So I hung there—a broken marionette held up by strings.
My lungs suddenly demanded breath. I gasped and spluttered. My seatbelt hugged me too tight, cutting my ribcage, keeping me pinned upside down. My hair hung around me, droplets of my blood tracing their way over my forehead, like incorrectly flowing red tears joining Jethro’s on the roof below.
“Ki—Kite...” I groaned as the word ripped me in two. I begged my arm to move to him, to see if he was alive.
But I couldn’t move.
Jethro didn’t move.
Nothing moved apart from the spinning tyres and settling dust, cocooning us in a cloud of yellow ash.
Blinking away blood, I sucked in another breath, willing the oxygen to knit me back together and revive me.
Come on.
We weren’t safe. I couldn’t remember why. But we weren’t safe.
Lions?
Hyenas?
Footsteps crunched closer. The click and snap of weapons being disarmed echoed in my skull. Instructions given in a language I couldn’t understand.
I suddenly remembered.
Hawks.
Someone tried to open my door, but it wouldn’t budge. I didn’t look at them. Keeping my eyes trained on Jethro, I wordlessly told him everything he deserved to hear.
I love you.
I trust you.
Thank you for coming for me.
I’ll follow you.
I’ll chase you.
This is not the end.
Horror that he might’ve gone forever consumed me. I’d watched him die twice.Twice.
I knew what it was like to survive without him. If he’d died, I wanted to go, too.
Tears streamed from my eyes, joining the blood dripping from my forehead.
More footsteps.
More crunching and conversation.
“Jethro...” I battled against the pain and misfiring synapses and managed to force my arm to move. Inch by inch, cripple by cripple, I reached for him.
When my fingertip touched his elbow, I burst into ugly tears. “Please...wake up.”
He didn’t twitch.
I poked him.
