Page 202 of What We Become

My whole fucking family.

I can’t be the only one left.

I rip the IV out.

Blood sprays across the gurney sheet. The paramedic lunges. “Sir—sir, you cannot⁠—”

I tear off the blood pressure cuff and fumble the chest strap open. Then the one across my thighs. My left leg screams as I swing it off the gurney. The moment my foot takes any weight, my knee folds and I catch myself against the frame.

“Motherfucker.”

I shift my weight onto my right foot and force myself upright.

Hold. Just fucking hold.

“Sir, please sit down. You have a concussion, a possible tibial fracture, and you’ve lost⁠—”

I’m at the ambulance doors. I shove them open. Night air. Wet road. The flashing lights of the ambulance painting everything red and blue. The wreck—Fury’s SUV, crumpled on the driver’s side, roof caved, glass everywhere, emergency flares on the asphalt.

Empty. The car is empty.

“Fury!”

He took them. He took all of them.

Fuck!

“Sir!” The paramedic is behind me, reaching for my arm. “You can’t leave. You need medical attention. Please⁠—”

Cops in ten minutes. Holden’s people. A clipboard, a statement, a bed with rails.

No.

I start walking. The road is still wet, rain a constant drizzle that obscures my vision and catches the lights of oncoming cars.

Every step sends a bolt through my left leg. I keep most of my weight on the right and drag the left after it.

He took them.

I lurch toward the road, teeth locked. Behind me, the paramedic is shouting. I don’t hear anything except the blood in my ears and Stephen’s voice saying you’re gonna have to let her go and the silence that came after.

Headlights.

Coming toward me on the road. A car—sedan, dark color, single occupant. I step into the lane. Plant my feet. Raise my hand.

The car swerves. Brakes. Stops ten feet in front of me, horn blaring.

The driver’s window comes down. A man in his fifties, glasses, the bewildered face of a civilian who just found a bleeding giant in a torn-up suit standing in the middle of the road at two in the morning.

“What the hell? Are you okay? Is that an ambulance back there?”

I walk to his door. Open it.

“Hey—what are you⁠—”

“I’ll give it back,” I say, and pull him out of the car.

He stumbles sideways, catching himself on the road. “You can’t just—that’s my car!”