They merged seamlessly into the chaos of rush-hour traffic, Nile’s hands remained steady on the wheel as he navigated with the kind of automatic precision that came from years of practice. His eyes flicked between the road and his mirrors, shifting lanes with practiced ease to slip into openings and avoid the bumper-to-bumper madness. Horns blared, the low grumble of engines filled the air, and the city’s pulse hummed around them.

He was still processing the recent series of events that had led to tonight: his parents, and the hunt for Buru’Enmeli; the incursion event that had happened at the boys and girls club with Dom; Dom…

Damnit, he thought. What am I doing?

If I hadn’t been hunting that monster down… he tightened his grip on the wheel, his knuckles going white. If something had happened to her…

He looked over at Ash, and memories of what they had just done triggered a wave of heat racing through him, as he couldn’t stop himself from reimagining the feel of her.

Damnit, he groaned internally. I have no idea what to say to her. I can’t tell her what I’ve been doing. What happened with Dom at the club, and how we’d almost gotten stuck in some sort of alternate dimension or something. She’d think I was nuts.

Ash sat quietly in the passenger seat, her gaze fixed on the window as the cityscape blurred by. Her reflection in the glass was thoughtful, her expression distant, as though she too were sifting through her thoughts, searching for the right words. The silence between them stretched out, moderately comfortable yet burdened by the unspoken.

Finally, after another six miles, Ash turned slightly, her voice soft but steady as she spoke.

“Hey, Nile,” she began, hesitant. “I understand if you don’t want to tell me -you know, about Dom’s mother. But if you don’t think it will cause more trouble for you to tell me… I am curious.”

Her words hung in the air, tentative but probing. Nile’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel, his brows furrowing as he considered her request.

This wasn’t an easy thing to talk about, especially with Ash. As much as he cared for her, he knew she and Dom were far from friends. Sharing something so deeply personal felt like betraying a trust, a bond he and Dom had forged through years of friendship. But Ash wasn’t asking lightly, and there was a sincerity in her voice that gave him pause.

The weight of childhood memories pressed against him, and for a moment, the present blurred as his mind drifted back. He couldn’t remember a time before Dom -at least, not clearly. She had been such an integral part of his life for so long that his earliest memories all seemed to include her, as if they had always been destined to meet.

He smiled faintly, his grip on the wheel loosening as a particular memory surfaced.

“She was swinging on a swing when I first met her,” he said, his voice soft, almost wistful. “I was just a kid -probably six, maybe seven. My mom had taken me to the park, and there she was, this little raven-haired pixie girl in a sundress, kicking her legs like she was trying to touch the sky.”

Ash turned her head slightly, watching him as he spoke, her expression open and curious.

“I remember stopping dead in my tracks, just staring at her. She had these eyes... I still don’t know how to describe them. Like she was seeing something the rest of us couldn’t. Even now, I get this weird sense of déjà vu, like I knew her before I even met her, like we’d crossed paths in another life or something.”

His smile grew, tinged with amusement. “Of course, that moment of awe didn’t last long. I ran right in front of her swing, and -bam!” He clapped one hand off the wheel for emphasis, a chuckle escaping his lips. “Her little feet hit me square in the face. Knocked me flat on my back.”

Ash laughed softly, her eyes lighting up. “That sounds like Dom, all right.”

“From that moment on, we were best friends,” Nile continued. “Inseparable. We went through everything together -her triumphs, her disasters, mine too. But the one time she needed me most...” His voice trailed off, and his grip on the wheel tightened again.

Ash’s smile faded as she noticed the shadow that crossed his face.

“Her mother’s death?” she asked gently.

Nile nodded, his throat tightening. “Yeah. Olivia was... something else. She had this energy, this presence that just drew people to her. It was magnetic. She looked at the world like it was one big adventure, with one foot in a daydream and the other in reality. She was the kind of person who could disarm a situation with nothing more than a smile and a few words -never met anyone who didn’t fall in love with her a little.” And her being highly trained in combat didn’t hurt either, he thought -though she never had to use it that he knew of.

His voice softened, a hint of warmth creeping in. “I still remember going over to Dom’s house as a kid. Olivia always made it feel like home. The smell of cinnamon and apples followed her everywhere, like it was part of her or something. She had this way of making you believe anything was possible.”

The warmth faded as the memory shifted, the weight of loss settling over him. “When she died, Dom was... crushed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so broken. And the worst part? I wasn’t there for her. Not the way I should’ve been.” Tried to be, he added silently.

Ash reached out, her hand brushing his arm lightly. “Nile, you can’t blame yourself for that. You were a kid.”

“I know,” he said, though the guilt still lingered. “But it doesn’t stop me from wishing I could’ve done more. Been there more.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The van fell into silence again, broken only by the distant hum of traffic.

“Dom’s strong,” Nile said after a moment, his tone shifting. “Always has been. She threw herself into martial arts after Olivia passed, like it was her way of holding on, of staying connected. And she’s damn good at it now. She could probably kick my ass in her sleep.”

It was funny thinking back on it, Dom and he had a very unusual relationship. She always seemed to like to hit him -ever since that first day.

He chuckled softly at the memories.

He would tease her constantly and she had a good way of getting her revenge each and every time.

One time they hadn't seen each other in months and the first thing he did when he saw her dancing alone on the dance floor at the concert hall, was to run up behind her and practically knock her over by "accidentally" bumping into her. Her response was to jump back and throw a spinning roundhouse kick to his face, followed quickly by a tackling hug, all of this in lieu of a simple ‘hey, how are you doing, long time no see.’

She was studying Karate at the time while Nile was studying Tae Kwon Do, but unlike her he gave up training for a few years, except on rare occasions to keep himself in shape, after having attained a black belt in only the one art. But she was different; she’d kept with it her whole life and was now an instructor in several forms of martial arts.

Ash raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “You’re okay with that?” Her question snapped Nile back to the present.

He shrugged, his grin returning. “Why not? She’s always been the hand-to-hand expert. I’m better with ranged stuff. It’s like one of those universal laws. Balance or something.”

Ash smiled at that, though her gaze grew thoughtful again as she turned back to the window. The landscape outside had begun to shift, the buildings thinning out as they moved toward the quieter edge of town.

Nile glanced at her, weighing whether or not he should tell her more. Finally he made the decision and focused on the road ahead, though his thoughts were inexorably drawn to the past.

“Her mother got really sick when Dom was only eleven,” Nile said quietly, his voice heavy with the weight of memory. “They used to live right next door to my family. But after she passed…” He paused, his gaze distant, fixed on a point far beyond the windshield. “Jacque, Dom’s dad, couldn’t take it. Couldn’t stand living in the house they’d been a family in. So, he went on tour with the military and took Dom with him.”

For a while, Nile fell silent, the only sounds the low hum of the van’s engine and the occasional whoosh of oncoming traffic. The glow of headlights streaked across his face, throwing fleeting shadows that seemed to mirror the thoughts clouding his mind.

Ash sat quietly beside him, her hands resting in her lap, her expression patient and understanding. She didn’t push him, didn’t ask follow-up questions. She simply waited, knowing that Nile would speak when he was ready.

“She doesn’t talk about it much,” he began again, his voice barely above a whisper. “But I know she blames herself for her mom getting sick. I’ve tried so many times to tell her how impossible that is -how there’s no way she could have caused it. It doesn’t matter. She still sees it that way.”

Nile shook his head, his jaw tightening as the memories pulled him deeper. “The cancer hit fast, like... out of nowhere. The doctors didn’t know what to do. It was some rare, aggressive form. By the time they figured out what was happening, it was already too late. They said there wasn’t a cure. Chemo wouldn’t work; none of the usual treatments would. They gave her a few weeks to live, at most.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and a single tear rolled down his cheek, catching the light before falling away.

“But they didn’t give up,” he continued, his tone thick with emotion. “Dom’s a fighter. Always has been. And she learned it from her mom. Since conventional medicine couldn’t do anything, they decided to try everything else. Homeopathy, naturopathy, witch doctors, medicine men… They even traveled to meet gurus and faith healers. Anywhere, anyone who might have a cure, no matter how slim the chance.”

And then a small, bittersweet smile touched Nile’s lips. “And it worked. Or at least, it seemed like it did. The handful of weeks the doctors had predicted turned into two months. Then three. Then six. At the eighth-month mark, the cancer even looked like it was going into remission. The doctors couldn’t believe it. They said it looked like Olivia was going to beat it.”

The smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by a shadow of grief. “I spent almost all my time at their house back then -whenever they were home. I wanted to help -any way I could.”

He shifted lanes to pass a sports car driving under the speed limit.

“Sometimes that just meant sitting there, being with them. Dom and I would take turns reading to her. Stories we loved as kids, stories she used to read to us. No matter how sick she looked, whenever we read to her, it was like... like she lit up from the inside. She’d smile, and for those moments, it was like the sickness wasn’t even there.”

Ash listened intently, her heart aching as Nile’s voice wavered, his pain etched clearly across his face.

“But then... my parents decided we were taking a trip to DC,” he said bitterly. “It was the end of summer, and Olivia seemed like she was pulling through. They thought it was the perfect time to get away. I tried everything to convince them not to make me go. I begged, pleaded, swore I’d do anything if they’d just let me stay. I knew -I don’t know how, but I knew- something bad was going to happen if I left.”

Nile’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, his grip causing the leather to creak as his voice grew hard. “But they didn’t listen. They packed me up and dragged me along on some boring trip to “visit our history”. Two days later, Olivia died.”

His jaw clenched, and his eyes glinted with a sharpness that could have cut through steel. The pain in his expression was raw, fresh, as though it had happened only yesterday.

“So, yeah,” he said after a long pause, his voice quieter but no less intense. “I disagree that it was Dom’s fault. It wasn’t. But I get why she thinks it is. And honestly? I feel the same way. If I’d been there, if I hadn’t left, maybe Olivia would still be alive. Maybe Dom wouldn’t have had to go through all of that alone.”

He exhaled sharply, his shoulders sagging under the weight of his guilt.

Ash reached over and placed a gentle hand on his arm, her touch light but grounding. Nile turned to look at her, his gaze meeting hers. Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears, the compassion in her expression like a balm to his pain. She didn’t say anything -she didn’t have to. The quiet understanding in her eyes spoke louder than words.

The moment was broken by the sudden, cool nudge of Peanut’s wet nose against their skin. Both of them jumped slightly, startled, before letting out soft, breathy laughs.

Peanut whined softly and licked at their hands, his tail wagging just enough to thump against the seat.

Nile reached back to ruffle the dog’s ears, a faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Guess you don’t like seeing anyone upset, huh, buddy?”

Peanut gave a satisfied huff and settled back down, resting his head on his paws but keeping his watchful eyes on them.

Ash squeezed Nile’s arm lightly before letting her hand drop back to her lap. “Thanks for telling me,” she said softly. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

Nile nodded, his gaze drifting back to the road ahead. The lights of the city stretched out before them, a blur of movement and color against the night sky.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I just hope... I just hope someday she can let go of that guilt.”

The van fell into a contemplative silence, the hum of the engine and the rhythmic flicker of passing headlights filling the emptiness left by the losses of the past.