Not now.
Not like this.
Not with her voice in my head and my brothers bleeding into the dirt.
Another boom shakes the air. Smaller. Secondary. I flinch, ears ringing sharper, eyes watering. My heart claws at my ribs, frantic, feral and all around me — chaos.
Smoke.
Screams.
The taste of blood.
The stench of burnt flesh.
The desert isn’t just biting down. It’s chewing and I don’t know if any of us are making it out of its fucking mouth.
The world is teeth.
Biting down.
Chewing.
I can’t move.
Every nerve screams at me to get up, to crawl, to drag myself toward the men screaming, but my muscles won’t answer. My body’s locked, like the shockwave welded me to the ground.
The ringing in my skull sharpens until it’s not sound anymore, it’s pressure. A spike shoved behind my eyes, throbbing with every ragged beat of my heart.
My fingers claw uselessly at the dirt, nails splitting against stone. I want to dig myself out, but the earth keeps swallowing me whole.
Move. Fucking move.
But I don’t.
I stay pressed into the sand like I’m part of it, like I’ve already been buried.
The air’s thick with smoke. Charred rubber, diesel, burnt flesh. My throat closes around it. I gag, cough, choke. The taste is everywhere — in my mouth, in my lungs, in my skin.
Something warm spatters across my cheek. Not sand. Not ash.
Blood.
Reese’s voice breaks again, high and raw, a sound I’ll never get out of my head. He’s begging. Pleading. Words broken into jagged shards.
Please. Fuck. Please?—
I can’t look at him.
I can’t look at any of them because if I see their eyes — I’ll see hers.
Cass.
Her face flashes in front of me, clear as daylight through the smoke. Not the way she looked in that chapel, mouth swollen, thighs shaking. No. The way she looked the night I left her. Barefoot in the kitchen. Syrup on her skin. Heart in her throat.
“You’ll leave me.”
And here I am.
