25

25
CLAIRE

Evan pressed his hand against her sternum His jaw clenched. “Pulse is slipping.”

“She’s hypoxic,” I said under my breath. My brain spun through fragments of old field guides, training drills and the things I half remembered. “Airway swelling… she needs epinephrine. Oxygen. Intubation.”

“None of which we have,” Evan said.

I clenched my jaw. He wasn’t wrong. But giving up wasn’t an option. “Then what do we have?”

Evan scanned the room, empty except for broken furniture and dust. His hand went into his jacket, pulling out a dented metal flask. “Whiskey. Painkiller at best. Maybe disinfectant.”

“Not enough.”

I tore through the room, searching every corner. Broken chairs. A toppled lamp. Nothing useful. My chest tightened. The time ticked away like a countdown.

Think, Claire. Think.

Her breathing grew shallower, it was like glass moving through her throat.

“Claire,” Evan said quietly, as if he already knew where this was heading. “She doesn’t have long.”

“I know.”

My hands trembled, but I forced them calm There was one thing left. A brutaland desperate thing.

A tracheotomy.

I looked Evan dead in the eye. “We can cut an airway.”

His face stayed calm, but I saw it flicker in his eyes—the realization of what I meant. “You’re serious.”

“She’ll die otherwise.”

For a moment, the only sound in the room was Lila’s failing breaths.

Then Evan gave a sharp nod. “Tell me what to do.”

"We need something hollow,” I muttered, already scanning the room. “Straw, pen casing—anything she can breathe through.”

Evan didn’t waste a second. He yanked open drawers, sent papers spilling across the floor, overturned a desk with a hard shove. Dust rose around us.

“Come on, come on—” His voice was strained.

At last, he found a cheap ballpoint pen buried in the mess. He snapped it in half with a hard crack, then yanked the thin ink tube free. He shoved it at me, alongside his switchblade.

“This?”

I held it up the pen , to the weak light seeping through the broken window. It was narrow.But maybe enough. “It’ll have to do.”

I dropped to my knees beside Lila. The wood was splintered, digging into my skin, but I barely felt it.

Evan crouched across from me, his big hands holding Lila’s shoulders so she wouldn’t thrash. Her body was limp now, except for the faint rise and fall of her chest.

“Hold her still,” I ordered

I kept the blade over her throat. The skin was bruised where the attacker’s hands had crushed down. My other fingers pressed to the soft part just above her collarbone, searching for the cricothyroid membrane.

My stomach clenched hard.

I had practiced this once in sterile training. On a dummy. With gloves. With a doctor guiding every step. Never on a living person. Never in a rotting house with time bleeding away second by second.

“Claire.” Evan’s voice was low.

I met his eyes. His expression didn’t waver, but I saw the truth there—the fear, the risk, the trust he was putting entirely in my hands.

I swallowed hard. “On three.” I placed the blade on her skin

“One. Two—”

I cut.

Lila’s body jerked violently,then a choked gurgle came ripping from her throat. Dark blood came up at once spilling over my fingers. My hands shook, i was almost fumbling, but I widened the incision, searching for the airway.

“Tube!” I barked.

Evan shoved the hollow pen casing into my palm, his fingers were covered with her blood.

I slid it into the wound, twisting gently until it caught. For one long, endless moment nothing happened. There was just silence

Then—

Air hissed through the tube. It was very weak, but there. Her chest rose and fell.

A sound broke from me—it was like a half laugh and half sob. Relief came surging like ice water through burning veins. I finally felt a little bit of peace.

“She’s breathing,” Evan said, he looked in awe.

“Barely. But yes.”

We worked fast. I packed strips of cloth around the tube to steady it. Evan pressed his jacket against the cut to slow the bleeding.

Evan lifted her into his arms when I nodded, her body went limp against him. Blood streaked across his shirt, soaking it completely, but he didn’t care

I grabbed my gun and swept the room one last time. The house was silent. But silence here didn’t mean safe.

The masked figure was gone, but the air itself felt wrong, like the house was watching, like it knew we’d stolen something back from it.

We hurried down the stairs, boards groaning beneath our weight. The air grew colder as we neared the door, heavy with the smell of old dust and rust. Then we burst outside.

Night air hit me like a slap, sharp and freezing.

My car waited at the curb like a lifeline, its dark shape gleaming faintly under the thin moonlight.

Evan carried Lila to the back seat and laid her down with surprising gentleness. Her body looked small and broken, her skin pale under the faint glow of the streetlamp.

I slid in beside her, one hand gripping the tube to keep it in place, the other pressing against her side as though I could anchor her here by sheer will.

Evan climbed into the driver’s seat. His jaw clenched tight as he gripped the wheel. “Hospital?”

“Drive,” I said. “As fast as you can.”

The Mustanto life, headlights slicing through the dark like blades. Gravel spit under the tires as Evan tore us away from the house.

I glanced back once.

The broken window gaped wide, black and empty, like an open mouth. But just beyond, deep in the trees, I thought I saw something shift. A flicker of movement.

It was the same figure. With the spiral mask ,watching us go.

A shiver crawled down my spine.

I turned back to Lila, forcing my focus onto her. Her breaths rattled in and out, To me it wasboth a victory and a reminder of how close she still was to the edge.

“We’ve got you,” I whispered, bending close to her ear. My voice shook, but I forced it steady, made it a promise. “I won’t let you die without seeing
your brother avenged.”

But even as I said it, the doubt twisted inside me. Because deep down, I wasn’t sure if I was lying.