: Prologue

I stare at my shaking hands, watching them tremble. These skilled, useless hands. Even now, after taking the gloves off and scrubbing them twice, I can still feel the blood coating them like a sickening second skin. The frigid night air whips around me, carrying the shrill wail of the sirens and chaos of the incoming traumas. The cold catches the blood on my scrubs, a chill reaching all the way to my bones. Huddled on the bench, I struggle to suck in shallow breaths against my breaking heart. Once the tears start, there’s no stopping them. The floodgates open and the first sob comes out.

Bringing my hands to my middle, I wrap my arms around myself for support. My helpless, pointless hands. They’re no good to anyone, they can’t fix this. Nothing can. What’s the point of them if they can’t help when I need them to the most? All I could do was sit and watch helplessly. And now all that blood—sweet, innocent blood—is on my hands.

My skilled, useless hands.

My eyes search the night air for a sign of hope, a distraction, anything. The blazing ambulance lights bathe everything in flashes of blue and red. My eyes catch on an object laying on the cracked concrete a few yards away, cast in the flashing light. Staring at it, something inside me fractures as a devastating sadness settles so deeply in my chest I’m not sure I’ll ever be without it again. It’s like the ground has opened into an abyss beneath me and I’m slipping into the darkness.

The child’s lunch box is stained with blood until the light blue color is barely visible. On it, the cartoon solar system sits in a cluster of stars with a tiny astronaut floating blissfully near a small rocket. The name Jack is written clearly across the front in sharpie. It sits there on the ground, trampled and forgotten—belonging to someone who will never come looking for it. The sinking feeling drags me deeper into the abyss.

“Lexie?” The voice saying my name behind me barely registers, even as a hand touches my shoulder. “Lexie, are you okay?”

“I can’t.” I shake my head with a sob. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay here.” I need to leave, and I don’t know how I’ll ever come back. How will I ever come back from this?

“Come on, let’s get her inside and cleaned up.” Several pairs of hands support me when I stand on unsteady legs, but I don’t recognize faces past my tears and despair. I allow myself to be led away from the bench, away from the flashing lights and the noise from the tragedy.

Away from the blood-stained lunchbox.