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They scrape the back of my throat on the way down, and I have to cough once, clearing it. Already, I can feel my stomach clenching around them, greedy.

“Thirty minutes,” I murmur, staring straight ahead through the smeared windshield. The street outside is washed in orange from the lampposts, the air heavy and damp, the world holding its breath. “Thirty minutes and Max and I will be off the wall. No one stands a chance with us.”

I can feel him watching me from the passenger seat, his leg bouncing in a wild rhythm that doesn’t match my own. His jaw ticks. He’s always been like this before; wired, sharp, like a dog straining at the leash.

“Remember the plan,” Max says finally, shrugging like it’s casual, like his voice isn’t tight. He leans his head back against the seat, but his eyes stay fixed on me.

I don’t look at him. If I do, I’ll start thinking, and once I start thinking, I’ll hesitate. Instead, I drag the bag onto my lap and open it wider, rooting through all the weapons like I’m checking a grocery list.

The knife is there, the one with the taped handle, so it doesn’t slip even when your hands are slick. The small black handgun, heavy for its size, nestles in the bottom corner. A roll of duct tape, a coil of rope, a cracked burner phone, spare magazines rattling like broken teeth. I run my fingers over each thing, counting silently.

One, two, three.

Enough. More than enough.

I’m making sure I packed everything right, that there’s no stupid mistake, when Max’s hand lands on my shoulder. Not gentle. He shoves, twisting me toward him. The bag slides off my lap and thumps against the floor.

“It’s important, Emma,” he says, his eyes dark and way too clear for someone who just swallowed Molly. “We agreed this was it. Tonight is the end.”

The words hang there, thick as smoke. I swallow; my throat suddenly dries again.

I snuffle, pretending to be annoyed. “I got it,” I mutter, shrugging his hand off. “I don’t see why you need to keep bringing it up.”

I pause, the lie catching halfway out of my mouth.

“Can we not just—” I stop, biting the inside of my cheek until I taste iron. “Never mind. It’s just… if it’s going to be the last time.

He looks at me then. Really looks. The dash lights paint his face in a sickly blue-green glow, hollowing out his cheeks, making the shadows under his eyes seem deeper. His pupils are already a little wide. It doesn’t take a genius to see the sadness written all over me. I can feel it too, pulling at my muscles, sitting on my chest.

I don’t want to die.

Not tonight. Not yet.

I’m only young-ish if you can call thirty-eight young, and Max forty-two—stuck in that no-man’s-land where you’re too old to blame everything on being a kid, but too young to be ready to disappear. This isn’t right. None of this is right. My stomach twists, not from the pill, but from the promise I made him days ago, spat between my teeth when we were both high and laughing and pretending we didn’t care.

I told him—swore to him—that after tonight, life wasn’t worth living. That it was better to burn it all down than sit around waiting for the knock on the door, the flash of blue lights, the snap of cold metal on our wrists. It’s only a matter of time before the police catch up with us. We both know that. The city isn’t as big as it feels at three in the morning when you’re speeding down empty roads.

Now that the moment is here, the certainty wobbles, turns soft around the edges. I want to take it back, every word.

I want to beg him—to grab his face, make him look at me, to say we can stop. That we can just drive away, keep driving until the fuel gauge hits empty, and the car gives up somewhere no one knows our names. I want to ask him to jam his fingers so far down his throat he throws up, to vomit up the molly we just swallowed before it melts fully into our blood.

But it’s already too late.

The first wave hits me like a slow, warm tide wrapping around my legs. My eyes go foggy at the edges, the world softening and blurring. The orange light outside seems to smear into streaks. The seat underneath me feels too soft, like it’s trying to swallow me.

I blink hard, but everything is suddenly heightened. The ticking of the cooling engine is thunder. The faint buzz of the streetlamp outside is a swarm of wasps. Max’s breathing is loud, in and out, in and out, like he’s right inside my head.

Emma, who was here a second ago—the one who wasn’t sure, who wanted to live, who could still taste fear properly—that Emma starts to dissolve, slipping through my fingers.

He said this would happen. He warned me. And I knew it. I did. But knowing something and feeling it are different things.

Now all I want is the rush. All I want is the violence. All I want is to kill.

I snatch the bag, jumping out of the car, the night air hitting my face like a slap. The car door slams behind me, too loud, echoing down the quiet street. I swing the strap over my shoulder, the weight of the weapons dragging me sideways for a second before I adjust.

Max stumbles as he comes around the side of the car, his balance off, feet shuffling from side to side like he’s walking on a rocking boat. His pupils are blown wide now, eating the color of his eyes.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, watching him. “Did we take too much?”