, too heavy… like it took everything t my gaze further.

  But I did.

  And then I saw it.

  Blood.

  Lots of blood.

  Small. Pale. Fingers sck against the asphalt.

  I saw her.

  Sprawled on the cold asphalt, just outside the wreckage. Her body y still. Too still.

  Blood streaked down the side of her face, dark and thick, soaking through her pale hair. It g to her skin in angry lines, a deep gash splitting across her forehead. Her arm twisted beh her in a way no person’s arm should.

  My stomach lurched. I couldn’t breathe. My legs locked in pce, but a cold sweat slid down my neck.

  She wasn’t moving.

  God… why isn’t she moving?

  Nora’s hand trembled in mine, her nails digging into my palm, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It felt wrong, everythi wrong.

  My mind screamed at me to deny it, to pretend I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing.

  But the sight burself into me.

  And she still wasn’t moving.

  My knees buckled beh me. The ground hit hard, but I barely felt it. My hands shook as I reached for her, firembling as they brushed against her shoulder.

  She was warm. That should’ve meant something- it had to mean something, but it didn’t ease the cold knot twisting in my stomach.

  “Mom…” My voice cracked. I swallowed against the sharp sting in my throat and shook her gently. “Hey… hey, wake up.”

  She didn’t move.

  A choked breath spilled out of me, and my vision blurred. Tears burned hot against my skin, sliding down my fad falling onto her bloodied arm. I tried again, harder this time, my fingers digging into the fabric of her jacket as I shook her.

  “e on,” I begged, the words breaking apart as they left my mouth. “Please… wake up.”

  A scream cut through the air from behind, raw, high-pitched. I heard it, but it felt distant, like I was uer. It barely touched the numb, cold horror freezing me in pce.

  I shook her again. Desperatios my chest, tight and suffog. "Mom, please... please, just-"

  My voice cracked.

  Tears blurred everything. The blood, the wreckage, the trembli of her body under my hands, but I couldn’t stop looking at her face. Her shes fluttered faintly, but her eyes didn’t open.

  And I couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Wake up…” My words came out in a whisper now, weak and broken. "Don't- don't do this. Please..."

  But she didn’t answer.

  And Nora kept screaming.

  ~~~

  After that, everything just seemed to blur together.

  Bright lights flickered above me, harsh and cold as I sat stiffly in the back of the ambunbsp;

  Cassandra y between us, pale and unmoving, shrapnel around her body. I couldn’t look away from the blood smeared aloemple, the way it crept down her cheek in slow, urails.

  A paramedic’s voice cut through the haze, sharp words I couldn’t follow. Hands pushed me aside, cheg her pulse, lifting her head, adjusting the oxygen mask over her face.

  Nora g to me the whole ride, her fingers locked tight in the fabriy shirt. She kept whispering something under her breath, too fast, too shaky, but I couldn’t process the words.

  I just sat there, numb, watg as the lights outside smeared into a dull streak through the window.

  The hospital came. More voices. More people.

  Cassandra was wheeled away, disappearing through sliding doors before I could reabsp;

  I barely registered the hands pulling me in the opposite dire. Someone was talking to me, their voice low but urgent.

  My back burned. A deep, stabbing ache as they eased me onto a stretcher.

  I must have looked bad. Blood staihe sheet beh me as they rolled me down the hall, but all I could think about was Cassandra.

  Nora wouldn’t let go. Even as the ried to separate us, she stayed by my side, her face pale and streaked with tears.

  “It’s okay,” I mumbled, though it didn’t feel okay. “I’m fiay with her. Just… stay with her.”

  Fshes of movement and more blinding lights. Doors swinging open and shut.

  It all blurred together. I felt the sharp pinch of a needle sliding into my arm, then cold rushing through my veins. My head grew heavy, and the sounds around me faded into a distant hum.

  As the cold crept deeper into my bones, I found myself praying; for her to be okay, for this to be a nightmare I'd wake up from.

  For anything but this.