The world after a crash is wrong in a way that's hard to explain.
Everything still exists — the trees, the road above us, the sky — but the sounds change. The air changes. Time itself feels uneven, like it's skipping steps.
Smoke crawled out from under the crushed hood, thin at first, then thicker. It smelled sharp and metallic, mixed with something bitter that burned the back of my throat.
Lucian was still at the door.
He had stopped pulling now.
Just standing there with both hands pressed flat against the twisted metal, like he was trying to feel something through it. His breathing was hard and uneven. His palms were scraped raw from the earlier attempts, and a thin line of blood had worked its way down one of his wrists.
He didn't seem to notice.
"Lucian," I said carefully.
Nothing.
I stepped closer.
"The smoke is getting worse."
He pushed off the door suddenly, scanning the ground around him. His eyes moved fast — not panicked, but desperate in that specific Lucian way, where he was still trying to solve the problem even when the problem had already beaten him.
He grabbed a heavy branch that had snapped loose during the impact and shoved it hard into the gap between the door frame and the crushed metal. He pushed down with everything he had.
The wood groaned.
The metal shifted.
Just barely.
But enough that hope flickered between us for a second.
Lucian pushed harder.
The branch snapped in half.
The sound was sharp and final, like something deciding the argument for us.
Lucian stood there holding the broken piece.
He looked at it for a moment.
Then dropped it.
That was when I understood. Not the sadness of it — I already understood that. But the particular exhaustion of watching someone fight past the point where fighting makes sense. Lucian had never in his life accepted a thing he couldn't fix. And now he was running out of ways to fix this one.
"The car could still go," I said quietly.
He didn't respond.
I touched his arm.
"Lucian."
He pulled away. Not violently. Just enough. Like even the smallest comfort was something he couldn't accept right now.
He moved around toward the back of the car instead, crouching low.
I followed without speaking.
He reached beneath the chassis slowly, fingers tracing along the underside — brushing a metal line that had snapped and was hanging loose against the frame.
His fingers stopped.
He leaned closer.
Then he pulled his hand back and stared at it like he wasn't sure what he'd just touched.
I crouched beside him.
"What is it?"
Lucian didn't answer for a moment. His jaw worked slightly, like he was chewing on a thought he didn't want to swallow.
"Nothing," he said.
But I felt him go still in a different way after that. Not the stillness of grief. Something quieter. More careful.
The engine made a deep choking sound.
Both of us stood up instinctively.
Smoke surged heavier from the front of the car.
The sirens were closer now — distinct, urgent, cutting through the trees from somewhere down the valley road. Someone had seen the crash from below.
Lucian heard them.
He turned toward the sound and stood very still for a moment, like a person deciding something they already knew they couldn't change.
Then he walked back to the driver's door.
Not to pull at it again.
Just to stand there.
He put one hand flat against it, very gently this time.
Didn't speak.
Didn't shout.
Just stood there with his hand on the door while the smoke rose around him and the sirens grew louder.
I didn't say anything.
There was nothing left to say that mattered.
I stood beside him instead.
That was all I could do.
When the first emergency lights swept through the trees above us, Lucian finally stepped back. He wiped his hands on his shirt slowly, not looking at the blood.
I noticed something then as his gaze drifted back under the car.
Back to that broken line.
Back to the clean-edged cut in the metal.
Then up the hill to the road.
Then, finally, to me.
Something was forming in his eyes.
A question he wasn't ready to ask.
A thought he wasn't ready to finish.
He looked away before I could read it clearly.
But it had been there.
And something told me it wasn't going away.