Where Your Scars Meet Mine (The Shadows of Darkness Universe #4)

Octavia

It’s terrifying, really, how calm I feel.

Not the peaceful type of calm. Not soft.

Not gentle. This is a hollow kind of calm, the kind that creeps in after too much screaming, after too many nights spent bracing for impact.

It settles into my bones like it belongs there, like it has been waiting patiently for its turn.

My world is cracking open right in front of me, and instead of shattering with it, I am sitting here. ..watching.

The panic is still there. I can feel it hovering at the edges of my skin, prickling, trying to claw its way back in.

My heart is pounding hard enough that I can hear it in my ears.

But beneath it, under the fear and the shock and the metallic smell of this godforsaken motel room, there is something else.

Relief.

That’s the part that makes me sick.

I should feel guilty about the calm spreading through me, about the way my breathing has evened out while hers stutters and breaks.

I should feel guilty that my tears have stopped.

Minutes ago I was sobbing so hard I could barely see her face, my hands slipping against her sternum as I pushed down again and again, counting compressions like they showed us in school.

Now my cheeks are dry. My eyes burn, but nothing falls.

I should feel downright sinful that I stopped pressing on her chest.

My arms gave out first. They were shaking so badly I thought they might snap.

Thirty compressions. Tilt her head back.

Try to force air into lungs that have been drowning in smoke and pills and cheap liquor for years.

I did it over and over, my palms bruising against her ribs, listening to that wet, horrible sound in her throat.

And then, at some point, I just… stopped.

Now I’m sitting back on my heels, watching her.

Her pupils are blown wide, swallowing the color of her eyes until they look almost black.

They stare past me, unfocused, like she’s already looking at something I can’t see.

Her mouth is open. Her lips are tinged blue at the edges.

Every breath she drags in rattles, thick and desperate, like her body is fighting a battle her mind has already abandoned.

Her phone lies on the nightstand, screen cracked, lighting up the peeling wallpaper with a sickly glow. The 911 operator is still on the line. I can hear her voice faintly through the speaker, strained and sharp.

“Octavia? Stay with me. Are you still there? Is she breathing?”

I haven’t answered in minutes.

I imagine the woman on the other end running through scenarios in her head.

A teenage girl in a motel room. An unconscious mother.

Silence. She’s probably wondering if I collapsed too.

If I took something. If my mother hurt me before she went down.

If there’s someone else in here with us, someone dangerous.

But there’s no one else.

No dealer lurking in the bathroom. No boyfriend hiding in the shadows. No stranger at the door.

It’s just us.

It’s always just us.

My mother and me, trapped in the same cycle we’ve been spinning in since I was old enough to understand what a bottle was.

Ambulances in the parking lot. Paramedics pushing past me like I’m furniture.

Neighbors peeking through curtains. Her waking up hours later in a hospital bed, squeezing my hand, whispering apologies that never make it past sunrise.

She always promises it will be different.

It never is.

The room smells like mildew and old cigarettes.

The carpet is damp under my knees. The air conditioner rattles uselessly in the window, pushing out lukewarm air that does nothing to cut through the heaviness pressing down on my chest. Somewhere outside, a car door slams. Life is still going on, just a few feet away from this room where mine feels like it’s folding in on itself.

Her breathing grows weaker. Each inhale is thinner than the last, stretching longer between them. I know what that means. I’ve seen it before, just not this bad. Not this final.

I could start compressions again.

I could lean forward and push down until my arms go numb. I could count out loud, force air into her lungs, beg her to stay. I could scream at the operator to send someone faster. I could try to be the daughter who never gives up.

But my body won’t move.

Because somewhere deep inside me, in a place I don’t want to look at too closely, I know that if she survives this, nothing changes.

We’ll pack up whatever fits into trash bags and move on to the next motel, the next town.

She’ll cry and swear she’s done. She’ll hold my face and tell me I’m all she has.

And I’ll believe her, because I always do.

Then the pills will come back.

The bottles.

The men.

Another night where I am the one keeping track of her breathing. Another morning where I’m the one cleaning up the mess.

I am so tired of being the adult.

The operator’s voice grows distant, fading into background noise. My heartbeat has slowed, steadied, almost matching the rhythm of the rattling breaths in front of me. I stare at her chest, watching it rise and fall, rise and fall, each movement smaller than the last.

I’m not screaming anymore.

I’m not praying.

I’m not even waiting for the sirens.

As I sit there on the stained carpet, staring at the woman who gave me life and slowly watching that life slip away, I realize the truth that will probably haunt me forever.

I’m not hoping the paramedics get here in time.

I’m hoping this ends.

She got bold this time.

Fentanyl.

Not even the slow, tragic spiral of her usual heroin ritual. This was Russian roulette in powder form. Cheap and fast. A downgrade, somehow, from the poison she normally slid into her veins like a lover she trusted.

I guess even addiction has a budget.

Maybe money finally ran dry. Maybe her dealer stopped accepting whatever she was offering to make up the difference when her pockets came up empty. Maybe she got tired of bargaining with her body...bargaining with my body.

“Oc-” she gasps, the syllable scraping out of her like broken glass.

Her hand shoots out and clamps around my wrist. For a second I’m startled by how strong she still is. Her nails bite into my skin, crescent moons carving themselves into me, but the pain barely registers. I’ve felt worse from her. I’ve felt worse at her best.

I’m drenched in sweat from trying to bring her back. My arms ache from crushing my palms into her chest. My lungs burn from forcing breath into hers. I stare down at her, my vision swimming, and I can’t help thinking about how many times I looked up at her like this.

Terrified.

How many times did I look at her with wide, pleading eyes while she stood over me, drunk and righteous, talking about penance and discipline like she was some holy martyr instead of a woman with her fist buried in my hair?

She loved those words. Rolled them around in her mouth like scripture.

Discipline. Penance. As if dragging me across the carpet by my scalp was a lesson.

As if pressing my face against the floor and asking me what her knockoff Louboutins tasted like was spiritual guidance.

“Octavia,” she finally forces out, tugging me closer with the last scraps of her strength. Her breath reeks of chemicals and bile. “Narcan,” she sputters, her eyes darting toward her purse. Her hand twitches in that direction, fingers shaking, useless.

Of course she has Narcan.

She must have taken the fentanyl in the bath.

That’s her style. Lock the door. Turn on the water.

Let the steam swallow the smell. Minutes after she tossed that greasy diner food onto my bed like she’d done me a favor.

Stolen, probably. The fries are still cold beside me, salt sticking to my fingers from where I grabbed a few before she stumbled out.

She came out in nothing but a towel, skin slick with soap, hair dripping, eyes already unfocused.

She barely made it three steps before she started gasping.

She dragged me off the bed with her when she fell, fries spilling across the comforter, my mouth still full of them when I realized what was happening.

Now she’s seated beside me on the floor, digging her nails deeper into my wrist. The skin splits under the pressure. I flinch, but that’s all she gets from me.

“Since when do you prepare?” I scoff, the sound hollow even to my own ears. My eyes blur, not with tears this time, but exhaustion. “You don’t prepare. You improvise.”

“Get me the fucking-” she wheezes, choking on the air that won’t fill her lungs. “Narcan-”

The word hangs there between us.

All I have to do is reach into her purse.

It’s right there. Half unzipped. Lipstick rolling near the edge. A crumpled receipt. The bright orange case would be easy to find.

“No,” I whisper.

The word feels foreign in my mouth.

I pull my wrist back slightly, testing her grip. “No,” I repeat, stronger this time, the finality of it settling into the room like dust.

Her eyes widen. For a second, clarity slices through the haze. Her nails press harder, as if she can claw obedience back into me.

“Y-you-” she gurgles, foam catching at the corner of her mouth. “You d-”

The rest disappears when her eyes roll back. The insult dies on her tongue.

Disappointment?

Dickhead?

Dark-hearted?

I’ll never know.

I tug my arm free when her grip loosens, scrambling backward until my spine hits the bed frame. I stare at the angry red indents blooming across my wrist, tiny beads of blood rising where her nails pierced skin.

Another scar for the collection.

Even in her final moments, she leaves her mark on me.

Her body jerks once, twice. The gurgling sound grows wetter...weaker. I watch her chest rise and fall, each movement smaller than the last, like a wave pulling back from shore for the final time.

Then it stops.

No dramatic gasp. No cinematic last breath.

Just stillness.

The motel room fills with the low hum of the ice machine outside and the faint rattle of the air conditioner. I stare at her eyes, still half-open, hazy and drugged, fixed on nothing.

My stomach churns. Not from grief. From hunger.

My breathing comes fast and shallow. My hands shake, but not enough to stop me when I push myself to my feet. I look at the half-eaten food scattered on the bed. The stolen diner bag. The crumpled napkins. The fries are cold and limp now.

Without thinking, I sit down.

Her body is still on the floor a few feet away. I can see her from the corner of my eye. I reach into the bag and shovel a handful of fries into my mouth, chewing mechanically. Salt and grease. Stale and cold.

“You could’ve waited until after dinner,” I mutter, my voice flat.

Outside, sirens finally wail in the distance. Blue and red lights begin to flash through the thin motel curtains, washing over the walls in violent color. The lights slide across her face, turning her skin purple, then red, then blue again.

They catch my reflection in the window.

For a split second, it’s hard to tell where her face ends and mine begins.

The banging starts a few minutes later, hard and urgent, the kind that rattles the cheap frame and makes the whole door shudder in its hinges.

“Police! Open the door!”

Their voices cut through the room, sharp and commanding, slicing into the quiet that settled after her last breath. I drop the fry still in my hand. It lands on the carpet beside her body. For a second, I just stare at it. Then I push myself up, my legs unsteady but obedient.

Another bang, louder this time.

“I said open the door!”

I move slowly, like I’m walking underwater.

My fingers find the lock. I slide it open with a soft metallic click that feels far too small for what’s on the other side.

When I pull the door back, two officers stand there, shoulders squared, hands hovering near their weapons like they’re expecting a threat.

All they see is me.

One of them scans over my shoulder, taking in the room. The body on the floor. The purse spilled open. The flashing red and blue lights bouncing off stained wallpaper.

“The kid’s alive,” he shouts over his shoulder, and before I can process the words, his hand is on my arm.

Not rough. Not gentle either. Just firm.

He pulls me out into the night air, guiding me past the threshold like I might shatter if left inside too long. The other officer rushes past me, disappearing into the room where my mother lies.

The cold hits my damp skin. I hadn’t realized how hot the room had been until now. Sirens scream. Neighbors peek out from behind curtains and cracked doors. The whole motel parking lot is bathed in spinning red and blue light, everything pulsing like a heartbeat.

Paramedics swarm me almost instantly.

“Hey, hey, sweetheart, look at me.”

Hands guide me toward the ambulance. I don’t fight. I don’t resist. I let them sit me down on the edge of the open doors. The interior smells sterile, so different from the mildew I just stepped out of.

A flashlight beams into my eyes. I blink against it.

“What’s your name?”

“Do you know where you are?”

“Did you take anything tonight?”

Their questions pile on top of each other, fast and clinical. A blood pressure cuff tightens around my arm. Fingers press against my neck, checking my pulse. Someone gently lifts my injured wrist, examining the crescent cuts where her nails broke skin.

But none of it really lands.

The only question that cuts through the noise comes softer than the rest.

“Are you alright, sweetie?”

The EMT holding my wrist looks at me like I’m something fragile. Like I might collapse at any second. Her thumb brushes near the bleeding marks, careful not to hurt me.

I look past her.

Past the ambulance.

Past the officers moving in and out of the room.

They’re working on my mother now. I can see the back of a paramedic kneeling over her. I know what they’re doing. Compressions. Oxygen. Procedures. Movements that feel almost theatrical at this point.

Too late.

I turn my eyes back to the EMT.

For a second, I think about lying. About breaking down. About giving them the version of me they expect to see. The hysterical daughter. The grieving child.

Instead, I swallow.

“Yes,” I say, my voice steady, almost eerily so.

It surprises even me.

She studies my face, like she’s searching for cracks.

After a few seconds, I nod once more, slower this time, feeling the truth settle heavily into my chest.

“Yes,” I repeat quietly. “I finally think I am.”