Chapter 19: Blurred

A blaring noise cut through everything… sharp, relentless.

My head was spinning, 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 wrapped around her, holding her tightly. She was shaking hard enough that I felt even with my numbed senses.

The last thing I remembered was pulling Nora against me, a last 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, glass 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 out rough, barely above a whisper.

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

Her antennae twitched 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 blaring sound pressed in harder, making my head throb. I sucked in a shallow breath and turned my head toward the front seats.

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 glass dug deeper into my back. My vision blurred at the edges, but I couldn’t sit here. Not when I didn’t know what happened to them.

“We need to get out,” I said, pushing through the burn clawing up my spine.

Nora’s grip on me tightened. 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 second her warmth left, the cold air bit into me, and the pain flared up like it had just been waiting.

I gritted my teeth and followed her, dragging myself through the mangled door. Every movement sent 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 was pacing, just a few steps away. His face was twisted, half crying, half furious, like he couldn’t decide whether to scream or break apart completely.

His hands tore through his hair, fingers trembling 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 to drag my gaze further.

But I did.

And then I saw it.

Blood.

Lots of blood.

Small. Pale. Fingers slack against the asphalt.

I saw her.

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

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

My stomach lurched. I couldn’t breathe. My legs locked in place, 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, everything felt wrong.

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

But the sight burned itself into me.

And she still wasn’t moving.

My knees buckled beneath me. The ground hit hard, but I barely felt it. My hands shook as I reached for her, fingers trembling 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 face and falling onto her bloodied arm. I tried again, harder this time, my fingers digging into the fabric of her jacket as I shook her.

“Come 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 underwater. It barely touched the numb, cold horror freezing me in place.

I shook her again. Desperation clawed its way up my chest, tight and suffocating. "Mom, please... please, just-"

My voice cracked.

Tears blurred everything. The blood, the wreckage, the trembling weight of her body under my hands, but I couldn’t stop looking at her face. Her lashes 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 ambulance.

Cassandra lay between us, pale and unmoving, shrapnel around her body. I couldn’t look away from the blood smeared along her temple, the way it crept down her cheek in slow, uneven trails.

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

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

I just sat there, numb, watching 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 react.

I barely registered the hands pulling me in the opposite direction. 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 stained the sheet beneath me as they rolled me down the hall, but all I could think about was Cassandra.

Nora wouldn’t let go. Even as the nurses tried 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 fine… stay with her. Just… stay with her.”

Flashes 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.