There was a sound like the inside of a seashell—high and distant and sharp.

  Holly floated inside it.

  Everything was wrong.

  It came to her in fragments first. The world pressed in too tightly, every sense twisted out of order. It reminded her of being underwater once as a child, when she’d been pulled down too far in a wave and couldn’t tell which way was up. That same choking pressure. That same unreachable surface. Her brain scrambled for orientation, latching onto stray thoughts.

  Now nothing felt real. Only the roar in her ears and the blur of light around her. Her ears rang, loud and shrill, like a scream that wouldn't stop. There were other sounds too: muffled and wet, metal groaning, something hissing...but they were far away. Or maybe inside her head. Her vision pulsed at the edges, blurring shapes and shadows into formless color. The only thing she could see clearly was the ceiling of the cab, cracked open with spiderwebs of shattered glass.

  The taste in her mouth was blood. Metallic, thick. She tried to swallow and gagged instead. Her head throbbed, a deep and pulsing ache, and she became dimly aware of the warm trickle working its way down the side of her face. It slid past her temple, behind her ear, soaked into her collar. Her hair was sticky with it.

  Burning.

  She could smell it now. Rubber and engine oil and metal. Something sharp and scorched. The air was heavy with it; thick enough to choke.

  Pain was everywhere. Her right shoulder screamed when she tried to move. Her ribs felt wrong. Bent. Bruised. A shard of something had torn through her tights, stinging along her thigh. But it was the cut on her head that spoke the loudest, ringing her skull like a cracked bell.

  Her hands wouldn’t respond the way she wanted. One was pinned. The other trembled, fingers twitching open against broken vinyl.

  She didn't know how long she'd been unconscious. A minute. Maybe less. Maybe more.

  And then it hit her.

  "Ariel!"

  She was in the cab too.

  Holly turned, slowly, painfully, heart slamming hard against her bruised ribs as she forced her blurry vision toward the other side of the cab.

  Ariel was there.

  She was slumped against the passenger-side door, her head tilted, her long red hair matted and soaked with blood. There was so much of it. Too much. It covered her front in deep, wet streaks, glistening in the green glow of the dashboard. Her mouth was slightly open, her lips tinged blue. She wasn’t speaking.

  She was gasping.

  Shallow, quick, panicked pulls of air, each one rasping through her like broken glass. Her eyes were open but unfocused, blown wide and dilated, darting in helpless patterns. As if trying to find something. As if trying to find her.

  “No,” Holly breathed. “No, no, baby, I’m here—just hang on, I’m right here.”

  She scooted across the torn backseat, every movement screaming through her side. Her ribs felt like they were tearing apart, each breath like knives dragged beneath the bone. She remembered falling off a swing in middle school, the wind knocked clean out of her, ribs bruised for weeks. This was worse. Deeper. Her shoulder dragged uselessly, hot with pain, like it had been socketed wrong or torn through completely. But she kept going until she was right beside Ariel, knees pressing into the doorframe, hands trembling as she reached out.

  She took Ariel’s hand.

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  Squeezed it.

  No response.

  Ariel’s fingers were warm, slick with blood, but they didn’t move. Just more gasping. Wet, ragged gasping.

  Holly’s tears spilled instantly, dripping down her already bloodied cheek. In her mind she saw their kitchen that morning, the mug Ariel had teased her about leaving in the sink, the way her laugh had filled the room. The contrast made her chest seize. How could the same lips that had kissed her hours ago be struggling now for air?

  “You’re okay. You’re okay. Help is coming, okay? You’re going to be okay. Just stay with me, Red. Just stay with me. I’m right here.”

  She could hear sirens now, distant but growing louder. Blue and red light flickered faintly against the shattered glass.

  “Hold on,” she begged. “Please, baby, hold on.”

  Holly reached up with her trembling, bloodied hand and touched Ariel’s neck, her fingers searching for the pulse she needed so badly to feel. The moment her fingertips pressed gently into the sticky warmth of her skin, her stomach dropped.

  Something was wrong.

  The beat wasn’t steady. It was faint. Flittering. Broken. Like something trying—and failing—to keep rhythm. And further back…

  ...a hard bulge where her spine met the back of her head.

  Her breath hitched, panic cracking through her ribs like lightning.

  “No, no, no, no,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she cupped Ariel’s jaw with shaking fingers. “Don’t you dare. You stay with me. You hear me? Ariel, please.”

  Her voice rose, raw and ragged. “HELP! SOMEONE! HELP! PLEASE! PLEASE, WE NEED HELP!”

  She screamed it again and again, lungs tearing, throat shredded, until her vision swam with tears. And despite the panic overtaking her senses and her own screams deafening her, she could still hear Ariel’s labored breaths. It stabbed through her like glass. This couldn’t be real. Not after everything. Not after they’d built a life out of the ashes. Her mind clawed at memory, at anything to ground her: Ariel asleep on the ferry, Ariel dancing barefoot in their living room, Ariel’s voice whispering 'home' against her neck. And now... this. A silence that didn’t belong. She looked back at Ariel, at her eyes—wide, glassy, dilated.

  But they were on her.

  They saw her.

  There, in the middle of the blood and panic, was the faintest smile on Ariel’s lips. Barely there. But Holly saw it. And in that split second she thought of the day they met, sunlight through the café window, the shy hello that had changed everything. The image burned against the horror before her.

  Ariel’s lips moved.

  “It...It...will be...okay....” she rasped, voice barely audible over the hiss of something broken in the front of the cab.

  Holly’s heart shattered.

  “No, Ariel, please! I love you! I love you more than anything, Red! Please don’t let go—please stay! I need you, Ariel! I can’t do this without you!”

  Ariel’s chest seized with one last desperate gasp, her eyes locking on Holly as if trying to pour everything she had left into that single look. Holly saw the terror there, but also the love, fierce and unyielding. The breath rattled, caught, and then slipped free in a long, shuddering exhale that seemed to tear itself from Holly’s own lungs. She felt the weight of it leave Ariel’s body, felt the silence crash into the space between them. Her body slackened, head lolling gently to the side, and Holly watched in horror as the faint light in her gaze dimmed, leaving only emptiness.

  “No,” Holly whispered, the word a cracked whimper. “No, no, no, no, no—”

  She gripped Ariel’s shoulders, shook her weakly. “Please, come back. Please, baby, please.”

  Her panic surged. Breathing turned frantic, shallow, as she pressed her forehead to Ariel’s temple. “Ariel. Ariel, please. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”

  And then she screamed.

  “Ariel!”

  It tore out of her, raw and primal. She shouted again, louder. “Ariel!”

  Over and over.

  Sobs ripped through her chest as she clutched at Ariel’s face, Ariel’s shirt, Ariel’s unmoving body. Her own blood mixed with Ariel’s now, hands shaking so violently she couldn’t keep hold of anything. Her world shrank to nothing but the unbearable silence on Ariel’s side of the cab.

  She felt herself growing faint, vision tunneling, sounds flattening around her. The ringing came back, stronger.

  A blast of cold air hit her all at once; the door on her side ripped open.

  “Miss! Miss, we’ve got you!”

  A pair of strong hands grabbed hold of her, trying to lift her out. She screamed and thrashed weakly, flailing against the grip with frantic, erratic movements, clawing toward the cab as if she could reach Ariel again. Her legs kicked, her injured arm jerked, every motion wild with panic.

  “Help her! Help Ariel! She’s not breathing! Please!”

  Her struggles weakened, her flailing slowed to trembling grasps at the air. Her voice cracked and faded to a whisper as her consciousness slipped, her body finally collapsing into the paramedic’s arms.

  The last thing she saw before the black overtook her was a medic leaning into the cab, fingers pressed to the side of Ariel’s neck. Holly’s mind screamed at her body to stay awake, to hold on, to see one more second. Was there hope? Did they nod? Did they flinch? She didn’t know. All she felt was cold panic, a rising guilt that she couldn’t do more, that she hadn’t somehow stopped this. Her heart pounded one last desperate beat—and then everything faded to dark.

  "I love you, Holly..."