Page 103 of All's Fair In Love & War

“Ma’am, you’re going to be okay. We’re going to get you out of here, alright?”

I nodded once, even though I wasn’t sure I believed him.

Metal groaned around me as they started cutting. Sparks flew in the corner of my vision, and the whir of machinery seemed unforgiving. I winced, not from pain, but from the fear that they were wasting time trying to get to me when Khalil hadn’t opened his eyes.

I looked back at him again, reaching for his hand this time.

It was still warm.

“Khalil, please,” I whispered, barely able to keep my voice steady. “I’m right here. You can’t do this. Please don’t be the one to die. I’ll take your place on any day.”

The door beside me peeled open with a screech, and gloved hands reached for me, unbuckling the belt and slidingsomething under my legs. My body shifted in pieces, as if I weren’t fully connected to it, and my limbs belonged to someone else. A sharp sting pulsed down my side, but I bit down on it. I wouldn’t cry. Not yet.

As they lifted me onto the stretcher, I caught sight of two silhouettes across the street, standing behind the flashing lights.

Sophia.

And Dallas.

They weren’t moving. They weren’t rushing to help. They were just watching, their eyes locked on the wreck.

My breath caught in my throat, and the next thing I knew, I was being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Questions were flying around me, but I couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t focus.

Because Khalil was still in that car.

And I didn’t know if he would ever wake up again.

They say time slows down in moments like these, but that’s a lie. If anything, it speeds up and tramples you in its sprint. I never believed in karma, but even I recognized the symmetry when it was my time to face the consequences. I knew right then that even if Khalil lived, something fundamental would die. Maybe it was the illusion that I’d ever be free, or maybe it was the last bit of mercy he had left for me. Either way, I felt the border snap inside me, and at the same time, I felt nothing at all.

The ambulance doors slammed shut on Tatum as the other paramedics continued to struggle to get Khalil’s body out of the vehicle. My body bounced slightly as the one I was in pulled off, but I kept my eyes on the back window, refusing to blink.

I wanted to see Khalil one more time. Even if it was just his feet. Even if it was just his blood. But we turned the corner before they got him out, and that was it.

I stared at the ceiling, my vision swimming as the paramedic beside me asked the same questions over and over. Was I allergic to anything? Could I move my fingers? Could I feel my toes? I nodded when I could. Spoke when I had to, but inside, I was unraveling.

This was all my fault.

I had done a lot of reckless things in my life. Lied to the wrong people. Trusted the worst ones. Pushed buttons that didn’t need pushing, and smiled in rooms where I should’ve kept my mouth shut. But nothing—nothing—prepared me for the moment I realized Khalil might die, and I’d be the reason why.

Not because I grabbed the wheel. Not because I swerved. But because from the start, I had been the distraction that knocked him off course. And now he was paying for it.

The medic adjusted the oxygen mask around my face, and I flinched without meaning to. Everything felt like too much. It was too loud, too close, and too late.

“Try to relax,” she said gently. “We’re almost there.”

But she didn’t understand. I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be back in that car, before the swerve, before the crash, before my name had become a curse in every mouth that once called it sweet.

I wanted Khalil to open his eyes and call me a headache, just one more time. Instead, I was alone in the back of an ambulance, headed to a hospital where nobody would tell me anything, and surrounded by strangers who didn’t know that my silence wasn’t from shock. It was from grief because I had truly lost myself.

I didn’t even know if I had the right to feel it.

The ambulance slowed, then stopped altogether. I felt the shift in momentum before I saw the doors swing open, flooding the back of the rig with too much light. My eyes burned at the sudden exposure, and I turned my face toward the wall.

“We’ve got her,” someone said from outside. “Watch the left side. She’s got possible rib fractures.”

They wheeled me out into the chaos of the hospital’s emergency bay, my body jostling over every bump in the concrete. The sky above me was dark, but the fluorescent lighting made it feel like morning had arrived. I saw a row of gurneys, nurses moving like clockwork, and orderlies trying to keep the noise down while noise roared in the background.

“Vitals are holding. Let’s get her inside.”

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