Chapter 30
PARALYSIS
NATE
The needle enters my arm, and the world immediately starts to smear at the edges—like someone put their thumb over my eyes and dragged. I've seen enough overdose and watched enough bodies drop to recognize the signs.
Fentanyl.
But laced with something else. Something meaner, crueler. Designed to end things fast.
It hits my system like a sledgehammer made of lightning.
No—like my nerves are being unzipped from the inside. A chemical inferno races through my blood so fast my brain can barely keep up, each second tightening around me like a vice.
This is instant annihilation.
My chest seizes, muscles contracting involuntarily as my respiratory system begins its shutdown sequence. My breathing becomes shallow and labored within seconds, each breath requiring more effort than the last. The world tilts violently, and I'm falling even though I'm still sitting upright.
“That’s it,” Monty says, voice echoing behind glass. “Just let it take you, Preppy.”
Paralysis crawls up my body—cold, slick, merciless. My limbs turn from muscle to concrete slabs.
Not heavy—just gone.
Disconnected.
Like someone cut the wires between my brain and the rest of me, and now I’m trapped inside myself with no exit.
I try to lift my hand.
Try to twitch a finger.
Try to scratch at the floor, at the air—anything.
I can feel my heartbeat slowing, each pump of blood becoming more labored. My vision starts to tunnel, darkness creeping in from the edges like a closing iris. The paralysis is complete and terrifying.
My eyelids feel like they weigh a thousand pounds, but I force them to stay open through sheer willpower.
I can't close them.
I can't let this happen.
I have to stay awake, I have to protect Jake.
Nothing. Not even a flicker.
My heart stutters—once, twice—slowing like it’s trudging through wet cement.
My vision tunnels, shrinking the world into a dark, suffocating pinhole. I keep my eyes open by sheer rage, by sheer need, by the one thought still screaming in my skull:
Don’t go under. Jake still needs you.
But fentanyl doesn’t care. It kills one system at a time like a patient executioner.
Through the haze, I hear Jake groan—a broken, wet sound that slashes through my chemical fog like a blade. The drug whispers that it would be so easy to just let go, but I know what this is—the devil doesn't need to make you evil to destroy you.
He just needs to make you quit.
I try to scream his name, try to tell him to stay down, to play dead, anything to keep Monty from noticing he's conscious. But my vocal cords won't respond. All I can do is watch in horror as Jake struggles to his knees, his head is bleeding and he looks as pale as a ghost.
Monty turns at the sound and smiles.
Move, now! Get the fuck up Nate!
Nothing but silence from my body.
I forget about the knife wound in my side until I feel a sudden throb, but even that pain feels distant now. I can feel blood seeping out, warm and sticky against my shirt, but I can't do anything about it.
Can't press my hand to the wound, can't call for help, can't even shift my weight to slow the bleeding.
I somehow manage to turn my head to see Jake and instead of backing away, something changes in his expression.
Pure rage.
Pure determination.
Despite the blood loss, despite his wounds, he launches himself at Monty with everything he has left.
No!
I watch in horror as my little brother claws at Monty's face. His fingers rake across skin, drawing blood, and for a moment I think he might actually hurt the bastard.
But Jake's weakened from blood loss, and Monty recovers quickly, shoving him back.
It happens quickly.
The sound doesn't just hit my ears—it detonates inside my skull, inside my chest, inside every cell of my being.
Time fractures.
The world splits in half.
Everything that came before this moment becomes meaningless, and everything that comes after becomes unthinkable.
I watch Jake's body jerk from the impact, watch him double over as the bullet tears through his abdomen, and something inside me breaks so completely that I can feel the pieces scattering through my bloodstream like glass.
But I can't move.
Can't scream.
Can't do anything but lie here, paralyzed, as my little brother crumples to the floor and starts dying six feet away from me.
The fentanyl has turned my body into a tomb, but my mind—my mind is hyperaware, crystal clear, recording every horrific detail with surgical precision.
I can hear the exact sound Jake makes when he hits the ground—a soft, wet thud that will echo in whatever's left of my soul forever. I can see the exact way his hands move to the wound, trying to hold himself together, trying to stop the bleeding that's already soaking through his shirt.
I can see his eyes find mine across the room, and they're so full of pain and fear and apology that I want to tear my own heart out just to make it stop.
This is what hell actually is—not fire and brimstone, but being forced to watch the person you love most die while being completely powerless to help them.
Being conscious enough to understand what's happening but paralyzed enough to be useless.
His eyes hold mine and it’s almost like I can hear his thoughts.
I'm sorry.
It's okay.
No, this isn't happening.
This can't be happening. My body doesn't even acknowledge the screaming in my head.
Monty raises the gun, pointing it directly at Jake's chest.
"Nothing personal, kid. Just business."
The gun goes off, again.
The sound is apocalyptic, a crack that splits my world in half and echoes in the empty space where my heart used to be.
For a moment, everything stops.
My failing heart stops.
The universe holds its breath and watches as the other half of my soul is ripped away. The pain that tears through me is beyond description.
It's not just grief—it's amputation without anesthesia.
JAKE!
I scream, but the sound never leaves my throat.
NO!
I watch the light fade from his eyes, watch his chest rise and fall in increasingly shallow breaths, watch the blood pool beneath him like spilled wine.
I can't reach him.
I can't hold him as he dies.
I can't tell him that every sacrifice I made was worth it because it kept him safe for just a little longer.
I can't tell him that I'm proud of him, that he deserved so much better than the hand we were dealt.
I can't tell him that I love him. That I've always loved him.
That he was never the burden I sometimes made him feel like he was.
The tears come then, hot and unstoppable, the only part of my body that still seems to be working. They cut tracks down my cheeks as I watch his blood pool on the concrete floor.
I want to join him.
I want to close my eyes and let the fentanyl finish what it started, because I don’t want to know a world without my little brother in it. The smell hits me then, cutting through the fog of grief and chemicals.
Sharp and acrid, burning my nostrils.
Petrol.
Monty moves around the room with practiced efficiency, splashing liquid from a red canister onto the walls, the floor, Jake's still form. The fumes mix with the fentanyl in my system, making my already compromised breathing even more labored.
He's going to burn the evidence.
Burn us both and make it look like an accident.
"Two brothers, fuelled by a hatred that runs bone deep," Monty mutters as he works. "Tragic, really. The fire probably started from a dropped cigarette, you still smoke don’t you Preppy?"
Then comes the scratch of a match, and suddenly the air erupts in orange light and heat and the hungry roar of flames consuming everything in their path.
The fire spreads with horrifying speed, racing up the walls like it’s alive, like it’s starving. The heat hits me in waves, each one sharper than the last, but I barely register it through the chemical numbness settling deep in my veins.
My nervous system is shot. Fried past the point of warning signals. Pain becomes a distant concept, something that happens to other people.
There you are, the Devil murmurs, soft as a breath against my ear.
I wondered how long you’d keep me locked up this time.
Smoke pours from the flames, thick and black and poisonous, rolling along the ceiling in dark rivers before sinking down into my lungs.
Every breath is heavier than the last.
Relax, the voice says. You don’t need oxygen where you’re going.
My respiratory system—already failing from the fentanyl—starts to shut down completely. Each inhale feels optional now, like my body’s forgetting the habit.
This is how it ends.
In fire.
In smoke.
In the taste of my own failure coating the back of my tongue.
Poetic, really, the Devil hums. You both going together.
The flames reach Jake first.
I force myself to watch, I don’t look away.
I won’t give myself that mercy.
If this is the price of my failure, I’ll pay it with my eyes open. The fire curls around his still body, dancing like it’s celebrating, like it finally won something it’s been chasing for years.
See? the voice whispers. You couldn’t save him then and you can’t save him now. At least you’re consistent.
I can’t tell if the wetness on my face is sweat or tears, they feel the same in this heat. The building groans around us, a deep, wounded sound, like it knows it’s dying too.
Beams crack, walls bow.
Soon the whole place will come down, burying us both in burning rubble.
Maybe that’s justice.
Maybe that’s balance.
Maybe, the Devil whispers, this is what atonement looks like for someone like you.
The heat is unbearable now.
The smoke is so thick Jake starts to disappear, his outline dissolving into shadow and flame. My vision tunnels, black creeping in from the edges, whether from the drugs or the smoke or both, I don’t know.
Don’t fight it, the voice croons. You’re tired. Haven’t you done enough?
I keep my eyes on him anyway, even as the world blurs.
Even as my body gives up.
I whisper everything I never said, everything I thought I’d have more time for, my words swallowed by the roar of the fire.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe. “I’m so fucking sorry. For all of it.”
He can’t hear you, the Devil says. But I can.
The flames reach for me with greedy, familiar hands. Heat wraps around my skin.
Smoke floods my chest so I finally close my eyes, surrendering to the dark as it finally pulls me under.
If there’s anything left on the other side, I hope it’s him.
And if there isn’t—
At least the Devil won’t be alone anymore.