No, no, no, no.
The sound of a gunshot echoes in my skull, loud enough to make me flinch even though it’s not real. Except…it is. It’s all right in front of me. My vision fractures, the past and the present bleeding into each other until I can’t tell which one I’m standing in.
Reese falling. Dropping to the ground. Bleeding. My hands covered it.
I look down. There’s nothing on my hands, but…I canseeit. I canfeelit, sticky and warm. My chest tightens, my breath coming fast and shallow. I look up, and Reese is still there on his knees on the hard ground. The black button-up is gone, replaced by a gray cotton T-shirt. Blood spreads across the front.
My brain doesn’t care that what I’m seeing isn’t real, that he’s not actually dying.
It’s thesame.
“Get up,” I blurt, my voice cracking.
But he doesn’t move. His head is slightly bowed, both hands on the ground, breath uneven.
“Reese.” My voice is quieter now, the name breaking on the edge of something I don’t want to feel, don’t want to remember. “Get up.”
My hands hover uselessly in front of me because I don’t know what to do with them. I drag in a breath that doesn’t feel like it goes anywhere. My pulse is too loud in my ears, my heartbeat echoing through my skull until it feels like the only sound left in the world. The woods tilt around me, the edges of my vision going dark in a way that has nothing to do withshadows this time.
I swallow hard, trying to get a grip, trying to anchor myself somewhere that isn’t seven years ago.
But my hands still feel like they’re covered in blood. And Reese is still on his knees. And I can’t stop shaking. And I can’t breathe right. And there’s still blood everywhere. And what if these new powers are stronger than I thought? And what if I fucking killed him? And what if I lose him all over again?
“Please.”
This time, it’s a desperate whisper.
It’s then that I realize I never learned how to exist in a world where Reese Morgan isn’t breathing.
Pain is immediate andblinding. Every nerve in my body lights up, electricity tearing through muscle and bone like it’s trying to rip me apart from the inside. I go down,hard. My hands curl against the ground, fingers digging into dirt and grass that doesn’t feel real, doesn’t feel like anything except something to hold onto while everything else shatters.
I don’t remember the last time somethinghurtlike this. Not bullets, not knives. Not anything. This is different because this is inside me.
Blood rushes into my ears as the current fades in uneven pulses, leaving behind something raw and tingling.
There’s a voice, distant and distorted. I can’t make out the words. I force my eyes open, but the world lags behind, slow to catch up. The trees swim. The ground tilts. My shadows stutter around me, weaker and unfocused.
Another word spoken, just one. I hear it this time.
“Please.”
Cason’s voice, soft and distressed, is enough to give me thestrength I need to push against the ground. My muscles protest, and I drag in a breath that feels like it scrapes my throat on the way down.
I lift my head and see him. He’s standing a few feet away, trembling, staring at his hands like they’ve betrayed him, like there’s something on them that shouldn’t be. But I don’t understand because there’s nothing there. However,somethingis wrong, and even though every cell in my body is fucking screaming at me, I’m going to get to him.
Forcing myself to my feet, I take a slow, cautious step toward him. Notjustbecause it hurts, but because I don’t want to provoke him, not again. The last thing I need is another hit ofthat.
As I take another step and then another, my shadows stay back, coiled and restless, as though they’re just as worried about him as I am.
“Cason?”
There’s no response. He doesn’t even look at me.
I take one last step until I’m two feet in front of him, watching every shift in his body, every flicker of that unstable energy under his skin.
“Cason.”
Still nothing.
