Chapter 9
Pain is loud at first. Then it isn’t.
The world flickers. I taste iron. My lungs burn. My chest feels tight, thick, wrong. Breathing becomes something distant, something I have to remember how to do.
Cason is here. Covered in my blood. Screaming. Tears track down his cheeks, and I want to make them disappear.
I want to tell him it’s okay. I want to tell him I’m sorry.
He’s taken away, and the world starts fading around the edges. Voices drift over me, no longer with any sense of urgency. They’re detached, bored.
“Let him flatline.”
It’s a man’s voice. Calm, cold, emotionless.
“Let him die.”
I try to fight it. I try to hold on. My body won’t listen. The dark closes in, swallowing the light, the pain, the sound.
It pulls me under.
And I can’t stop it.