Why is everyone around me crazy?
“You look pitiful,” Jade says as she crouches into view, head tilted like she’s studying a bug under a microscope. In this case, I’m the bug. When her eyes flash with calm calculation, my mind goes to Oliver.
Oliver.
Except Jade isn’t like him. Oliver has tells.
He has moments where something human slips through.
Jade has none of that. It's clear by every word, action, and movement. Maybe I should’ve known.
She drove for what felt like forever before finally stopping deep in the woods. Then the bitch made me walk.
I counted the steps. Four thousand, seven hundred twenty-three. I’m getting back to my family. To Oliver. One way or another. That meant remembering everything. The steps from her car. The sounds of the waves to my right. The large tree arched like a candy cane.
We’re in a cave now, somewhere on the beach. Jade built a fire small enough to see by, low enough to hide. The light flickers across the walls and makes shadows dance over her cruel face.
I’m on the ground, half propped against a rock, pain radiating through every inch of me. My chest is tight, and each inhale is a fight. I’m no doctor, but the taste of metal in my mouth can’t be a good sign. Most of all, my knee. Even through my torn jeans, the swelling is impossible to miss.
Still, I lift my eyes to her. “Are you going to tell me why you hate me so much? Why are you doing all of this?”
Jade sighs like my trauma is an inconvenience.
A cough rips through me, and pain shoots across my chest so hard my vision spots. “All of this…for what? The carnival, high school? Are you just fucking insane?” I laugh. “Actually, I know you are.”
Jade’s mouth twists. “You would know; you’re fucking a psychopath.”
I glare, my pain turning to white-hot anger. “Actually, we don't do labels.”
She straightens, setting a branch into the fire, its tip glowing red. “Oh yes, Oliver…that was unexpected.”
She brings it closer as I stay motionless, not taking my eyes off her. She presses the burning end to my side. I bite back a scream, twisting away and refusing to give her the satisfaction. “Enough about Oliver.”
Jade crouches again, close enough that I can see the flicker of pleasure in her eyes. “Let’s go back. When we were six. Your perfect young parents brought you into the home I lived in,” she continues, like she’s reciting a bedtime story. “There were five kids. Three girls. Two boys.”
Her gaze sharpens. “One of the girls ran right up to you. Me. I told you I wanted to be your sister and be best friends. We played all day together, but you kept wanting to go over to the boy because he looked sad.” She air quotes the last word like it's bad.
She pauses, looking away, lost in her own memories. “James. He was adopted. And I was left behind. After thinking all day, it would finally be me.”
Bitterness twists her features as I fight the tears pooling just behind my lids. “I don’t remember you,” I whisper. “I was six, Jade. A kid. Just like you, I didn't have a say.”
I do remember James though. Small and quiet, standing by the bookshelf. Separate from the rest of us.
Jade leans closer, voice dropping into a hiss.
“But you picked him. And I got nothing!” Her voice rises with every contorted memory.
Her smile turns sharp. “Foster homes. Abuse. Hunger. Being passed around like I didn’t matter.
And every time I thought I’d finally landed somewhere safe, it slipped out from under me. ”
My hand inches toward the rock near the fire, fingers trembling as they drag across the dirt. I have one chance. That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know where the gun is or the knife, but if I can get out of here, maybe I can hide.
“I ran. And I swore I’d find you again. Hurt you the way you hurt me.”
I hold my breath carefully, slowly, so she doesn’t hear it change.
“A family took me in when I was fifteen,” she continues, almost like she’s proud of herself for surviving.
“They loved me.” Her laugh is manic. “It didn’t fix anything.
It just showed me what you’ve got to have all along.
This has been building for a long time.”
My pulse pounds, but I keep my face blank. One second. One breath. I’m done with answers. I don’t care about her story anymore because this is my story.
I lift the rock with an arm that feels like it’s going to tear clean off my body and bring it down on Jade’s skull with everything I have left.
The impact is sickening, the crack echoing off the cave walls.
I watch her fall back hard, landing on her ass as blood immediately starts sliding down the side of her head.
Pain blurs into adrenaline so fast I can barely tell where one ends and the other begins. I turn from her and limp, dragging my injured leg through the dirt and leaves while my chest burns with every breath. I have one thought though. One over everything.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
I shove myself toward the cliffs, knowing I need something that isn’t open space, and the thick trees and rocks are the perfect cover. My hands scrape bark and wet earth as I climb. The cold air bites at my damp skin, making my teeth chatter and bones ache.
Jade’s voice carries through the trees behind me. “You can hide, but you can’t run, Lyra.”
I push deeper, scanning the dark underbrush until I find an alcove I passed on the way up. A shallow dip in the slope that’s shielded by fallen branches and clustered trees. I drag myself into it, wedging my body in so tight I can barely breathe, forcing my shoulders down and my legs in.
I stay still with my mouth clamped shut. My vision pulses at the edges. My body begs for sleep, for anything that isn’t this, but I refuse it. If I let go, I don’t know if I’ll come back.
“You little bitch.” There’s a pause, then a quiet, almost amused certainty. “You can’t walk out of the forest with those injuries. You’ll die before you make it anywhere.”
Her footsteps shift, scrape closer, then slowly pull away. I don’t move even when my muscles tremble, and my lungs burn with the need to breathe deeper. I only allow myself one full breath when the sound finally fades into nothing.
I don't remember the moment the world went black. But when I wake, it’s the cold that drags me back first. I open my eyes slowly, watching as light glints through the canopy, thin gold streaks cutting through mist and branches.
For a second, the contrast feels like a joke.
It should be beautiful. It should mean safety.
Instead, it just means time has passed, and I’m still here.
I shift an inch, biting down on my tongue so hard my mouth fills with copper.
My clothes are plastered to my skin, damp with salt air and blood.
Blinking feels like a chore, the world too far away.
My body won’t obey. My limbs feel like ice and lead at the same time.
For a terrifying second, the thought comes so clearly it feels like someone else put it in my head: Is this it?
Is this how I die? Curled up in the woods, weak and wounded, not fighting back like my family would want me to?
I close my eyes. If I keep them open, I’m going to cry, and crying feels like wasting energy I don’t have. Oliver’s face comes first, and the sorrow that follows is so sharp it splits right through the numbness.
We didn’t get enough time. We need more than stolen nights and promises that we hadn’t figured out. I don’t even know what I want to do after graduation. I wanted a family someday, and I wanted it with him.
Then my mom’s face flashes behind my eyes; my chest caves in, because this will destroy her, and my father will have to hold her together the way he always does.
My siblings will keep growing without me.
I won’t be there for any of it. The grief is unbearable.
I bite down on a sob, my body trembling with the effort.
The chill sinks deeper, draining what little strength I had left.
I try to tell myself to fight. To move. To do fucking anything, but my body doesn’t listen. The last thing I feel is the cold and the weight of everything I’m about to leave behind.