Her body hits the ground hard, muscles twitching violently as electricity courses through her entire being, a raw, grating, horrific scream dying in her throat. Dying in her throat as her body hits the ground. Her body hits the ground limp, motionless, empty and lifeless as everything becomes nothing. Nothing becomes everything as her body hits the ground.

Jessa’s running before she’s even thinking, before she’s even processed the monstrosity of a sight in front of her, before anything feels real. She’s sprinting, her skin humming with the currents she crosses as they sing in her veins, as purple plays along her skin, as heat dances through her muscles for once. She runs and runs until she’s collapsing, still surrounded by the buzzing grid, and pulling the body into her arms.

Tears fall down star-speckled cheeks and blur within sunrise eyes, but they don’t matter, not when she’s not moving, not when her chest isn’t rising, not when her face is slack and her eyes are rolled back. Nothing matters as Jessa takes in the lightning scars scorched along mint green skin, the singe on previously perfect clothes, the burns staining fingertips. Nothing matters, nothing matters and Jessa doubts anything ever will again.

“No, come on, come on, whiskey girl,” Jessa mutters under her breath, fingers brushing away errant strands of hair from her forehead. “Whiskey girl, give me something,” she pleads, cold fingertips searching for a pulse, searching for exhales, searching for a heartbeat, searching for anything, anything at all.

But she doesn’t find anything, anything at all. The only things she finds are air that’s too still, skin that’s too cool, and a chest that’s too stiff. She doesn’t find anything as she desperately searches and pleads and cries for the body laying in her lap, for the woman that’s unresponsive, for the whiskey girl that’s not a whiskey girl anymore.

Until the tiniest inhale breaks the quiet, alighting Jessa’s nerves in a way wholly different from the electric shocks. It’s the smallest gasp, the slightest wheeze as she stirs barely, just barely. But it’s enough for something akin to hope to blossom in Jessa’s stomach, enough for her to be cupping a pale cheek and murmuring sacrilegious prayers incoherently.

Another intake, another miniscule rise of her chest, and Jessa’s all but sobbing in relief. She’s hugging the body resting against hers, she’s whispering promises and pleas and a thousand other words that could never be assigned a true purpose besides reassurance and unadulterated adoration.

She wipes the tears from her cheeks with a weak, watery, hollow laugh, her hand further rising to rake blue hair and curling tendrils back from her flushed and messy face. Her eyes scan the grid, sparks still flickering around her - them. There’s still a them, there will always be a them, she won’t let there not be a them. 

She cradles the body against her and rises to her feet tentatively, struggling slightly under the weight resting in her arms. Careful steps take her to the edge of the current, to the dancing embers of purple splayed in a labyrinth, each footfall hesitant and slow, a wary waltz on an unstable dancefloor. She retraces her way through the maze, every turn and every shift in the static sending anxiety spiking in her chest as she holds the body against her tighter.

This isn’t over, it’s never over. Jessa’s never met a true end, never met a final chance, never met a rule she can’t break or squirm her way around. She’s never failed so terribly and never said a goodbye she didn’t want to say, and this is no different, it can’t be.

After all this, all the bounties and shady dealings, all the blushes and fluttering stomachs, all the rule breaking and risks, this isn’t different. It’s not different for her, and it’s not different for the infuriating PI limp in her arms. The same PI that doesn’t give in, that doesn’t skip out on a job, that swore she’d see this to the end.

She’s not allowed to back out, she’s not allowed to quit, she’s not allowed to run from this job. She’s not allowed to leave, to disappear, to abandon this. She’s not allowed to abandon Jessa, not after fighting so hard. Not after Sweetheart’s Day, not after stepping back into the bar after all that time, not after those nights in the club, not after those nights in the backroom. Not after secret rendezvous and midnight video calls. Not after all this shit.

Jessa grunts, hoisting her higher to adjust her grip, and carries on in the direction of the tiny village, determination boiling inside of her. She hurries over to the first person she spots, a hunched over old woman who kindly points her in the direction of the village’s hospital, and she all but runs there.

She runs as fast as her legs will carry her, she runs as quick as her lungs can handle, she runs as swiftly as she is capable with dead weight resting like lead in her arms. She runs until she’s gasping for air and pushing the door open with her hip, until some man in a coat is taking the body from her arms and rushing through a door, until she’s fighting with a nurse to let her follow.

Until she’s collapsing in a chair, her head falling to her hands, tendrils and shimmering locks curtaining around her face as tears stream freely, finally. Finally, the weight in her arms is gone, but the weight on her shoulders, on her chest, on her heart only grows heavier.

It grows heavier as the image of a man-made lightning strike echoes in her mind, a broken tape that no amount of hitting the television will fix. It’s a constant stream of splintered memories, fractured feelings, erratic thoughts as purple and green and pink flicker behind sunrise eyes. A constant stream of a cracked and strained scream, of begging gasps, of heavy footfalls hurrying in a sprint cycling in her ears. A constant stream of throbbing thoughts, pounding feelings, aching words bobbing in a loop in her throat.

A constant stream of a nightmare, a haunting, wake-up-drenched-in-sweat, can-barely-breathe-afterwards nightmare. A nightmare that wasn’t supposed to exist, that wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t how it was supposed to go, not one bit, not in a single universe, not in any life was that supposed to happen.

That image wasn’t supposed to be stuck in Jessa’s mind as her whiskey girl sits somewhere else, but it is. It is, forever now, no matter what happens next, that’ll be forever there, trapped and pounding on the bars of it’s imprisonment for attention. It will forever be true that that happened, that that’s how it went.