"Pick up. Pick up,pick up!"
The phone goes to voicemail as the blue dot picks up speed, and I throw the phone, my skin electric as I grab the keys for my bike and almost break the office door down in my rush to get outside.
I kick-start it, and the engine roars as I jump gears, peeling out into the street.
She won't do it.
She won't.
Why the fuck would she?
Aurora isn't suicidal.
I would know it if she were.
No. This has to be something else.
My mind races, jumping from possibility to possibility as my bike runs three consecutive red lights and scrapes against the side of a Tesla as I turn sharply onto the street she took.
The road closure sign is moved out of the way, just enough for a car to fit through and continue up the unlit, unfinished road.
Did Ambrose somehow figure it out? How? We were so careful.Iwas so careful.
I don't believe what I'm seeing as I push the Ducati to its limits, making the engine whine as I close in on the billow of black smoke lifting from the incomplete end of the bypass.
My stomach heaves with bile, and there's horror in every fiber of my being when I smell hot metal and gas fire. It prickles over my skin, making me scorching hot despite the cold,colddread pooling in my stomach.
The bike screeches when I hit the brakes, and I'm off before it's even fully stopped. It falls and skids on the pavement, throwing sparks over me as I dart to the edge of the road. Hoping beyond fucking hope that she's somehow there, dangling over the edge like this is some action movie and I can still save her.
I recoil as something explodes from the pile of wreckage below, making the fire grow in earnest as distant sirens begin to fill the night. I search through the smoke, eyes burning, coughing as I try to see somewhere,anywhereshe could've landed that wouldn't result in immediate death, because this isn't happening.
This is a bad dream, like one of Eli's night terrors, and I'm going to wake up.
I taste vomit in the back of my throat as I fall to my knees, hands vibrating against the rough asphalt. Guilt, raw and heavy, screams with an oppressive weight on my shoulders.
No.
No.
Wake up, asshole.
I slap my palms against my head, trying to jar myself from this fever dream. My throat burns like I've swallowed acid and the smoke stings like hellfire in my eyes.
I can't breathe.
Oh god, I can't breathe.
"Wake…the fuck…up,"I gasp out, clutching the tension that circles my chest like an iron band getting tighter by the second.
"You sure got here fast."
My head snaps up and I whip my head around, searching for the voice as I stagger to my feet and cold air puffs into my lungs.
I find her through the haze of smoke in my eyes. Aurora leans against a parked cement roller to one side of the incomplete road. Is she hurt?
The relief at hearing her voice is so fucking immense that it threatens to send me right back to my knees, but I don't let it.
I race over to her.
