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I’m not normally squeamish, but I gag at the sight of it. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I'msonauseous. I try not to focus on that; there is plenty to worry about without actually throwing up.
But the car is stopped, the wheels are touching the sidewalk, and I think that I'm going to be okay when something hits the back of the car and I'm jolted forward. I immediately feel the pull on my neck. It doesn't hurt–not immediately, anyway. But I need to get out. Being in this car will only make things worse, I know that for a fact.
I need to get out.
I try to open the driver door, but there's something stopping me. I can't crane my neck to look, but whatever it is, it feels heavy and there's no way I can fight to get this door to open like I need it to.
I'm going to have to crawl to the other side of the car if I want to get out, and there's nothing I want to do more. But I'm exhausted, everything hurts, and clawing my way out of this takes a considerable amount of effort.
My heart pumps hard, my stomach churning. My head hurts like a fucking bitch. Every movement feels difficult, like I'm trying to push my body through a shroud of heavy foam, and I can't fight the nausea anymore. I end up throwing up all over the front of my body, and as I look down, I can see my puke mixed with blood.
All I can see is Tom Souter’s twisted body, and chains around my ankles and wrists, a nightgown drenched in sweat and blood and vomit.
This isn’t because of the accident. This is somethingelse.
Something worse.
Fuck. I need help.
I reach down to grab my phone, which has fallen into the footwell. Stretching my arm and my fingers toward it takes so much effort that there's a huge part of me that wants to give up. But I can't. I can't stay here, in this sweltering heat. There's something oddly comforting about the pain, and I really want to close my eyes.
It would be so easy to close my eyes. So easy to pass out.
If I don’t get out now, I never will.
So I fight back.
I strain to get to my phone, the air itself pressing down on me as the radio continues to blare in my ears. I think it’s the fucking Rolling Stones…but it’s scrambled, backwards, making me think I might puke again. My fingers graze the edges of my phone, the wound on my neck burning like a motherfucker, but my fingers are so slippery with blood that the phone slides out of my grasp.
In a last ditch effort, I think maybe my voice activation will work. It’s always been janky, but maybe–justmaybe–it’ll save my life. I grit my teeth, my voice sounding strange in the muddle of music and distant sirens.
“Call Aura Dawes,“ I croak.
The phone faintly rings. I need to hold on long enough to tell her where I am. The street signs are fuzzy though, looking more like strange symbols than English.
My eyelids are too heavy. They flutter closed.
I'm vaguely aware that I shouldn't do this, but I'm so tired.
The world fades to black.
LUKE
“We should go after her,” Rei says.
It’s weird, standing here, guests in a house with no one else there. Trine obviously needs time to herself and I don’t think I made things easier for her. I wanted to talk to Rei and Misha about it, but it’s not the right time.
I don’t think they’d understand, anyway. There’s a part of me that regrets what happened. Obviously, I have issues with the church and I’m just a man, but neither one of them would understand my commitment to my vows.
Right now, I’m having a hard time understanding them myself. I’m just a man after all and that has never been more clear to me than it is now.
“Father,” Misha says. “Your opinion?”
I swallow. I’ve been so absorbed in my own thoughts I didn’t realize they were talking to me. “What did you just say?”
“I said we shouldn’t go after her, Woods is saying we should. What do you think?”
“She knows what she’s doing,” I say. “I think we need to let her do whatever she thinks is right.”
