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Relief, though fleeting, claws at my mind.

I can feel her heart beating.

She’s still here with me.

She’s here.

She’s okay.

We’re okay.

“Two possible overdoses, I need assistance!” a voice calls out, but everything becomes fuzzy.

I see Araceli being strapped to a stretcher and taken to an ambulance in the distance.

Fuck. Dad is going to kill us when he finds out.

My eyelids feel heavy. I want to close them, but a hooded figure kneels next to me. The patch on their sleeve—or I think it’s their sleeve—matches one of the emblems on the sheet of acid we took.

“You didn’t pay.” It says.

“What?” I manage, but barely.

“You didn’tpay,” it repeats.

“Didn’t pay for what?” I argue.

“To get in. You’ll sink if you don’t pay.”

I grab onto the man’s cloak, shaking him.

A radio scratches at my ear. I blink for just a second and the fabric I’m yanking on isn’t black or a cloak. It’s blue with a medic’s patch sewn on.

“We’re going to need backup, one is aggressive,” the paramedic speaks into the radio before turning his attention back to me. “It’s okay, you can rest now. We’re going to transport you to the hospital.” The paramedic’s voice adjusts. Deep and eerie. “You didn’t pay. We have to take you there.”

Pay for what? I ask internally, unable to move my lips as sleep finds me. Ready for the nap that Araceli says is the best part of the crash.

Ten

“Shh,”a familiar voice whispers in my ear, slowly waking me up, though my eyes remain closed. The thought of opening them is a task I don’t have the energy for. My eyes and my entire body feel too weak to move or do anything but lay here.

“Just like that.” The voice sounds again. Soft, feminine…familiar.

Another string of words leaks from who I can only assume, judging from the subtle notes of cinnamon and pumpkin present in the air, is Araceli. I hear the murmuring of her voice, but I can’t focus on what else she’s saying. I’m too distracted by thereliefI feel.

She’s okay.

We’re okay.

An unexpected surge of adrenaline ignites within my veins, and I fight the weakening current lingering over my skin by lifting one hand and then the other.

A slow, slurred motion takes my palms hostage, but I fight it, curling them.

Open, then shut.

Open, then shut.

Open then…