Page 33 of Witch's Wolf

“Damn, brother. You look like shit.”

“Feel like it too,” I agree, managing a smirk without too much pain.

Raul’s face doesn’t crack even a hint of a smile. His eyes are sharp, cutting straight through me.

“You wanna tell me what the fuck you were doing out there?”

The room tilts. Fragments shift in my head. Tires on asphalt. Darkness. Cold air rushing in. No, not rushing,falling. A drop. A crash. My throat tightens.

“I… don’t know…” I say. “Slow down. I thought you knew what happened.”

“I know what happened, but I don’t get it,” he flexes his jaw and leans in close. His voice is low and edged with something I can’t place. “Erica and Stacy saw you before it happened. They said you missed the turn. You didn’t slow down at all, went straight off the damn road.”

Something icy slides across my body. Missed the turn. That’s not something I do. I can’t argue. I can’t explain. Because no matter how hard I try to piece it together, I don’tremember.

I try to recall the events, but pain and drugs make it feel like I’m trying to think through a thick fog. Raul’s words fade, lost in the mists, but something stirs in the back of my mind. A flicker, faint but insistent.

A flash. There was a flash.

Bright. Blinding. Cutting through the dark like a blade. My stomach twists as I realize it’s not just a feeling. I am recalling this, it’s real. I saw it.

The memory sharpens. It’s not fluid or fully formed. More like snapshots. Frozen moments in time. An empty road stretching ahead, then the narrow strip of dirt alongside it. The bend looming too fast and too sudden.

That flash. What was that?

“I saw a flash,” I say, grimacing as the pain in my head spikes. “A bright flash. I must’ve, I don’t know, I must have dozed off?The next thing I remember is the turn and it was coming too fast. That’s all I’ve got.”

Raul’s expression darkens. His hands clench into tight fists and he’s vibrating, with anger? Rage? Disbelief?

“You fell asleep? That makes no sense. It was only ten-thirty, Sam. You never even think about bed before midnight. How do you explain that?”

“I can’t,” I say, shaking my head and instantly regretting it. As the pain subsides, I look at the still images that are all the memories of the events I have. My attention keeps returning to that flash. “The flash Raul, what was that?”

“There was no flash,” he practically spits and then glances at the closed door as if making sure no one else hears. “Erica and Stacy were there, and they didn’t see anything. All they saw was that you driving straight off the cliff.”

“I know what I saw,” I say, clenching my jaw.

He exhales sharply then paces around the bed. He growls, clenching and unclenching his hands. When he stops, he fixes me with his piercing, ‘I’m the alpha glare’.

“You sound awfully sure for someone who just took a seventy-foot tumble off a cliff.”

“Because Iamsure,” I say. A muscle ticks in my jaw. The conviction solidifies, digging its roots deep. “I saw it, Raul. I know it.”

His silence is heavier than his words. He studies me, weighing something behind those sharp eyes.

“You were lucky,” he finally mutters. “In more ways than one.”

His tone shifts, something unreadable settling in.

“What do you mean?” I ask, grimacing as the pain spikes again.

“Monica was working the night shift. She got a chopper flown in from the city. If she hadn’t…” He doesn’t finish, but the unspoken words settle like lead in my chest.

“I should thank her.”

I brace my arms against the mattress and try to sit up. Searing pain tears through my ribs, sharp and unrelenting. I grit my teeth, exhaling sharply through my nose.

“Easy, tiger.” Raul moves fast, gripping the bed’s lever and adjusting the backrest. I sink into it, breathing through the pain.

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