CHAPTER TWO
1041 Words
The car did not slow.
Snow streaked toward her in long, blinding lines, the windscreen struggling to keep up as the road curved ahead, dark and narrowing, but Evie’s foot stayed planted, heavy and unyielding, as though it no longer belonged to her at all.
The engine howled beneath the bonnet, vibrating through the steering wheel and into her arms, and somewhere on the dashboard the speedometer needle climbed higher than it should have been allowed to go on a night like this.
Her heart pounded so hard it felt as though it was trying to escape her chest.
A thought surfaced, thin and fragile, telling her that this was wrong, that she should slow down, that she should stop, but it was drowned out almost immediately by images crashing through her mind without order or mercy. Marcus’s voice cut through the noise first, sharp with irritation, dismissive in the way that had once felt familiar and safe.
You are overreacting.
Charlotte’s laugh followed, light and breathless, curling around the memory like smoke. The way her hair had spilled across Evie’s pillow. The way her bare shoulder had caught the lamplight.
Her bed.
The steering wheel trembled violently in her grip as the car hit a slight bend, and her knuckles whitened, though she barely felt it. Her thoughts fractured further, splintering into moments that made no sense together.
Her job was provided by Marcus, she didn't even have a roof over her head... everything had always revolved around him. Her mind and brain did a lot of checks into her memories..
it only dawned on her that nothing in those memories belonged only to her.
Every part of her life seemed threaded through this particular person, knotted so tightly that pulling one loose had torn everything apart.
The headlights caught movement.
It happened too fast for her mind to process, a sudden shape exploding into brightness, massive and alive, eyes reflecting white for a fraction of a second before instinct finally broke through the fog.
Evie screamed.
Her hands wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right, muscles locking as the tyres lost their grip on the icy road.
The car skidded sideways, the rear fishtailing violently, snow and darkness spinning together until she could no longer tell which way was forward.
Her body lurched against the seatbelt as she tried to correct, tried to remember what she had been taught all those years ago, but the car no longer listened.
The world became noise and motion.
Metal shrieked as something gave way beneath the wheels, a sickening crunch reverberating through the chassis as the car ploughed through stone.
Her body slammed forward with brutal force, the seatbelt biting into her chest as the airbag exploded outward, striking her face and driving the breath from her lungs in a sharp, painful burst.
Her head snapped back.
Pain bloomed everywhere at once, white and blinding, and for a moment she could not tell if she was still breathing. Something warm splashed against her chin, and when she gasped, her mouth filled with a thick, metallic taste that made her gag.
Blood.
She coughed, choking on it, spitting red across the deflated airbag and the steering wheel, her chest burning with every shallow inhale. The car lurched again, tilted sharply downward, then stopped so suddenly that her teeth rattled.
Silence fell, heavy and wrong.
Not true silence, she realised dimly, but a high, piercing ringing that filled her ears and made her vision swim. The world wavered in front of her eyes, doubling and blurring, lights smearing into pale streaks.
Her chest hurt.
Every breath scraped like broken glass.
So this was how it ended.
The thought drifted through her mind without panic, without fear, settling instead with a strange, distant calm.
Death did not feel dramatic in this moment. It felt practical, inevitable, like the natural conclusion to a night that had already taken everything else from her.
A sound escaped her throat, short and broken, something that might have been a laugh if there had been any humour left in her body. It faded into a shallow, rattling breath as her head tipped to the side.
All of this, she thought dimly, for someone who had never really been worth it.
Blood slid from the corner of her mouth, warm against her skin, dripping onto her coat and pooling along the curve of the seatbelt. Snow drifted through a shattered window, melting as it touched her jeans, soaking into the fabric with a creeping cold she barely noticed.
Something struck the glass beside her.
Once.
Again.
A voice followed, muffled and urgent, words bleeding together as though spoken from underwater.
“Hello? Can you hear me?”
The sound did not make sense at first. It hovered at the edge of her awareness, disconnected from meaning. Her eyelids fluttered as another impact cracked through the remaining glass, sharp and insistent.
She tried to lift her hand.
It would not move.
Her tongue felt thick, useless, her jaw numb as she attempted to answer. The world tilted violently as the window shattered completely, cold air rushing in to replace the stale smell of smoke and blood.
Snow. Wind. Hands.
Strong hands.
"Hold on, I got you"
Someone was pulling at her seatbelt, fingers fumbling for the release before it snapped back with a sharp recoil.
Her body slumped forward immediately, weight shifting too fast for her to control, but she did not hit the dashboard. She was caught, held upright against something solid.
A shoulder.
A chest.
She could not tell which.
Her head lolled as she was lifted, pain flaring briefly before dissolving into a dull, spreading haze. The world narrowed further, colours draining away, sound retreating until only one sensation remained.
Warmth.
Startling and overwhelming, wrapping around her like a sudden blanket pulled tight against the cold. It did not belong in the snow, or in the wreckage, or in her body that felt so close to giving up.
A scent cut through everything else.
Pine. Smoke. Something raw and unfamiliar, sharp enough to register even as her vision collapsed inward.
Her eyes rolled back.
The last thing she knew was the ground falling away.
Then she was gone.
- Writer
