Page 50 of Severance

My pulse beats madly against my eardrums, and my heart’s on the verge of bursting into a million bloody pieces when I trip over something hard. I fly forward, and when I land on my hands, my scarred palms hitting the ground first, mud splashes across my chin and lips.

“Alana!” Mikah shouts.

I don’t want to see him right now. I don’t want to see anyone. I’m tired of trying to fit in. I’m tired of trying to reassemble the parts of me that don’t want to be put back in place, because some of those parts are dead and don’t work well with the ones that are still alive. There’s a piece of me that just wants to die, and I can’t tell if it’s a side effect of the anti-depressants or what my therapist calls survivor’s guilt. I just know I want all this to stop. Ineedall this to stop.

It’s too much. Too much to feel all at once.

“Alana!” Mikah’s voice closes in on me like a hunting dog on a fox.

I spit out the mud and as I’m pushing myself up, he slams against me and I lose my balance. We fall down and roll across the grass, our arms and legs twisted, our breaths heavy and loud, yet I don’t feel anything except rage. I fight him relentlessly, tossing my fists at him because in this moment, he deserves it, but then he gets me flat on my back.

Mikah moves up my body and his face invades my line of sight. I throw a hard punch, not sure where it lands, and he grabs my wrists and presses them into the ground, his weight holding me still. We’re now a furious, panting mess and this—the filth and the dark—suits us because I don’t know how else to describe what’s going on between us.

“If you want to leap from a moving car, you don’t fucking do it while I’m driving,” Mikah growls, the line above the bridge of his nose deepening. “Do you understand?”

My lips are shut tight, and I jerk beneath him.

“Do you understand?” he repeats, his eyes drilling into me. They’re big and livid, the emerald green consumed by black.

My clothes are cold and wet against my skin, and the consequences of my jump are starting to come down on me hard and fast. In the form of physical pain. My muscles are aching; my lungs and my chest burn.

“Do you?” Mikah drills.

I jerk again, but his thigh presses against mine, pushing me deeper into the mud.

We still for a few seconds, our bodies strained and our faces a gasp apart as we stare at each other. It almost feels like a competition, but I have no idea what we’re competing for.

Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I push the words out, “I understand.”

The line on Mikah’s forehead relaxes. He lets out a sigh of relief and his breath fans against my dirty cheeks. “Don’t ever fucking do that again. You scared the shit out of me.”

I have no idea what to say to him. I’m still mad. He never answered my questions. I just lie there motionless and completely wrecked and watch the faint shadows moving across his face.

“Don’t do that again, okay?” Mikah repeats, his tone unusually soft. He releases my wrists and after he pushes himself up, he sits next to me in the grass.

I want to get up, but my emotions are still running rampant and I’m too sore to move. Each bone and muscle screams with agony, but the worst pain is in my left ankle.

Mikah’s quiet, his face tense with concern.

“I believe I sprained my ankle,” I say through the small puffs of air coming out of my mouth.

“Let me take a look.” Mikah slides across the grass and examines my leg. “I don’t see any swelling.” He rises to his feet and pulls me off the ground. I stagger and wince as I grab on to his shoulder.

“Can you walk at all?”

“I’m not sure,” I confess, holding on to him for dear life. The pain pulsing through my leg is excruciating and I’m scared to put weight on it.

“Okay.” He slips one arm under my knee, supporting my back with the other, and scoops me up. “You’re washing my truck, Cupcake Queen.” His voice vibrates against my temple. “Deal?”

“Deal,” I mumble, throwing my hands around his neck.

“My truck’s up the hill. Try not to kill us, all right?” he jokes as we head that way.

15. After

The little chime above my head jingles briskly as I pull the door of the artisan coffee shop open and take in the interior. There are at least three dozen people inside, talking and smiling. I catch the soft sounds of laughter, but it’s not the drunk, crazy brawl you’d hear at a bar or on campus after midterms. This crowd is different. All of these people were at The Crystal Room during the last Midnight Rust show.

I notice Luke and Blaze at a small table near the window as a few glances are aimed in my direction.

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