Page 49 of Severance

We climb into his truck silently and he starts the engine while I fumble with my seatbelt. My mouth still burns from the kiss and my heart’s sputtering, but the high of whatever Zeke gave me is wearing off and all the questions I had earlier about Dakota’s ex-girlfriend are now roaring inside my head like a stadium full of people.

“Did you sleep with her?” I ask Mikah brazenly, my voice shaking.

His gaze is set on the road and he’s doing a great job of ignoring me.

I refuse to give up. I need answers. “Are you not talking to me now?”

“What’s there to talk about?” Mikah growls, tightening his grip around the steering wheel. The tic in his jaw doesn’t escape my sight.

“Everything.” My chest clamps with horror just remembering the words that were said at the house. “Did he even like me? Was all this a game to him?” I don’t want to be some bet.

“We had lives before you,” Mikah snaps. “You’re not the fucking center of the universe, Alana. There were other people. There were friends.”

The truck picks up speed and the drizzle begins to hit the windshield with full force.

“He doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia page!” I cry out, fighting the tears collecting in my eyes. My head’s a mess of thoughts. I’m not sure if I’m upset over Dakota dating someone before he met me, or the possibility of us being a lie, or the fact that he’s not important enough to have his own Wikipedia page. Or maybe I’m upset because I feel guilty for kissing his brother.For liking kissing his brother.

“He doesn’t need a Wikipedia page!” Mikah says angrily.

“Joseph Miller doesn’t need one either!” I ball my hands into fists. Saying the name out loud sickens me. “Yet people made him one anyway. Why can’t you make one for your brother?” I’m trembling. “Why do you keep pretending like nothing happened?”

“Twenty-three years. That’s what happened,” he growls, not taking his gaze off the road. “Have you ever seen someone you’ve known all your life with two bullet holes in his chest?! Right. That’s what I thought. You came to his funeral to see him cleaned up and dressed up.”

A wave of nausea washes over me… I wish Mikah wouldn’t have said that. Every single word is like a kick to my gut and I crumble in my seat under the heaviness of his despair.

The image he plants in my mind throws me back into a state of terror, back to the night at The Crystal Room. It hits me so hard and deep that the hurt in my chest begins to expand, spreading through me like a cancer, wrecking and damaging every cell.

My cheek, the one I injured during the attack, begins to prickle and my stomach coils. The smell of blood and gunpowder clogs my throat.

“When you see what I’ve seen, then we’ll talk!” Mikah’s heated, irate voice slices me open.

I can’t breathe and I can’t think straight. I can’t stop trembling, and being this close to him right now is too much.Everything is too much.I feel like I’m drowning in a senseless ocean of ruin and desolation. Drowning without Dakota. All I want is to be someplace else. Someplace that’s not here.

I hear a click in the back of my head after I mindlessly reach for the seatbelt.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Mikah growls, his hand clutching my shoulder.

The squeal of the brakes cuts through the music. The truck jerks, sending me forward, and my head hits the dash. A dull pain spreads across my forehead, but I’m too dazed to pay attention to it. My fingers pull on the handle, and the door of the truck swings open, letting a sheet of drizzle in.

I breathe in deep and hoist myself from the seat. The air filling my lungs is almost too heavy as I tumble out and my feet hit the muddy ground.

The field in front of me spreads out as far as my teary eyes can see.

“Alana!” Mikah’s voice penetrates the darkness. His booted footsteps slosh behind me as I start running. My sneakers fall through the mud. I’m not sure where I’m headed, but it’s somewhere downhill, because it feels like I’m falling into an abyss of rain and grime. All I really want is to be as far from this hurt as I possibly can. My breathing is heavy, my heart’s racing along with my mind. Mikah’s yelling shatters against the noise of the traffic behind me and I push through the pain in my knees and move faster. Every muscle in my body draws tight and my lungs hurt from the lack of air. The wind bites my face, blurring my eyes and I can’t tell where I am anymore. It feels a lot like a circle of horror. A trap full of smells, screams, and bodies.

Bang! Bang!

The mud slurps and splashes under my sneakers, and the wet grass slaps against my ankles.

“Alana!” he calls my name again.

Bang! Bang!

“Alana! Stop!”

Bang! Bang!

“Alana!”

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