In Love and Diplomacy

Chapter Fifty: Don't Look Down

Warning: this chapter is more intense than past chapters. Please do not read if upset by injury, heights, or mentions of blood.

"Standing on the cliff face, highest fall you'll ever grace
It scares me half to death
Look out to the future, but it tells you nothing
So, take another breath"

- Bastille, "Icarus"

Chapter Fifty

There was no white light.

I wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or a bad thing, or nothing at all.

What there was, however, was a pounding behind my eyes, spreading rapidly across the rest of my skull. The blood rushing in my head was the only thing I could hear or feel. All I saw was darkness—it was like floating in nothingness, except someone was hitting my head with a hammer in a steady tempo of agony.

Slowly, I regained awareness, feeling nerves sluggishly switch on and muscles twitch. I realized my eyes were only closed. I wasn't dead.

Reed.

I wasn't dead. My eyes were closed.

Reed.

It was harder to open them than it'd been to close them. Only a crack at first, hesitant and hazy, until my lids snapped shut again at the blinding light that greeted me. A few pulses in my head later, I tried again. I peeled my eyes open and immediately felt the rest of my missing feelings slam into me. What was slow at first, a soft trickle of regained senses, now hit me like a freight train.

Reed.

My head felt like it was split open, and my arm radiated with pain. A burning sensation was buzzing on my chest and face; a swarm of bees spreading and slowly taking over my body. The light in my eyes was too bright, and the air seemed too fuzzy.

Reed.

My eyes couldn't focus on anything as I coughed. Suddenly, I realized the air wasn't fuzzy; it was just the best my eyes could do. They weren't able to focus after being rattled in my skull, and the white smoke filling the car didn't help. Everything was bright white and distorted. It was worse than looking at something underwater.

Did we fall?

I tried to shift my neck to look, but yelped as the muscles contracted in protest. I took a moment to reclaim my breath, then moved a little slower to try again. I looked out the windshield and felt my gut plummet. The left side of the car was dangling off the edge of the cliff; the two left wheels clearly no longer touched the ground. We'd spun to face the opposite direction of where we should've turned with the road. The slant was enough to be uncomfortable, but not so much that I couldn't sit up.

Reed.

The car tilted precariously on the edge; it seemed the mangled guard rail was the only thread we hung from, but the metal barrier didn't offer much support for the teetering vehicle. The stretch of guardrail from where the car dangled was gone completely, pushed over the edge to the open valley below, and the ripped ends were just barely long enough to have an unsteady hook on the car.

REED.

I squinted my eyes, shifting the other way, but I could only see a dark shape in the driver's seat. I tried to say his name but my mouth wouldn't cooperate. It died in my throat and gurgled into a groan.

I remembered the airbags going off, harsh and intense when we hit the guardrail; that must've caused the heat I'd felt.

I shifted my eyes down, feeling like I was going to be sick at the dizziness that surged. My suspicions were confirmed as I stared at the blurry, bright red marks marring my skin. The airbags had done serious damage, but I knew it would've been a lot worse if they hadn't gone off at all.