Christen had no idea when she was thrown clear of the car, and the last thing she remembered was the sparks on the tar and the vehicle coming to a violent standstill. She couldn't figure out how she ended up where she was.

She spotted their car on its roof and noticed her mother's hand resting against the broken glass of a shattered window. So very still, bloodied, and lifeless.

If her parents had not fought over her, her father would have paid closer attention to the road.

He glared at her mother when he went over the rise while going too fast, and Christen noticed the black semi, which had jackknifed across the road, too late. Her father saw it, over-corrected, and hit the guardrail, which flipped their SUV.

Had she found a way to prove her innocence, she would not be lying beside the road, trying to get to her feet with tears of effort streaming down her face. Standing took everything she had to give, and despite being dizzy from blood loss and suffering immense pain, she dragged herself forward.

As she glanced toward the car to see how much progress she had made, something reflected in her eyes. She blinked, momentarily blinded.

The explosion tossed her backward like a rag doll, despite being almost twenty feet away. She hit the ground but didn't pass out and didn't hesitate this time, jumping to her feet. Everything inside her drove her to run toward the car and save them, but the blazing inferno allowed her to get no closer.

She screamed as she realized no one else had made it out.

"No!" the word ripped from her.

"Mommy! Dad!"

Grief overwhelmed her, and she collapsed. How had this happened? She had been angry at them but didn't want them to get hurt or die. Sobbing, she just sat there. Not knowing what to do. No one knew about the accident on this deserted road in the middle of nowhere, and with every passing moment, she steadily grew weaker.

Christen looked down at herself, frowning at the fast-growing stains on her pant leg and the left side of her shirt as dark red oozed through the material at an alarming rate.

The truck still blocked the road, and since her father had taken her phone, she needed to check on the driver and find his phone or radio if she wanted to live.

It became the driving thought in her aching head as she hauled herself upright again. Her entire body throbbed, and her left wrist looked odd. Her ankle was too weak to support her weight, and her ribs were aching terribly.

How had she survived while her entire family died? Despite everything, her parents would want her to live. Wouldn't they? She had to believe they still loved her and were hurt by what they thought she did.

***

The front of the truck was undamaged as it lay on its side, but something bent the trailer out of shape and busted open the rear doors. Pain speared through her leg and side, and a groan escaped her lips.

The damage to the eighteen-wheeler did not seem to be from the outside in but from the inside out, as if something massive tried to escape or maybe her condition affected her thoughts.

Someone unexpectedly bumped into her, and as she looked down at herself, a massive horn protruded from her chest.

She stared blankly at the foreign object. Black and shiny like onyx, it seemed like no material she had ever encountered. It violently pulled back out of her, leaving a gaping hole through which blood poured as she fell forward, as if something huge tossed her away.

Pain shocked through her system at the exact moment she realized the thing had gone through her heart, and her consciousness wavered. She hit the ground, and blackness crept inward from the edges of her vision.

Slowly, painfully, and resolutely, she turned her head just far enough to see the burning car one last time, but little more than a blackened husk remained.

The discomfort became distant, an icy coldness settling in her marrow despite the heat of the day.

"I am sorry," she thought as her final breath sighed from her body without her ever having seen what killed her, and she didn't resist the darkness swallowing her.