The metal handles were icy and slick, far heavier than he expected. His arms burned. Water filled his shoes. A horn blared. Someone shouted something cruel.
Ethan kept moving.
“You’re alright,” he murmured again and again. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”
By the time red lights pierced the storm, his arms were shaking uncontrollably. Paramedics rushed in, voices calm but urgent, lifting the woman onto a stretcher.
One of them turned to Ethan.
“Did you bring her here?”
Ethan nodded.
“You did the right thing,” the man said firmly. “You may have saved two lives tonight.”
Ethan didn’t stay to hear more.
He stepped back into the rain and vanished.
Three days later, the storm felt unreal—like something that had happened to someone else.
Ethan sat on the cold pavement outside a soup kitchen, picking at stale bread. His body ached in unfamiliar ways. The memory of the woman’s face lingered—especially the way she had clung to hope.
He hadn’t told anyone.
