Chapter 18 #2
I make it halfway across the scene, past two ambulances, past Viktor still yelling, past the barrier line the EMTs aren’t letting anyone cross, and then whatever was holding me together snaps. I’m gone. I’m nothing but instinct and terror and motion.
Then arms slam hard and lock around my middle, ripping me backward as Cole’s voice cuts through it—raw, terrified, too close to breaking—shouting, “ELIAS, NO!!”
I thrash instantly, violently, every part of me reacting. “LET ME GO!!” I scream, shoving, kicking, clawing at him with everything I have left. “LET ME THE FUCK GO!! I NEED TO SAVE HIM—LET ME GO—DAMIAN’S STILL IN THERE—”
I’m shaking so badly my teeth chatter. Tears smear across my vision until the world is nothing but sirens and smoke and colorless blur. Everything’s gone. Rational thought. Air. Control. Gone.
I scream again, louder, animal. My throat tears with it, the sound ripping straight out of the part of me that still thinks I might reach him if I just get close enough.
Cole grunts, struggling to hold on as I twist and claw. I hear him curse under his breath—“Fuck, Elias—Jesus, calm down—”
But I don’t. I can’t. My nails catch on his jersey as I fight him, muscles burning, lungs collapsing.
I don’t care if I hurt him. I don’t care if I hurt myself.
I don’t care about anything except the fire and the possibility that somewhere behind it, inside it, Damian is trapped and waiting and alone.
I’d rather die in those flames than lose him.
And all I know—all I feel, in the deepest, most catastrophic part of me—is that if they pull a body off that bus, I’ll never get up again.
I’m gone.
Fully, violently, beyond reason gone.
Screaming, kicking, clawing at the air, at Cole’s arms locked tight around my ribs, at the ground scraping beneath my shoes, my entire body acting on pure, animal panic, trying to tear itself free, trying to get to the bus, to him.
My voice isn’t a voice anymore, it’s something wild and raw that keeps tearing out of my throat in choked, cracking bursts.
The sound bounces off the pavement, louder in my skull than the sirens or shouting or any of the chaos around me.
Cole’s arms nearly slip once—he swears, sharp and breathless—“Fuck—Elias—stop—” but I’m thrashing like I’ll die if I don’t get free. My legs kick, my nails dig at anything they can find.
I don’t hear the EMTs. I don’t hear the crowd. I don’t hear the rest of the team screaming behind me.
All I hear is the fire. All I see is the bus. And all I feel is the memory.
Not again. Not him .Please, not him—
And then a shadow blocks the world. A hand slams into my face. Fingers hard, unyielding, digging into my cheeks and jaw, forcing my head up.
Viktor.
Right in front of me.
He stands towering, blood staining his shirt, fire burning in his eyes.
Pads gone, helmet missing, silent and wild with rage he hasn’t let out yet.
And I’m beneath him, small and shaking, gasping as I stare into his eyes like they might give me the answer I’m desperate for.
Like they might tell me Damian isn’t dead.
His eyes burn straight into mine, and his mouth is moving—but I hear nothing. Nothing but my own heartbeat trying to break through my ribs.
I thrash again, harder, a strangled scream ripping out of me—“LET ME GO—LET ME GO—DAMIAN—DAMIAN—”
Cole nearly drops me. “Jesus, curls—” he chokes out, arms barely holding on as I thrash, every limb shaking. My chest won’t expand right. I can’t stop shaking. Can’t stop falling.
And Viktor—Viktor’s still right in front of me, face thunder-dark and unreadable, lips moving fast like he’s spitting curses in Russian, but I can’t hear him. My stomach lurches. My knees go weak. My throat’s closing again.
“PUP!” He roars—one word, sharp and guttural, like it’s been ripped from somewhere deep in his chest. It slices through the chaos. For one suspended heartbeat, the world stops.
My body jolts as if struck, muscles locking, the scream caught halfway up my throat. The ringing in my ears cracks open, and suddenly I’m here again. Not in the fire. Not in the wreckage of memory. But here, on the pavement, in the smoke.
My lungs seize mid-breath, and my eyes—blurred, wild—snap to his. Because that word—that word—wasn’t his.
It was Damian’s. No. It is Damian’s.
Mine.
The word he uses when I’m on the ice, charging forward with blood on my tongue. When I’m kneeling between his legs, begging. When I’m shaking, drowning, and he brings me back. It’s not just a name. It’s not just a pet word. It’s a lifeline.
It lands like a punch to the chest. A memory slamming through the panic with the force of every time he’s ever said it—every whisper, every growl, every broken murmur when he was inside me and I was begging to be kept.
Viktor grips my face harder, dragging my gaze to his. “LOOK AT ME, PUP!” he growls, shaking the air between us. “HE’S NOT THERE.”
My breath stutters.
“HE’S ALIVE.”
Something cracks in my chest.
“HE’S AT THE HOSPITAL.”
My lips tremble. My vision swims.
“DO YOU HEAR ME??” Viktor roars, forehead almost slamming into mine from how close he is. “HE’S NOT ON THAT BUS. HE’S NOT DEAD.”
The fire roars behind him. But slowly, finally, through the ringing, through the terror, through the screaming still stuck in my throat, I hear him.
I hear him. And my whole body collapses with the force of it. “Where?!” I scream, gripping Viktor’s wrists.
His voice cuts through the smoke. “Ravensburg General.”
I look around. Really look. Shane, pale and shaking, foot wrapped in makeshift gauze.
Mats with blood running from his nose, blinking like he can’t believe he’s alive.
Cole, right behind me, arms still around my chest, holding me like a bomb.
And Viktor, still gripping my face like he’ll shake the sanity back into me.
Damian’s not here.
He’s not on the pavement. Not on the gurneys. Not under the tarp. He’s not in the bus. He’s alive.
My body collapses. I slump in Cole’s arms and we sink to the pavement together, and I’m sobbing so hard it feels like my lungs are trying to climb out of my mouth. My face is wet and my hands won’t stop shaking.
“Shhh… you’re okay, curls,” Cole murmurs, stroking my back like I’m five years old and the world hasn’t just ended and restarted in thirty seconds.
“If I let you go…” he says softly, still panting in my hair, “are you gonna run toward the bus again?”
I shake my head violently. The answer isn’t just no—it’s a full-body refusal, the kind that bursts straight out of instinct. I wouldn’t survive it.
Cole exhales sharply beside me, the sound cutting through the air. “Don’t make me regret this,” he mutters, voice tight with something between fury and fear.
His arms loosen and the second they do, I bolt.
“CURLS!!” he screams after me, cracking, half-furious and half-petrified, but I don’t stop. My legs are already moving before my brain catches up, sprinting across the asphalt.
I launch myself toward the car, rip open the door, throw myself inside, slam it shut, and peel the fuck out of that parking lot.
Every light might as well be red. Every speed limit is a lie.
Every second is a countdown I can’t bear to think about.
Twenty minutes to the hospital? Fuck that. I make it in ten.
I don’t remember how I park. I don’t remember stopping the engine. My hands are numb, my knuckles white, and all I know is that the car isn’t moving anymore and somehow I’m still alive when he might not be.
I run through the sliding doors, my whole body shaking from adrenaline and grief and fury.
I slam into the desk at reception, hands slapping the counter. “Where is he?!” I shout, voice cracking so violently I sound broken. “Damian Kade! He was in the crash—I need to see him now!”
The receptionist blinks. Tight smile. Blonde ponytail. Bad fucking day to be in customer service.
“I’m sorry, sir—”
“Don’t say that.”
“—but we can’t release patient information unless you’re family—”
I see red. “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” I roar, fists slamming down again, shaking the whole counter. “HE’S—”
My voice catches. I’m gasping now, shaking so hard I can barely stand. “He’s my—he’s mine.” My hands claw at the desk desperately. “He’s my person. Please—don’t do this, just—tell me if he’s okay—tell me if he’s alive.”
The world spins and I’m going to break something if I don’t see him in the next ten seconds.
The second the receptionist repeats herself—family only—something in my chest detonates.
Security steps in—big guy, broad, older, probably used to dealing with drunks and belligerent teenagers, not feral, terrified rookies who just watched a bus burn. His hand clamps down on my arm. Bad move.
I rip out of his grip so hard he stumbles. He reaches again, slower this time, and I shove him back with every ounce of my fear, my rage. He slams into a chair, shocked. “Sir, you need to—”
I swing. My fist cuts the air where his face used to be—he dodges, barely—but I’m already winding up again, breath gone, heart detonating inside my chest. I don’t care who he is.
I don’t care what he says. I’d fight god right now if it meant getting to Damian.
I’d tear the walls down. I’d bleed on the linoleum.
I’d set this whole place on fire if it meant one more second with him alive.
Then a hand clamps around my arm, hard, unmovable, and jerks me back. “Elias,” a voice growls, low and rough, a warning that makes me look up.
Viktor.
He must’ve bribed a cab, broken traffic laws, maybe committed light homicide to get here this fast. He’s panting, bruised, sweat still drying on his forehead, and he grabs me just before my fist connects with the guard’s face.
I thrash anyway. “They won’t tell me!!!” I scream. “Vik—I need to know—I need to know if he’s alive—Vik PLEASE—”
He yanks me back into his chest and pins me there. “I’ll handle it,” he snarls. “Stop fighting me.”