Chapter 4

Our eyes met.

Her pupils dilated instantly, as if running into me in the back of a police cruiser was the last thing she ever expected.

Then she saw the flashing strobe lights on the roof. She saw the uniformed trooper behind the wheel. She saw Tara sitting calmly right beside me.

Her cracked lips parted slightly.

The car didn't stop.

In the side mirror, I watched as another cruiser pulled up beside her, two officers stepping out to haul her limp body off the ground.

The testing center had set up an isolated classroom for us. Just a small room, with our three desks spaced far apart.

The proctor verified our information and handed out the exam packets.

I picked up my pen and took a long, steady breath.

I had already seen this exact test in my previous life.

Even though I only managed to finish a fraction of it back then, after waking up in the hospital, I had combed through the official answer keys and explanations over and over again, countless times.

Because I couldn't let it go.

I couldn't accept that after saving an entire bus of people, I didn't even get to properly finish my own college entrance exams.

I couldn't accept spending three grueling months in a hospital bed, missing every single rolling admission and regular decision deadline.

I couldn't accept having to repeat senior year, walking back into that exam room a year later only to find that my whole world had crumbled.

Now, all that bitter resentment transformed into ink beneath my pen.

I essentially wrote down the answers from memory.

When the final bell rang and I walked out of the testing center, the late afternoon sun was glowing warmly.

The sky after a dust storm was breathtakingly clear, a fiery crimson sunset washing over half the horizon.

Tara walked out right behind me, looking remarkably composed.

"Serena, how do you think you did?"

"Pretty good."

My phone buzzed. It was Ms. Lewis.

"Serena, are you and Tara done with the exam? If you're finished, please come to the hospital."

She sounded utterly drained.

"The rest of the class is here. A lot of them are badly injured... and two are still missing. Search and rescue is still looking."

"Okay."

After hanging up, Tara asked me what was going on.

I told her Ms. Lewis wanted us at the hospital.

Her expression instantly morphed into something complicated—a mix of dread, fear, and an emotion she couldn't quite name.

We caught a cab to the regional medical center.

The hospital hallways were swarming with people—students in torn jackets, frantic parents with tear-streaked faces, and police officers taking formal statements.

The heavy stench of antiseptic hung thick in the air, laced with the metallic tang of fresh blood.

Cutting through the chaotic crowd, I spotted Ms. Lewis.

She was slumped against a wall, her hair disheveled, her eyes swollen and red. She looked like she had aged ten years in a single afternoon.

The moment she saw Tara and me, she hurried over and pulled both of us into a tight embrace.

"Thank God you're safe... Thank God you listened..."

She squeezed us so hard I could feel the violent tremors running through her body.

"What about everyone else?" Tara asked in a small voice.

Ms. Lewis pulled back, hastily wiping her eyes.

"Twenty-two students got off that bus. Aside from Zach, who managed to crawl back, all twenty-one of them were injured."

Her voice hitched painfully.

"Fractures, severe concussions, eyes sliced open by airborne gravel... and two girls are completely unaccounted for. Search and rescue is still out there in the desert."

Suddenly, a piercing shriek echoed down the hall.

"My baby! Why on earth did you get off that bus?!"

It was a middle-aged woman with streaks of gray in her hair, wearing a worn factory uniform. She collapsed to the linoleum floor, wailing uncontrollably.

A bystander tried to help her up, but her legs gave out completely, folding under her like wet cardboard.

"Her father passed away when she was little! I worked double shifts to raise her all on my own just so she could take this exam! And now she’s gone! She’s gone!"

Tara’s face turned completely white.

Looking at that devastated mother, I was thrown back to my previous life. That was the exact same state my own mother was in when she got the call and rushed to the hospital.

Collapsing onto the tiles, unable to stand, screaming until her vocal cords shredded.

Back then, I was lying in the trauma unit with twelve stitches in the back of my skull, massive intracranial bleeding, fighting for my life in the ICU for seven straight days.

My mother didn't close her eyes for an entire week.

Tara gently tugged on my sleeve.

"Serena... let’s go inside and check on them."

I followed her into the ward.

It was a large six-bed trauma room, packed to maximum capacity.

Every single bed held a classmate. Boys and girls alike—some with their arms in heavy plaster casts, some with thick gauze wrapped around their heads, others with raw stitches on their faces, blood steadily seeping through the white bandages.

In the bed furthest in the corner lay Chloe.

Her injuries were among the lightest—mostly deep abrasions and dark bruises. But mentally, she was completely shattered. She stared blankly at the ceiling tiles, her skin as pale as fresh paper.

When I stepped through the door, her eyes flickered slightly.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position and croaked at Ms. Lewis, "Ms. Lewis... can we take a makeup exam?"

Standing near the door, Ms. Lewis slowly shook her head.

"There won't be one, Chloe. There are no makeups for this."

Chloe’s face instantly twisted into pure panic.

"Why not?! Didn't they have a contingency plan?! Didn't they say isolated testing was an option?! We were just late!"

Ms. Lewis’s tone abruptly dropped to freezing.

"If you hadn't gotten off that bus, none of this would have happened."