The room gets light. The sound of quick, heavy footsteps nearing wake me completely. I open my eyes and see Trace striding across the room. Nothing about him being away from Grace makes sense to me and I have that dumb thought again—she’s alive. It’s the only way he’d leave her.

“Trace—”

And then he kicks me. In the side. My head spins, my bones scream. I wrap my arms around myself at the exact same moment he aims for my abdomen. His foot connects with my arm instead. I groan. I can’t breathe. He brings his foot back and kicks me in the legs. I roll away from him. He kicks me again and I split in half.

“Trace—Trace—Trace!”

Rhys and Cary are awake. They pull him away and Trace starts screaming.

“I had the shot—I had the fucking shot and you ruined it!”

I force myself to my feet and stagger across the room. I lean against the stage and try to get my bearings. He had the shot. I ruined it. I frantically sort through images in my head, trying to remember. It’s not true. I pulled Baxter off Grace, I pulled him off of her, there was no time—the shot, there was the shot, but I saved her I—I jump between them. I grab Baxter and pull him off her and then there’s a shot, this incredible bang and it’s so in my ears that I feel it in my teeth.

I sit down on the floor.

He had the shot and I ruined it.

Trace stops, just lets himself go right there. Cary and Rhys struggle to hold him up but his weight is too much for them. They ease him onto the ground and he starts to sob. Rhys hurries over to me, reminds me of the pain I’m in but it’s not anything. It’s not real.

Trace’s pain is real.

“Help him.” I want to scream it though; help him. Help Trace, help Trace. Please. Harrison and Cary stare at him uselessly. “You should help him—”

“I can’t,” Rhys says, but I think he must be wrong. There must be some way to help Trace. We just haven’t thought of it yet. “Are you okay? Did he break anything—”

I stare at Trace and it already feels like a lifetime ago that he hit me, made me see stars, my head against a coffee table, blood in my hair—no, wait. That wasn’t Trace.

“Sloane,” Rhys says. I shake my head slowly. He takes my arm. I try to pull away again. “Let me see how bad it is.”