Chapter 7 Rowan #2
My breath catches in my throat, and I keep moving. The next intersection appears too quickly. Another red light. Another stream of vehicles. I slam the horn again, even though it’s already blaring, the sound warping into frantic pulses as my hand shakes against it.
I yank the parking brake again, harder this time, ignoring the warning in my mind about locking the rear wheels. The car fishtails, the rear end snapping out. I correct, then overcorrect. The world tilts. The lines on the road smear into white streaks.
A truck enters the intersection from my right, large and unavoidable, its tires rolling slowly and heavily. I can’t stop. I can’t clear it safely. I choose impact.
I crank the wheel left, aiming away from the truck and toward the curb and parked cars where the collateral is metal, not a human body. The car bounces over the curb with a jolt that rattles my teeth. My hands strain against the wheel as the suspension screams in protest.
A parked car fills my windshield. There’s no room to adjust. The crash hits like a concussion through the vehicle's frame.
Metal shrieks. Glass explodes. My head snaps forward, then back, then to the side as the airbags detonate with a violent punch, the powdery smell of propellant filling my nose and mouth.
The seatbelt locks hard across my shoulder and ribs, stealing my breath.
Pain blooms across my forehead and cheek in quick, hot pulses.
The world turns into a roar, then into a muffled ringing, then into silence.
My hands slide off the steering wheel. My fingers feel distant. My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. The last thing I see is the windshield fractured into a spiderweb of white lines, the morning light broken into pieces. Then everything goes black.
Voices drag me back first. Not words I can place, just the cadence of urgency, layered with the familiar tones of a hospital environment. The smell hits next. Antiseptic. Alcohol wipes. That faint metallic edge that never fully leaves an ER.
My eyelids feel glued together, but I force them open. White ceiling tiles. Fluorescent lights. Curtain tracks. A monitor to my left with a green line crawling across the screen in consistent peaks. A blood pressure cuff around my upper arm, squeezing rhythmically.
I attempt to lift my head, and pain slices through my forehead, down the side of my face, and into my jaw. My stomach rolls.
“Ro, don’t move,” a voice orders, firm and close.
Ethan.
The sound of his voice makes the room snap into focus.
My brother stands at the foot of the bed, still in his EMT uniform, his navy shirt wrinkled and damp with sweat.
His sandy-brown hair sticks up like he has run his hands through it too many times.
His eyes are bright, wide, and fixed on my face, his chest rising and falling as if he ran up the stairs two at a time.
He grips the bed rail with both hands, his fingers white where they wrap around the metal. His whole body holds tension, as if he’s keeping himself in place by force.
“Rowan,” he repeats, softer this time, as if volume might break me. “Look at me. Tell me you can see me.”
“I can see you,” I manage, my voice rough, and my throat dry. The words scratch on the way out.
His jaw tightens, a muscle jumping near his cheekbone. He leans closer, his eyes scanning my face like he’s doing his own assessment. “You scared the hell out of me.”
I try to swallow and regret it immediately. Pain tugs at my cheek. My tongue finds the edge of a split in my lip.
“There’s a gash on your forehead,” he adds, his voice straining. “Your cheek is cut too. You hit those cars pretty hard.”
I blink slowly, trying to get my bearings.
The room is a trauma bay. It’s clear from the equipment, the layout, and the sounds beyond the curtains.
I can hear a distant overhead page and the roll of a gurney passing in the hallway.
The fact that I recognize it all feels surreal, like waking up in your own house after someone else rearranged the furniture.
A woman moves into my line of sight, pushing the curtain aside with her hip.
Lila.
Her hair is pulled back, but a few dark curls cling to the sides of her face. Her expression is focused, but the tension around her eyes gives away how worried she is. She’s wearing gloves and holding gauze in one hand, a suture kit open on the tray beside her.
“Welcome back,” she tells me, her voice light in a way that attempts comfort without stepping on seriousness. “You look like you lost a fight with a steering wheel.”
I attempt a breath that might be a laugh and wince instead.
Lila steps closer, her eyes scanning my injuries. “I’m going to clean this up. It’ll sting.”
“Do it,” I reply, trying to sound normal and match her calm.
Ethan moves at the foot of the bed, his body angling toward Lila like he’s ready to challenge her competence, which is ridiculous because he knows her.
He also knows she’s good. His agitation has nothing to do with skill and everything to do with the fact that I’m on a gurney instead of in my kitchen.
“How bad,” he asks, his voice clipped.
Lila glances at him, then back at me. “Seatbelt bruising across her chest and shoulder. Laceration to the forehead, another along the cheek. Likely muscle strain in the neck.” Her fingers pause briefly at my temple before she straightens.
“She has a concussion. No obvious neurological deficits so far, but the CT is already ordered to rule out internal bleeding or other injuries. I don’t take chances with head trauma. ”
Ethan’s throat works as he swallows. He drags a hand over his face, then drops it, unable to hold still. “She was awake at the scene but disoriented. The airbags deployed. The car is totaled.”
“Ethan,” I murmur, trying to reassure him, “I’m here. I’m alive.”
His eyes snap to mine, and for a moment, I see the seven-year-old version of him, terrified and furious at the world for taking our dad. Then he forces a breath and nods once, hard, like he’s agreeing with me because he has no other option.
Lila moves to my forehead and begins cleaning the cut. The antiseptic burns and I hiss through my teeth. She keeps a hand on my temple, gentle but firm, controlling my movement without making it feel like restraint.
“You keep doing reckless things,” she murmurs. “Do you realize that?”
“I drove to work,” I answer, my voice strained. “That’s not reckless. That’s normal.”
“Sure,” she replies, dryly. “Normal people don’t turn intersections into demolition derbies.”
Ethan lets out a short breath that might have been a laugh on another day. Today, it comes out like a broken sound.
Lila’s hands remain fast and precise. She irrigates the wound, checks the depth, and then begins suturing. I stare at the ceiling and focus on breathing through my nose, slow and even, giving my body a rhythm to follow.
My cheek gets the same treatment. The cuts sting, then numb as the local anesthetic takes effect. Lila works with her usual competence, but her eyes keep darting to mine, checking me, reading my face.
When she finishes, she pulls off her gloves and drops them into the bin. “I need to check on a patient in the next bay,” she tells me, and her voice softens a fraction. “Don’t move around too much until imaging comes back. I mean it.”
Her attention moves to Ethan, and her expression softens as she steps closer and touches his shoulder. “I’m glad you were the one who responded to the call.”
Ethan’s mouth tightens. He nods once, but he doesn’t look comforted.
Lila looks back at me. “I’ll be nearby,” she promises, then pushes the curtain aside and steps out.
The moment she leaves, the air in the bay changes. The sounds of the ER remain, but the immediate buffer of her presence is gone. Ethan steps closer, his eyes locked on my face. His hands are still on the bedrail, but now his grip loosens slightly, as if he can finally breathe.
“What happened?” he demands, and the demand isn’t about curiosity. It’s about control. He needs to understand the threat so he can fight it.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “I tried to stop at a red light, but the brakes didn’t work.”
He stares at me, processing. “Mechanical failure?”
“That’s what it felt like.”
His gaze drops to my face and the fresh sutures on my cheek and forehead. His jaw flexes, anger surfacing in his eyes.
“I asked the cop at the scene if they saw skid marks,” he mutters. “There weren’t any. Not where you would expect them.”
My stomach tightens again, not from nausea this time. “Ethan.”
He shakes his head once, fast. “No. Let me finish. I checked your car last week, Ro. You complained about the mess, and I helped you clean out the cups and junk. I remember looking at your tires. I checked your brake fluid reservoir. It looked fine. You haven’t complained about braking issues. Nothing spongy or weird.”
My pulse climbs, and my hands feel cold.
I lower my voice. “The pedal went to the floor.”
His eyes narrow. “That doesn’t happen out of nowhere.”
I stare at the ceiling for a second, then look back at him. “I didn’t want to mention it while Lila was in here.”
He pauses, then understands immediately. He draws a slow breath through his nose and nods once, agitation returning at full volume. “You didn’t want her to panic.”
“I didn’t want her to start connecting the dots out loud where anyone could hear,” I reply, and as the words leave my mouth, I realize I’ve been thinking like someone under surveillance.
Ethan’s posture stiffens. “You think it was on purpose.”
“I don’t know,” I answer, forcing honesty even though it tastes awful. “I only know how it felt.”
He drags a hand through his hair, his fingers trembling. “The note. And the apartment door.”
My throat tightens. The compromised lock. The subtle misalignment. The sensation that my space had been tested.
“I don’t want to overreact.”