“Supposed to? Yes. Will people always try? No. Will they always succeed? Also no. But the point of trying is to show there might still be something better out there. You just have to be willing to keep going.”
“Damn, growing upsucks.”
“In my defense, and everyone else’s, we did try to tell you not to grow up so fast,” I said.
Micah turned and gave me a dirty look. “Like I was supposed to know what that…why is that car turning around with their lights off?”
I felt a little less dramatic when Levi twisted around just as quickly as I did. Sure enough, under the cover of the shadows between two broken streetlights, the vehicle had turned around and had its lights off. That would have been bad enough, but the moment the driver saw we were looking, they hit the pedal and floored it toward us.
“What the…” Micah began, freezing as the large van barreled toward us.
“Fuck!” I snapped, grabbing hold of both of them as the van reached us. I did the only thing I could do, because there was no time for all three of us to move fast enough. Micah wasn’t all thatbig, and I had always been able to manhandle Levi. Basically, all I could do was pick them up and throw them out of the way, praying at the last second that the momentum of the throw would let me move out of the way.
I took a half-faltering step to the side, realized that throwing them aside hadn’t given me momentum and had just thrown me off balance, and I could only stare at the wall of metal coming toward me. A horrified shout that should never come out of another person’s mouth rose in the air, and I wondered who it was when the force of...well, a van with its pedal to the metal slammed into me.
Pain exploded throughout my entire body, and my mind flipped as my body tumbled through the air. I wondered just how much force was necessary to send someone my size flying like a rag doll, and then I felt a new wave of agony as I slammed into something solid. It wasn’t the ground; it was something else, but the harsh scrape of the ground came next, and I flopped down like there wasn’t a single bone in my body.
Shouting rose, and I heard the roar of what could only be gunfire. Oh God, I really hoped that was because Levi had listened when I’d chewed him out about going out unarmed. There was no way I was going to be able to help him or Micah while I was roadkill.
Darkness.
More shouting.
“Dom!” someone called, and it sounded like they were crying. “Oh God, please please please. Dom, please don’t...oh God, he’s dying.”
“Focus. Here, call 911.”
“But I?—”
“Focus! Alright, look at me, this is the only way we can help him, got it? I need to keep an eye out in case they come back, you understand?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Good...and Dominic, don’t you dare fucking die on me.”
Darkness.
I woke, and there were lights. Levi was above me, his face a smear across my vision. I could see the wetness in his eyes, but there were no tears on his dirty face. I didn’t know what happened to my brain, but it was making me see him as some sort of infuriated devil perched over me. His features were stretched and pointed, but it was his eyes that made me want to look away. They burned with a hellfire that made me wish I could cross myself and hope God took mercy on whoever might be swallowed by the pits of flame in his face.
Darkness.
I swam through the darkness...or I guess I floated. Sometimes it felt like I might be able to come back to the surface, but I was never able to breach it. I would come close and want to reach out, knowing that above the darkness was where I could think clearly and understand more. But every time I tried to reach out, something dragged me right back down.
Sometimes there were flashes of pain, pain like I’d never felt in my life before. There was the image of the headlights coming for me and the sensation of agony that filled every inch of my body. Sometimes I was...dreaming? Or maybe it was remembering in a weird way.
Remembering holding Levi close as he tried to comfort me and him after I’d been hurt, but right outside the door was the two of us yelling at each other in his old apartment on the day he left me. I could hear Mom’s voice, so warm and bright, filled to the brim with joy as she tried to welcome Levi back, to show him he still had a place, but I was distracted because Levi was trying not to cry as we stood over his mother’s grave.
There were voices, sharp and full of concern, but focused and deliberate.
“Hold him so I can get this…hold him!”
“I’m trying, but he’s so damned?—”
“There!”
Darkness again.
Consciousness?
