Page 25 of Broken Pieces

The world moves in slow motion as I see the car and then Max spins into darkness.

7

Maddox

My arms are frozen, locked tight around Violet.

She won’t stop screaming, it feels like my ears are bleeding from how loud they’re ringing.

I can’t move though.

I can’t do anything.

Violet calls out for Max as she fights against me.

No, don't let her go. Don’t let her leave us. We have to keep her.

“Maddox! We have to help him!” I hear her shout, but it’s like I’m underwater, her voice drifting further away from me as the current drags me under.

Max…where is he?

He’s always right here in my chest, in every cell of my body. Now there’s only the weight of Violet against me. It’s what I’ve wanted for so long, but it’s not right, not without him.

I manage to make myself unlock my elbows and as soon as there’s some give in my arms, Violet's running again.

“No!” I roar at the top of my lungs as I spring to my feet to chase after her. She stops just a few feet ahead and I wrap my arms around her waist.

Her back molds to my chest exactly where she’s meant to be.

She’s fucking freezing.

How long have we been out here?

The heat of before has long died down and now there’s just an eerie chill in the air.

We need to get her home.

“Oh my God, Max.” She’s sobbing.

Why the fuck is she sobbing?

“I didn’t see him! You ran out and I didn’t see either of you until it was too late!” An unfamiliar male voice says. There’s another car in the road, stopped diagonally, its engine still running and the driver’s door left open.

“Call an ambulance!” Violet wails as she slumps in my arms, the fight leaving her body. She slips between my arms and falls to her knees as I see myself on the ground.

No, not myself, my mirror image.

Max is splayed out in the dirt, his right arm twisted in all the wrong places.

He looks different now, no longer like me.

“Max?” I ask quietly as I step past Violet and move towards him.

There’s no way it’s him.

But of course I know it is.

I just saw my other half get mowed down by a fucking car as he tried to save Violet.