NIGHTSHADE
Raven
Somehow, I feel even worse than I did the last time I woke up. Which is saying something, considering I was already miserable.
My body feels like it’s been put through a meat grinder, every muscle feels weighed down, every nerve sparking with dull, aching protest. My mind is thick with fog, like it’s stuck buffering.
It’s dark outside now. Shit.
My pulse spikes. How long have I been out for?
And I still don’t have my phone. Double shit.
My throat feels like I’ve been stranded in the desert for days, and I swear my tongue might just crumble to dust. I reach for the glass of water sitting on the table, but even that tiny movement sends a fresh wave of pain rolling through me.
This is not great. Not great at all.
Before I can force myself to move any further, I hear something. Soft footsteps coming from the other room. My spine stiffens, but before I can decide whether to play dead or throw hands, Mike walks in.
Right. Mike.
I blink, caught off guard as he offers an easy, practiced smile. “Raven, how are you feeling?”
Like I got hit by a truck, thrown into a blender, and set on fire.
I clear my throat. “Much better, thanks.” Lies. All lies. “But I really should be going. I had plans, and I'm afraid I might’ve missed them. Did you find my phone by any chance?”
His expression doesn’t shift. But it still sets off every instinct screaming at me to get the hell out of here.
“Of course.” He crosses the room, picks up my phone, and hands it to me.
I press the button. Dead of course.
Really? You couldn’t have plugged it in? I bite my tongue, swallowing down the irritation clawing up my throat.
He watches me carefully, his gaze lingering a second too long. “Are you sure you’re up for leaving? You can stay, really. Head out in the morning.”
He chuckles, “This isn’t exactly how I pictured our first date going.”
I force out a little laugh, even as my body screams at me for it. Everything about this feels wrong. The timing. The words. Everything.
“Don’t worry, this doesn’t count as a date,” I say, plastering on a half-smile.
“I should hope not.” He grins, pulling out his phone. “I’ll have the car brought around.
My instincts are screaming at me.
Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve spent an entire day knocked out in a stranger’s house with zero contact with the outside world.
Maybe it’s the lingering nausea, or the way my limbs feel like they’re on fire.
Or maybe it’s the fact that every single moment since I woke up has been dripping in wrongness.
Either way, I’ll feel a hell of a lot better once I’m anywhere but here.
I push myself up, still a little unsteady, and Mike is instantly there.
“Are you sure you’re okay, love?”
I nod quickly, forcing a chuckle. “Yeah, my leg was just asleep.” I shake it out, hoping he buys it. Hoping he doesn’t notice the way I have to fight to stay upright as the nausea claws up my throat.
By the time we make it outside, the car is already waiting. Thank God.
I exhale, as relief washes over me. “Thanks again, for everything.” I climb into the car as fast as I can without actually making it look like I’m running
Mike holds my gaze a second too long before shutting the door. “Feel better.”
The car pulls away, and the knot in my stomach tightens. The house disappears behind a veil of rain, swallowed by rolling hills and endless, stretching blackness.
Where the hell even am I?
I squint past the sheets of rain battering the glass, trying to make sense of the landscape. But all I catch are glimpses of trees bending under the wind's wrath. No buildings. No lights. No signs of civilization.
How was this place closer than a hospital? That logic makes no damn sense.
The farther we drive, the heavier the exhaustion drags at my bones.
At first I chalked it up to low blood sugar. Maybe dehydration. Hell, maybe I just had food poisoning. But now? Now I’m not really sure anymore.
My thoughts race through every possibility. Magic shouldn’t feel like this. Cam never mentioned anything about side effects, aside from burn out. And I didn’t even use any magic. Not since I got back. So why does it feel like my body is shutting down?
The rain intensifies, pounding against the windshield in relentless waves as the wipers struggle to keep up, their frantic rhythm slicing through the silence.
My fingers tighten against my thighs. Something isn’t right. The storm feels… off. Like it knows something I don’t.
It’s not just the storm, or the way the trees blur past in a dizzying streak of darkness. It’s not even the exhaustion dragging at my limbs. It’s more than that.
I reach for my magic, searching for that familiar pulse, the constant hum that has always been there even when I ignored it. It slips through my grasp like smoke. Every time I try, it feels further away, like something is dragging it beyond my reach.
I don’t know how long we’ve been driving when suddenly–everything stops.
Tires shriek against the pavement, the sound tearing through the storm like a scream. Then all I see is a blinding flash that sears my vision. The world narrows to a single, deafening instant before it implodes.
Impact.
Metal contorts around me, twisting with a sharp, earsplitting shriek.
Glass explodes in a violent spray, slicing through the air.
The car lurches, gravity surrendering to chaos as we spin.
My stomach drops, a sickening freefall that sends my head snapping forward, then back, the seatbelt locking like a vice against my ribs.
The world tumbles, a disorienting blur of darkness and motion. A rush of sound–metal grinding, glass shattering, my own breath torn from my lungs. The force of it all drowns out thought, replacing it with pure, unrelenting sensation.
Then there’s nothing but stillness.
A sharp, high-pitched ringing fills my ears, relentless and all consuming, swallowing the fractured remains of the night. Distantly, a horn blares, muffled, almost unreal. For a moment, I might as well be underwater.
I inhale, shallow and pained. My ribs protest with a sharp, searing ache. Cold presses in from all sides, the sting of shattered glass embedded in my skin. My head pounds with a brutal, unrelenting rhythm, drowning out reason, making it hard to tell if I’m even fully conscious.
We’re upside down.
The realization drags through my mind, slow and thick like honey. My limbs feel disconnected, heavy with exhaustion. The seatbelt keeps me suspended, its tight grip biting deep, it’s the only thing keeping me from collapsing into the wreckage below.
A sharp metallic taste coats my tongue. Something warm snakes down my temple. My fingers tremble as I reach up, sluggish and uncoordinated, and the second they press against my skin, they come back slick and sticky, covered in blood.
I’m alive. For now.
The thought barely registers before urgency claws at my chest, pushing through the haze. Every muscle screams at me in protest as I force my hands toward the seatbelt. My fingers slip against the buckle, shaking too much to get a grip. Come on. Another attempt, come on, damn it.
Click.
Gravity takes hold, and I drop.
Pain flares through my side as I slam against the crumpled roof, the jagged remains of the windshield biting into my palms. The sharp sting barely registers beneath the deeper, pulsing ache spreading through my body.
The air is thick with the scent of gasoline and scorched rubber. But beneath it, something else lingers.
My pulse stumbles, the world is swimming as I force myself to turn. The wreckage tilts in my vision, though I know it’s not moving.
The driver is slumped against the wheel, his body eerily still and his face is turned just enough for me to see the gash splitting across his forehead. Blood seeps down his skin in slow, deliberate lines, pooling on the roof. The sight cuts through the numbness, sinking straight into my gut.
A new kind of fear grips me, one that has nothing to do with the wreckage around us.
The ringing in my ears fades, but the silence left in its wake is worse. A sound filters in, one that doesn’t belong to the wreckage or the storm. Footsteps. Slow and heavy crunching on the glass.
My breath stills. Someone is out there. Every instinct I have screams that whoever is out there isn’t here to help.
I don’t know how I know that, but I just do.
A cold, primal fear coils through my body, but I can’t move. Panic grips me, my limbs trapped under the weight of exhaustion and pain, my muscles refusing to cooperate. My fingers twitch against the jagged shards of glass beneath the weight of exhaustion and pain.
A shadow stretches through the wreckage, and my pulse stumbles. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe help has found me. Maybe this nightmare is over.
I part my lips, ready to call out, to beg for help…
But nothing comes.
My voice lodges in my throat, as if my body already knows what my mind refuses to accept.
A gunshot shatters the night.
The driver's body jerks violently as blood sprays across the interior, streaking the shattered glass. The warmth splatters across my face, coating my arms and soaking into my clothes. My stomach lurches, the world tilting as my vision darkens at the edges.
Oh. My. God.
A scream claws up my throat, but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.
Only silence.
Then a rough grip clamps around my arm, and before I can react, I'm yanked through the shattered window. The jagged glass slicing into my skin as I’m dragged from the wreckage like I weigh nothing at all.
Pain detonates through my body, sharp at first, then dulling to something distant, blurred at the edges, just out of reach. My limbs feel wrong, disconnected, as if they belong to someone else. My strength is a flickering candle, struggling against the wind, threatening to snuff out entirely.
My feet barely touch the ground before my legs give out. The earth tilts and my stomach heaves as I collapse beneath the weight of exhaustion and shock.
But I don’t get the chance to fall.