Not again. Not again. PLEASE not again.
The thought slams into me over and over until it isn’t even language anymore, just raw, frantic sound tearing through my skull. I don’t remember grabbing Damian’s keys. One blink and they’re in my fist, cutting into my palm. Another blink and I’m running down the hall.
I slam into the hallway wall so hard my shoulder bounces, but I barely feel it. My feet slip, trip, catch, and keep going, because the ringing in my ears is deafening now, swallowing every noise, every coherent thought except the single truth beating itself bloody inside my head:
Someone’s dying. Someone I love. Someone on that bus.
The air won’t come. I choke on a sob so sharp it feels like glass in my lungs. “Please… please no…” The words scrape out of me.
I sprint. Down the hall. Down the stairs. Out into the night air that doesn’t even feel real against my skin. It’s too cold, too thin. My chest is heaving, lungs already burning, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
The second I hit the parking lot, my eyes lock onto Damian’s car. I don’t hesitate. I bolt toward it, every step jagged and unsteady, my entire body moving on nothing but panic and muscle memory. My hands shake as I yank the door open. I’m not thinking. I’m not even here.
Terror wraps around my throat. Not just fear—primal terror. The kind I haven’t felt since I was a kid. The kind that eats everything else.
The engine roars to life under my trembling hands, and the tires scream as I whip around the corner, sharp and too fast, nearly losing control before I wrench the wheel back. I don’t check the lights. Don’t signal. Don’t care. I’m gone. Damian’s car eats the road, like it can feel me bleeding through the steering wheel and into the engine.
The night blurs around me. Trees, signs, passing cars. All of it a smear of color and noise until—red. Red lights. Then blue. Then the sharp whine of sirens somewhere ahead, rising over the engine, over my heartbeat.
And then I see it.
The bus.
It’s flipped on its side, a giant, hulking carcass torn open at the seams. Flames are already climbing through the windows. The metal is twisted, and shattered glass glitters across the pavement.
The Reapers logo is barely visible, blackened and scorched, half-melted off the side.
My hands slip on the wheel.
No.
No, no, no—
I slam the brakes so hard I nearly snap the steering wheel in half. The car jerks to a stop, tires screaming. I’m out before the engine dies, door swinging wide, knees buckling the second my feet hit the ground.
Because I see them.
Mats, sitting on the curb, arms wrapped around his ribs, blood in his mouth. Shane—fuck, Shane’s got one leg propped on a bag of ice, foot turned the wrong way. Cole’s standing—barely—shirt soaked, blood running down one side of his face. Our driver is shaking.
And Viktor—Viktor is screaming. Not words, not anything that sounds human, just pure rage ripping out of him in raw, violent bursts. He’s shouting at the EMTs, at the stretcher, at the smoking wreckage, his voice hoarse and unhinged like he’s ready to fight God Himself if it means getting answers.
But—no Damian.
I look again. Harder. My eyes drag across every face, every helmet, every medic, frantic and unfocused as panic tightens around my throat.
“Where is he—where is he—” I gasp, spinning, searching the chaos like there’s oxygen hidden somewhere inside it.
And then I see the gurney—the one they haven’t moved, still positioned beside the bus, inside the emergency perimeter, untouched and unmanned. There’s no movement, no figure lying on it. A single boot hangs off the edge. Damian’s boot. Half-melted, fabric warped and burned, so familiar it guts me on sight.
And the fire, the flames are still eating the bus, crawling up the metal like hungry hands. I can’t see him through the smoke or the heat shimmer, can’t see anything inside—
But I know.
He’s on that bus. He’s on the bus and he’s going to die. He’s going to die and I’m standing here useless, breathing air he can’t.
I scream. I don’t even realize it’s me at first. The sound tears out of my chest like it belongs to something else, some wounded animal, some feral thing that had its world ripped out of its hands.
Then I run. I sprint toward the fire like it’s my only way back to him. I don’t see anything else. Don’t hear anyone. There’s no sound. No wind. No pain. There's only fire and that boot and that bus. And him.
