I needed my brain to fuck off with this second-guessing. Women had been taught to ignore their instincts, shut up and smile for thousands of years. When you see an axe and a coil of rope and a gallon of hydrochloric acid in a man’s house, an ex-cop who has paid for you, who views you as his property, and who has a billion brand-new dollars to escape the consequences of any crime whatsoever, in a town where you’ve seen just about every damn one of the cops down at the sex club, more often than not leaving behind a teary-eyed girl with brand new bruises who’s been shorted on the pay, yourun.
And you don’t turn back.
No matter how bad the weather gets.
I backed up so I could pick up some speed. That would get me through this puddle in case it got too deep. I’d use the momentum to propel me.
You can get through this. I knocked on the dashboard for luck. The only way out is through.
I gassed it and plowed through, water kicking up high on both sides of the car, but not so much that I was in trouble. I’d overblown it in my mind. The puddle wasn’t that deep, and my old banged-up clunker trundled through without a hitch.
“Thatta girl,” I patted the dashboard and let out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t much to look at, and my shitty little SUV was old enough to vote, drink, and also rent a car all by herself. But she was still a champion at this advanced age.
I relaxed and eased her around the next turn. The trees on my left disappeared, replaced with rocks, increasing in size untilit became a cliff, a sheer wall that dumped a steady pour of water off the face of it. It hit my car with force, shoving me off the road. I gripped the steering wheel and slammed on the gas to correct, but neither did anything, anymore. I was afloat. The car lifted up higher on my side, the waterfall hitting my window hard enough to crack it down the middle, and then my car flipped, flinging me up, the crunch of metal and shattering glass all around.
My breaths came hard and fast and shot pain all through my chest. I hung restrained, still cinched in by my seatbelt, but on my side, the center console digging deep into my ribs. My hand stung awful. Water gushed against my cracked window and rose up from the ground, fast, pooling until the passenger side door was underwater. I hadn’t had time to scream.
Nobody would hear me anyway.
I clawed at the latch on the door with my bloodied fingertips. Locked. I strained and stretched to reach the lock. Another crash against my car and the window shattered, water pouring inside, suffocating, blinding me, numbing my hands until I couldn’t find the lock or the latch or the side of the door or anything at all.
Hands reached in through the water, grasping at me, groping.
four
. . .
Armin
I layMia on the couch, cradling her head and neck immobile as best I could. She breathed, her lips parting, chest rising, though shallow, and her pulse was slow but present. I didn’t think she’d inhaled much water.
But she wasn’t responsive. Total loss of consciousness, and her lips were blue. Her body felt icy in my arms. I dragged the sofa closer to the fire.
I checked her head and neck for blunt force trauma, again. I couldn’t find any swelling or bleeding, but I was paranoid I’d missed something, though I’d checked when I pulled her from her SUV, and again when I lay her inside my truck. She had a few cuts and scrapes, and an awful bruise had already sprung up where she’d been suspended by the seatbelt, but she hadn’t taken any major lumps that I could find.
I had to get her to a hospital. I had to. But there was no way off the mountain, not in this rain. The only road down was blocked by an enormous felled tree. We only had one route in and out up here. All other paths led up to the top before they dead-ended.
Even if I could chop through that tree across the road, the way beyond it had become a stream.
But fuck it, if she was hurt, I’d find a way. I had to triage whatever had caused her to lose consciousness, whether it was the cold or the trauma or the blood rush from when that godawful little SUV of hers overturned.
Christ. I’d only wanted to spend some time with her. Now I’d nearly killed her.
Hypothermia. It had to be. That or plain old shock. Either way I needed to get her core temperature up, stat. I pulled her soaked coat and dress off and covered her with a blanket. “Mia, can you hear me? You’re safe, Mia. We just need to get you warmed up.” No response. I ran and grabbed a towel from the bathroom to dry her soaked hair, cursing myself all the way there and back. I picked a twig out of her tangled curls and worked to squeeze the water out.
I needed more blankets.
I needed her to be okay.
I threw a few more logs on the fire until it crackled and roared. I knelt by her side to check her pulse again. Still too slow, andGod, she was so cold.
“I’m sorry,” I said out loud. “There’s no other way.” I picked her lifeless body up in my arms and clutched her to my chest. Her head lolled back, horrifically. Dead, she looked fucking dead, and it was my fault. I took the hallway at a run and lay her down on my bed.
The rain hammered loud on the roof, unforgiving.
If I had to I’d bundle her up and get on the ATV. I’d figure a way off this mountain somehow. I cursed myself for getting rid of the landline last year. It was the only connection to civilization if something went wrong up here.
But it never mattered before. I never had anybody precious to me up here, and certainly not a woman I loved.
