Page 118 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
My hands shake.
I force them still.
Press harder.
Zach moves over her, his hands coming to her chest, positioning, counting under his breath in a way that sounds too controlled for the panic I know is sitting under it.
“Come on,” he mutters. “Come on!”
He starts compressions.
The movement jolts her body under my hands, under my grip, and I have to fight not to pull away, not to stop him, not to...
“Don’t stop,” he says, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Don’t stop pressing.”
“I’m not,” I say quickly, even though my voice is shaking now, even though everything in me feels like it’s coming apart.
“Elijah,” I choke out, my eyes flicking forward. “She’s not breathing, she’s not...”
“She will,” he says, and his voice is louder now, harsher, like he’s forcing the world to bend to it. “She will breathe!”
Zach leans down, breathes into her, then back to compressions, his movements steady, precise, like the only thing keeping him from breaking is the fact that he has something to do.
“Come on,” he says again, more urgently now. “Come on, Lia—”
I can’t stop looking at her face.
I can’t stop seeing how still she is.
How nothing in her reacts.
“She’s not...” I start, and the words collapse into something broken. “She’s not coming back!”
“Shut up,” Zach snaps, not even looking at me. “Don’t say that. Don’t even fucking think it.”
“I can’t lose her,” I say, and it comes out like a confession, like something torn out of me without permission. “I can’t, Lia, please, please don’t leave me...”
My vision blurs.
I don’t realise I’m crying until it hits my lips.
“She doesn’t get to die,” Elijah says from the front, and there’s something in his voice now that sounds almost unhinged, likehe’s holding himself together by force alone. “Not now. Not like this. I will not let that happen.”
The car jerks slightly as he takes another turn too fast.
I don’t care.
Nothing matters except...
“Come on,” Zach breathes, his voice tight, controlled through effort as he keeps going. “Come on, breathe!”
There’s a second.
Two.
Three.
Nothing.
