Chapter 20: You’re safe now

Everything felt warm at first, almost like a blanket.

My world was upside down, body hanging limp in the driver’s seat and held by the seatbelt. The Land Rover pressed against me in unnatural angles, metal groaning, glass biting into my arms. My head throbbed with the rhythm of blood pounding in my skull.

The pain was a step above unbearable. White, hot, searing.

When i managed to open my eyes, the light was harsh, beaming through the fractured windows. Blood pooled in my left eye. I could barely even see straight— fractured scenes of ruin etching into my mind.

Twisted metal, a shattered dashboard, wires snaking like exposed veins.

My only working eye narrowed.

The blonde woman was gone. Just… vanished. A part of me wanted relief. Another part panicked. I never wanted to know what part she’d run off to.

Then i heard it— a voice. Raw, strained, frantic.

“ADRIAN!! ADRIAN!!! I’M SO SORRY! PLEASE, BABY, STAY WITH ME!!!”

My ears barely caught it at first. Muffled, quivering, almost breaking my heart by the sheer panic in it. I turned my head with all the effort I could muster.

Lila.

Her face was streaked with tears and blood, glass digging into her palms, yet she didn’t flinch. She tore at the outside of the car like a woman possessed, determined to reach me no matter what. Her feral focus was terrifying. Her sobs, jagged, ragged, desperate— tethered me to life.

It was a stark contrast to how she was acting before.

My jaw refused to move, words caught in the wreckage that was my mind.

Dumbass. You’re the one who caused this.

I felt my consciousness drifting off as Lila’s voice grew more clearer, her movements becoming more frantic as she fought against the car’s ruins to get ahold of me.

In that moment, all I wanted to do was sleep.

Everything came back in pieces.

At first, it was just sound— the low, constant roar of tires rumbling across the asphalt. A steady vibration hummed through the seat beneath me, syncing with my heartbeat like some mechanical lullaby. My body felt heavy… drained… like someone had put cement blocks on my limbs.

Then, I heard it.

Soft. Humming. Familiar.

I forced my eyes open.

Lila sat beside me, hands steady on the wheel, a faint smile across her lips as she hummed a tune I couldn’t decipher. Her blonde hair stuck to her cheeks in tangled streaks of dried blood and sweat.

When she noticed I was awake, her eyes flicked from the road, and something warm lit up her face.

“My love—! I thought I’d lost you…”

Her free hand found mine, fingers sliding between my own like it was the most natural thing in the world. I tried to pull away, but my body didn’t respond. I was still too weak… or probably too scared.

“You’re safe now…”

Then everything hit me.

The set-up.

The chase.

The crash.

Her screams.

Metal crushing around me.

Memory slammed into me like a freight train.

I jerked upright, breath catching, a sharp pain spiking through my head. My hand flew to my temple as my vision swam.

Lila flinched. Her smile dimmed, her grip loosening just a little.

“A— are you okay??”

“The mission—…”

The words came out of me before I could stop them.

Her brows knit together, a flicker of hesitation crossing her features.

“What about the mission?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Terri, Aubrey, the others…”

Lila’s expression darkened. The air in the car shifted— thickening. Her eyes cut away from me, locking back on the road as her knuckles whitened against the steering wheel.

“They’re… um…”

She paused for too long.

Spit it out already, damn it.

“They’re dead.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I’m the only one who survived.”

Everything inside me went cold as I felt my vision tunneled once more.

“What…?”

My words felt strained, like I lost my voice.

But she wasn’t finished.

A strange, hopeful smile crept back onto her expression— gentle, serene.

“But that’s alright—!” she said brightly, squeezing my hand with sudden enthusiasm.

“It’s just gonna be me and you now, just like it was before. All we need is each other…”

Her thumb brushed my knuckles.

My eyes flickered towards Lila— scanning every micro expression I saw on her face.

Aubrey…her best friend since middle school, and she just suddenly claims she was dead without a second to linger in mourning?

You’d think after more than 2 years of being together, I was able to pinpoint the exact moment where she was lying.

I knew deep down. Yet, I didn’t say anything.

I drew a slow breath, my ribs grinding with the motion.

“Look, Lila…I— I need somewhere to stay for a bit,” I murmured, choosing my words carefully.

“Just take me back to the camp for now.”

Her reaction was instant.

“Sweetie, … I don’t— that’s not a good idea. Those people are psychos. They wanted you dead from the—”

“Lila, just listen to me for once in your life.”

Frustration had involuntarily spilled over.

She froze, fingers tightening around the steering wheel until the leather creaked.

“I just want some place to rest,” I whispered.

“Please.”

She sighed.

And for a moment, all I heard was the heavy drag of her breath— the kind that carried frustration, fear, and something darker that knotted low in my stomach.

Outside, the road hummed beneath us. Streetlights passed in slow, rhythmic flashes over her face, cutting her expression into alternating slices of shadow and gold. Her jaw clenched.

“We don’t stay long, alright? I’m not letting that scarred baldie near you again for a second.”

I didn’t answer.

It had been hours before we finally rolled into camp.

The moment the front tires climbed over the familiar dirt ridge, I felt anxiety crawl up my spine. The camp looked different now. More rugged, somehow more chaotic than the way we’d left it. Tents slumped in uneven rows. Tools were scattered across the ground. Smoke curled from a half-collapsed fire pit, its bitter burn stabbing straight up my nostrils and dragging me out of the fog of exhaustion.

It was like someone had been here.

The car barely stopped before people swarmed us.

Faces I recognized for the few days I had been here.

They looked way too hungry for answers.

It didn’t take a minute before questions exploded around me like gunfire. I found myself freezing at them, anxiety filling my spirit.

I shouldn’t have been the one to survive.

“What happened?”

“Where are the others?”

“Why are only you two back?”

“Is the mission compromised—?”

Hands reached toward me, not touching but hovering, unsure. Their eyes alternated from me to Lila and back again, as if they were searching for clues.

I felt Lila stiffen beside me. Her fingers tightened around my arm. Not enough to hurt, but enough to warn them all to back off.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, saying nothing.

Then I saw her.

The buzzed, scarred woman stood at the edge of the crowd, half in shadow, half lit by the orange glow of a nearby lantern. Her eyes tracked me with a grim heaviness that I couldn’t read. Worry? Anger? Guilt? It flickered too quickly to make sense of.

For a moment, I expected her to walk toward us.

To push through the crowd.

To demand answers. The same way she did with Aubrey.

To ask if I was hurt, where the others were, anything.

But she didn’t.

She only turned, walking away with brisk footsteps.

Not an ounce of hesitation.

No glance back.

My eyebrow lifted, confusion slicing through the haze in my head.

The fuck? That was it?

After everything? After she’d sent us out, the shit we faced, after what almost killed me— she couldn’t even pretend to care?

A cold weight settled in my gut.

Yeah, something was wrong.

More wrong than Lila’s bullshit lie.

More wrong than the the blonde woman, the trap we’d foolishly fallen into, the crash.

More wrong than the mission itself.

And as the crowd pressed closer and Lila pulled me tighter to her side,

I realized the scarred woman wasn’t just avoiding us.

She was avoiding the truth.

I was gonna start listening to my gut from now on.

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