Page 156 of Meet Me at the Metro

The world around me starts spinning, rotating so fast that I have difficulty keeping up with everything happening around me. People around us scramble in a frenzy to escape, running in whatever direction they can find a way through in the panicked masses.

“Nora!”I shout when I don’t find her next to me anymore.

A body slams into mine, pushing me further back into the crowd of crazed people, and I can’t see her anywhere.

I can’t fucking find her.

I can’t find her. I can’t find her. I can’t find her.

“Nora! Nora!”

“Theo!”

“Where are you?!”I’m forced back again by a wave of bodies. I shove through the hordes, pushing me further away from the sound of her voice.“Nora!”

Where the fuck is she?

Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?

“Theo!”There’s nothing but sheer panic in her voice. “Theo!”

I find her eyes.

I immediately rush toward her, but she doesn’t look right. Something is very, very wrong. I distinguish that from the worry evident in her wide eyes.

“Look out, Theo!”Her scream is piercing as it cuts through the smoky air—it’s fear in physical form.

Time stands still as I spin on my heel and find the barrel of a gun aimed straight at me.

“No!Theo, run!”

There’s no time to react. No time to debate. There’s only the deafening fire of the gun and the abrupt flash of a body in front of me.

My ears are ringing with the shot, and it's debilitating. I can hardly work my limbs as the person who ran in front of me begins to collapse, but a bolt of adrenaline shoots through me so intensely that I find my frozen limbs quickly moving again. I catch the crumbling body just before it hits the floor, and its sheer weight makes me fall back onto the cold, sticky ground, too.

Startling green eyes look up at me, their familiarity shaking me to my core. I hardly notice when the hooded figure holding the gun disappears into the distraught, horrified masses. I can’t look away from those friendly, familiar eyes.

No. No. No.

It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.

“Help!”I hoarsely scream, pulling Harvey’s weak, limp body tighter into my arms. My fingers are trembling as my hands go to apply pressure to the bleeding wound now prominent on his left shoulder, and I quickly find myself covered in blood.

So much blood. So much blood.

I do what I can to not let my shock take over.

I will myself to act—to not fall bystander—but all I can find it in me to do is hold him. He’s bleeding so much, I can hardly bear the sight of it.

“Somebody fucking help!”

39

BLAME

E L L I E

The world around me spun so fiercely that I couldn’t tell what was up and down anymore. All I knew was the shrill ringing in my ears and the crushing ache that coursed through my body as my back met the floor.

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