"No," Julian whispered, the word scraping out of his throat like shattered glass. "No, no, no."

He scrambled to his feet, rushing to the empty bed. He threw the white sheets aside, as if hoping I was somehow hidden beneath them. His hands frantically patted down the mattress, his chest heaving with

"Eight! Seven!" Victor's voice roared over the howling wind, the syllables cracking through the SUV’s radio like a whip.

I watched in horror as he gripped the railing of my stretcher, his knuckles white. The back doors of the ambulance flapped violently against the exterior of the speeding vehicle,

The rain fell in unrelenting sheets, hissing against the smoking engines of the wrecked vehicles. The flashing red and blue lights of the overturned ambulance cut through the darkness, casting long, nightmarish shadows across the wet asphalt.

My spirit flickered violently, the edges of my vision d