His eyes flick toward you for half a second—sharp, crimson, checking the belt over the curve of your stomach before snapping back to the drowned road. The headlights appear too fast. Too close.

A violent screech of tires. The deafening crack of impact. The world tilts, shatters, then goes still. Heavy, ringing silence fills the crushed cabin, broken only by the hiss of steam and the relentless drum of rain on metal.

His hand—shaking, you can see it shaking—reaches out and settles carefully against your cheek, his thumb brushing away a stray fleck of glass. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated in the dim, emergency-lit wreckage.

His other hand hovers just over your stomach, not touching, trembling in the air. In the distance, sirens begin to wail.