Page 203 of What We Become

I’m already in the driver’s seat. I yank the lever and slide the seat back to make room for my legs. Then I pull away, tires screeching.

The man shrinks in the rearview, standing in the road next to the ambulance lights, arms raised, mouth open.

I need it more than you do right now, buddy.

I’ll give it back.

Eventually.

The steering wheel is slick under my hands. Rain? Blood? My vision doubles, triples, comes back to single. The road lines blur and separate and blur again. Clarity comes and goes in waves, the world pulling sideways every few seconds like someone tugging a tablecloth.

“Keep it together, Knox,” I grunt through gritted teeth. “She needs you. They all do.”

I feel for my phone. Gone.

Fury’s is still in my pocket. I drag it out. The casing is bent, the screen black beneath a web of cracks. I press the power button. Nothing.

Holden was talking to Odin when we were hit. He might already have people coming. But he didn’t see Stephen at that window. He doesn’t know what I know.

I shove the phone back into my pocket.

Think.

Home won’t help. Stephen might be watching it. I need someone who knows our world. Someone who can help me go after them right fucking now.

“Fuck.” I slam my hand against the dash. “Fuck!”

My hands shake on the wheel.

Family.

I learned young that staying silent and unseen is the only way to be safe.

The wipers drag. The yellow line splits and comes back together.

The military gave me brothers. I can still list them in order.

And Eli was my brother long before Fury knew any of us.

I thought that was as close as I would ever get.

Then she came along. Kept pulling the six of us closer. Filled the house with noise I wanted to come home to. Started telling me she loved me like it was the easiest thing in the world.

I’d never felt loved before her. Never understood that someone could want me there when there was nothing to guard and nobody to hurt.

Now I need all of them. Their noise. Their hands. Every stupid argument we haven’t finished having.

I drag in a breath, but it catches halfway.

Fury’s face flashes behind my eyes. Those gray eyes empty, her body limp when I pulled her from that wall. I breathed for her until she came back.

This time I don’t even know where she is. Where any of them are.

I can’t lose them.

Please. Fuck. I can’t.

The wheel threatens to slip under my grip. My left leg burns where it’s wedged beneath the dashboard, every jolt sending pain up to my hip. I keep my right foot on the gas.