Page 115 of Hide From Me

I force my legs to move. It’s like trying to walk underwater. My limbs scream. My heart pounds in my ears. I’m vaguely aware of furniture crashing behind me as we push through the doorway, the wind from the chopper slamming into us like a wall. The rotors roar overhead—deafening, apocalyptic, wind slicing through the night like blades.

Jonathan tries to follow.

“No.” Caspian spins, rage reborn. He drops Moe’s weight into Sam’s waiting arms and turns, shoving Jonathan back with both hands. “Youdon’tget to come. Not now. Not after this.”

Jonathan stumbles, stunned. His eyes go wide. He lifts a hand like he wants to plead his case, but Caspian’s not done.

“Stay the fuckback.” His voice breaks at the edges, but he doesn’t care. “You don’t get to show up now like youearneda place in this.”

“We’ll be right behind you.” Jasmine’s voice is tight but steady as she steps between the two men—an anchor in the chaos. She reaches out and presses a flat palm to Caspian’s chest, not forceful but firm, nudging him forward as if that small push could carry him toward his brother, toward the helicopter where Moe lies barely conscious, bleeding out.

Caspian doesn’t move.

Jon doesn’t blink.

His eyes stay locked on Moe, on the barely rising chest, on the way his blood pools against the metal floor like some kind of slow, spreading truth.

“I didn’t know,” Jon whispers. It's not meant for the room. It's not meant to be heard, but I do… No. Ifeelit, like a needle slipping under skin. So quiet and stunned it almost disappears into the chop of the rotors. No one else reacts—Caspian’s already turning, already replacing Sam’s position as he scrambles back into the bird, pushing past Jasmine with a wildness I’ve never seen on him before. Like if he slows down, Moe’s heart might too.

The moment I’m nudged into the cramped metal box, Laura’s already in motion. Her hands rip through med packs with the cold efficiency of someone who’s done this too many times, but I can see the panic in her eyes—buried deep, beneath muscle memory and training.

I climb in last. For just a breath, I pause in the doorway. The wind bites hard behind me, the world beyond still spinning too fast, too loud. It feels like if I step all the way in, if I let the door shut behind me, then everything else—everything we were—will be locked outside.

But then I see him.

Moe.

His chest rising in these shallow, uneven pulls. His shirt soaked with blood. His leg twisted slightly at an unnatural angle. One arm limp at his side. His lips are pale. His lashes still flecked with soot and ash. He doesn’t even look like him. Not entirely. Like he’s caught between the version I knew and whatever’s left of him now.

My fingers tremble as I reach out.

Just a touch at first—barely grazing the curve of his hand where dried blood has crusted and flaked. It’s tacky, sticky in some places. Cold.

God, he’s so cold.

I thread my fingers through his anyway.

Because I have to.

Because Ineedhim to feel me here.

Because no matter how deep the secrets go, no matter how terrifying this truthis—how monstrous this world has suddenly become—Istillwant to be close to him.

I lower my forehead to our joined hands, voice splintering.

“Find your way back to me, monster,” I whisper, the end of it cracking under its own weight. “Please don’t make me go through this world knowing what it’s like to lose you.”

Caspian drops beside me, breathing like he’s running out of time. My head tilts, focusing on his hand landing on Moe’s chest, searching for that fragile rhythm beneath the blood as he raises his other to swipe at his face, fast and frustrated, as if scrubbing hard enough might erase the tears, the fear, the guilt etched so deep into him.

“He’s still with us,” he says, like it’s a prayer he’s willing into truth. “We can save him. Wewill.”

Laura doesn’t stop moving, even as her voice comes tight through clenched teeth.

“We’ve slowed the bleeding, but he’s unstable. I need IVs, a clamp on that thigh artery, and more pressure on the leg wound before it blows out again. Sharkie—hand me the bag. Keep his chest elevated—slightly, not too much. I need to see that respiration rate.”

Sharkie scrambles toward her with the gear, hands shaking so badly she nearly drops the saline line. “Come on, Moe. Don’t quit on us, you stubborn ass. Not now, not after all that drama.”

I can’t speak.