Held Together
Copyright© 2026 by Heel
Chapter 1
The jump should have been routine.
Dara stepped out of the aircraft and into open sky, the wind roaring past her as gravity took hold. For a few seconds, there was only freefall—the familiar pull, the disciplined calm she relied on.
Then the parachute opened wrong.
The jerk was savage, far beyond normal. Her body snapped upward as the canopy twisted, lines screaming under uneven tension. The horizon spun wildly. Dara fought the controls, arms straining, but the parachute refused to stabilize. The forest surged up toward her—dense, unbroken, deadly.
“No—”
The trees hit her first.
Branches smashed into her legs, bending them violently before she even understood what was happening. A split second later her body slammed sideways into a trunk, the impact traveling straight through her spine in a blinding burst of pain. She struck again—shoulder, then back—before the parachute tore free and she dropped the final distance uncontrolled.
The ground ended everything at once.
Dara landed hard on her back, the force folding her lower body awkwardly beneath her. The impact drove the breath from her lungs and locked her chest in place. She tried to inhale and couldn’t. Panic flared until air finally tore its way in with a broken, rasping gasp.
Pain followed instantly—precise, unmistakable, everywhere.
Her right leg lay twisted unnaturally outward, the knee bent where it shouldn’t bend, the lower half completely unresponsive except for the crushing, grinding pain that pulsed through it. Her left leg burned just as badly, the femur screaming with deep, structural agony every time her body trembled. She couldn’t lift either one. She couldn’t even feel where the ground ended and her legs began—only pressure and pain.
Her arms were no better.
Her left arm lay pinned beneath her torso, useless, her shoulder screaming with sharp, tearing pain that told her something inside had shifted out of place. Her right arm was stretched at an odd angle, forearm bent wrong, sending stabbing jolts through her elbow and wrist whenever her fingers twitched. She tried to move her hands and failed; her arms felt heavy, detached, broken beyond cooperation.
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