Page 64 of The Fall
I’m suspended upside down, trapped. A few pained moans drift through the ravaged cabin. Not enough moans. There are bodies sprawled at impossible angles.
Blair. Where is he?
There. His hand, palm-up, limp against blood-slick steel. He is covered in shattered glass, a spray of blood-soaked diamonds. His chest flutters, a bird with a broken wing, but he is still reaching for me. I claw my way across the torn roof.
Our fingers brush for one excruciating second.
There issomuch blood.
A new horn blares, and another set of lights paint us. Jesus, we’re still on the bridge, still half in the road, in the dark, and?—
Brakes squeal. Another car strikes us, or what’s left of us. I am slammed back, my head cracking into the doorframe. Agony explodes through me. The wreckage shudders, a death rattle.
Metal buckles, strains, gives way.
The guardrail. Which means?—
Free fall.
Time holds its breath. Blair’s face is millimeters from mine. He’s trying to say something, but the words are lost.
I try to memorize it all, imprint every detail onto my soul, as if by force of will, I can hold onto him. I focus on the black pinpoints of his pupils, on the terror in them mirroring my own. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. We were supposed to have forever.
His eyes are ocean-deep, a blue I could fall into and never surface, but the sun is setting within those eyes. I’m watching the light fall out of him. God, we had small pieces of heaven in our hands, torn down from the sky, together. Iremember?—
The way his lips parted on a gasp after our first kiss, the way his hands cradled my face. Waves, gentle waves, lapping against our toes. His eyes, his eyes, when he looked at me and?—
Dark waters crash over us and darkness eats everything, dragging me down, down, down?—
Fifteen
Darkness.
It swallows sound, smothers light, and crushes hope.
My eyelids flutter. Every breath is an effort. Torn, ragged gasps rip through my throat.
Is anybody there?
Sound hovers on the edge of this darkness, persistent, insistent. It permeates the blackness, slowly widening the cracks, letting reality in through slivers.Beep. Beep. Beep.It catches deep inside me, pulling me up from the abyss, and with it comes pain. Deep, unrelenting, agonizing pain.
The world filters back in pieces: scratchy sheets beneath my fingertips, light searing my eyes when I force them open.
I blink. Once, twice. A white ceiling swims into focus. Fluorescent lights. Machines crowd around me, along with monitors and IV poles. The beeping sharpens, defining itself. A monitor, keeping time with my heartbeat.
I’m in a hospital.
A single thought sears through my oblivion:Blair.
Everything—everyone—feels far away. But the memories—no, the nightmare—of blinding lights and the violent screech ofmetal shredding metal flood back and pulverize me. Laughter, the guys, the locker room. Gatorade showers.
The limo. Champagne popping.
Tires screaming. Shattering glass.
Blair’s face, so close to mine. His eyes, his beautiful eyes, dimming.
So much blood.
