Chapter 16 Lex
Lex
Something warm tickles my temple.
My mother.
I had a nightmare. She sings me a lullaby with the stars as our night-light, her voice like whispery moonglow.
“Don’t Dream It’s Over” by Crowded House.
That’s the song she’s singing. I recognize it.
I know it; I feel the melody deep in my bones.
It soothes me, just like the sweep of her hand soothes me as she dusts thick bangs out of my eyes.
Those warm fingers skim across my forehead while she smiles down at me.
She loves me. She does. It’s impossible to simulate love when it pours from the soul in chords and lyrics. A lyrical love. It can’t be faked.
Her voice is a warble of jumbled notes and words. Feels like I’m underwater. Sinking, swimming, floating. The warm sensation dribbles down my cheek, trailing to the corner of my mouth. Coppery. Melted pennies on my lips.
I poke my tongue out as my eyelids shudder, and her voice dissipates.
The song is replaced by a sharp ringing in my ears, a violent drone.
Pain shoots through my rib cage, between my eyes.
My face throbs. My body aches. I feel my head loll to the side as tremors course down the back of my neck, my spine, making me hiss.
The ringing morphs into a horn. A car horn.
Loud, loud, loud. Deafening. I want to claw it out of me.
Make it stop.
Stop.
Fucking stop .
I crack one eye open at a time, reality sinking into me. The windshield is smashed. Icy tendrils of wind and snow torpedo through the gaping hole of shattered glass, freezing the liquid heat rolling down my face. I swipe at it, and my hand comes away red.
Blood. I’m covered in blood.
Everything funnels back to me.
The jerk of the wheel, tires squealing, a scream.
Her scream.
I’m a misshapen mess of limbs, half sprawled out across the center console of Stevie’s car.
Blinking repeatedly, I force the fog away and wince as I reach over to the seat. “Stevie.” I lift my head, searching, scanning, wondering if this is just another nightmare. “Stevie…”
Her blurry shape comes into focus beside me.
I blink again.
Again.
Dark hair. Black dress. More blood.
She’s not moving.
“No…fuck, no…” I try to twist farther in the seat to check on her, but I’m stuck.
Fluid dribbles from the gash in my forehead, warping my vision.
I wrestle with the seat belt, every limb quivering from adrenaline, terror, fear.
The airbag clings to my face, nearly suffocating me, while the horn blares, assaulting my eardrums. “Stevie, hold on,” I gasp, wrenching the belt free and shoving at the door with my shoulder.
It doesn’t budge. Desperation seizes me as I kick and slam against the door, every impact sending pain through my foot. “Fuck! Come on. Come on .” I keep going, launching myself against the barrier of disfigured metal and crumpled steel.
Finally, with a harrowing groan, the door gives way.
I spill out of the vehicle, collapsing in the snow.
My ankle is crooked, sprained. Everything hurts. Swiping bloodied hair from my eyes, I crawl manically on my hands and knees around the front of the car. Snow mixes with dirt, kicking up behind me as I scramble toward the passenger’s side, desperation pushing me faster.
I yank the door handle. The cabin is dark, smoke curling from the dashboard. My chest tightens—she’s slumped against the seat, airbag deflating slowly, bruises blooming across her face like purple shadows while a series of cuts dapple her skin.
Her eyelids flutter, just barely.
She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.
Her chest rises and falls, but it’s shallow.
“Stevie…Stevie, fuck…” I choke back the panic, my fingers shaking as I fumble with the seat belt. It clicks free, and I don’t even think. I pull her out, wincing as my ankle screams in protest. The smell of gasoline is thick, and the hiss of the engine sounds like a countdown.
Using all my strength, I drag her across the snow, away from the car in case it explodes.
I don’t know if I should move her, but fear and adrenaline take over.
The instinct to protect kicks in, overpowering my hesitation.
I can’t shake the image of the car erupting into flames, a fiery cage trapping her inside.
My breaths come in ragged gasps, each one harder than the last, until finally, we’re a few feet from the car. I collapse beside her. Her brown hair draws stripes across her face while red stains mottle the freshly fallen snow like drops of ink spilled on a blank canvas.
I take her face between my hands.
Images blur together in a crimson haze as I growl her name through clenched teeth. “ Stevie .” The wind whistles, barely carrying my voice. A ghostly howl. “Hey, look at me. Eyes on me.” I hover over her, gritting agony into the wind. “C’mon, Nicks, please.”
Her teeth chatter. “I fell. My…leg.”
For a split second, relief and horror clash inside me. She’s conscious, she’s talking, but pain ripples through her voice. I glance down at her leg—the unnatural angle, the way her knee bends inward, like a broken puppet string hanging loose.
I don’t know what to say, so I grip her hand, trying to steady the both of us. “I’ve got you,” I whisper, though the words feel feeble, lost in the wind.
Blood from my head wound splashes across her face. She’s so pale, so cold.
Acting quickly, I rip off my coat and wrap it around her, shielding her from the biting cold as my bare arms grow numb and my heart ices over. “You’re gonna be fine. Stay with me.”
I fumble for my phone, dialing 911.
The dispatcher answers on the second ring. I track our location and spout off a vague address, the surroundings a blur of trees, wreckage, and swirling snow.
She’s breathing. I tell the dispatcher she’s breathing.
She’s talking.
She’s alive.
I’m instructed to stay on the line until help arrives, but the phone slips from my hand as I drape myself over Stevie’s shivering body. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Her leg is contorted. Inhuman. Violent slashes tatter her dress and skin. There’s blood everywhere.
I cup a hand over my mouth and nearly vomit. “You’re fine, you’re okay, you’re going to be okay,” I ramble through the cracks in my fingers.
I did this.
I fell asleep.
I fucking fell asleep and did this.
I’ll never forgive myself.
Pressure burns behind my eyes, my temples pounding with guilt. My self-destruction became her destruction.
I did this.
“Lex…” She says my name on a choked breath before her whole body heaves and she coughs up blood, scarlet mist spraying across my shirt.
Fuck, fuck, fuck .
Panic debilitates me. I don’t know what to do.
“Stay with me, okay? Just hang on.” I tuck the leather jacket around her with violently shaking hands, wishing for a chance to turn back time, to kiss her and make things right.
I’d kiss her back.
I would.
Fuck my triggers. Fuck it all.
Her eyes fall shut, and the echoes of our performance at the Moulin Rouge pierce through the chaos. Stage lights, vibrant costumes, electric energy; now a distant dream. A cruel contrast to this stark, frozen reality.
Come what may.
A final, poignant promise, so fitting at the time.
I see her as Satine, the glamorous courtesan with a heart full of dreams, performing with such grace and passion that it was almost a different world.
Now she’s ruined.
I broke her.
Dazzling strobes fade from my mind, replaced with flashing red-and-blue lights.
Serenades morph into sirens.
Darkness skates across my vision.
And the curtains close.