Page 201 of What We Become

“Fury—”

My hand closes on her wrist. Last grip. Everything I have.

“Let go,” Stephen says.

My fingers open.

I don’t want them to be open.

Fury.

Black . . .

FORTY-SEVEN

KNOX

Bright.

Too bright. White light punching through my eyelids. I flinch, and the flinch sends pain screaming down my left side—ribs, hip, leg.

“Fury!”

“Sir, you need to stay still⁠—”

I open my eyes. Fluorescent strips. Low ceiling. I blink, and the world starts to make sense. The inside of an ambulance. I’m on a gurney, strapped at the chest and thighs, an IV in my right arm, a blood pressure cuff on my left. A paramedic is leaning over me—young, latex gloves, focused expression.

I open and close my right hand. Pins and needles all the way to the shoulder, but it works again. There’s a raised sting on the side of my neck where the needle went in, and nobody in this ambulance has asked me what’s in my blood.

“Where’s Fury?”

“Sir—”

“The woman. Where is she? She was in my arms. Where⁠—”

“You need to stay calm. You’ve sustained significant injuries. We’re taking you to⁠—”

“Where are the others?” I try to sit up. The straps hold. The pain doubles. “There were five other people in that car. Where are they?”

The paramedic puts a firm hand on my shoulder. The pressure is completely inadequate for the task of keeping me on this gurney.

“Sir, you were the only person in the vehicle when we arrived.”

The words don’t compute. I run them again.

Only person. Only person in the vehicle.

“No.” I shake my head, and the world tilts. “No, there were six of us. Five men and a woman. She was in my arms. She was⁠—”

“We had to cut you from the wreckage, sir. You were trapped. But you were alone. I can assure you, there was no one else. Just you.”

The ambulance walls contract. I haul against the straps, trying to get a full breath. Looking past him for Holden to tell me to lie the fuck down. For Micah to put a hand on me. Eli to take charge. Milo to make some stupid fucking joke.

Fury to call me Knoxie.

Nobody.

My hands won’t stay still. I stare at them. They opened. They let him take her.