He sees them the same second I do. High beams. Blinding. A dark SUV, crossing the center line, accelerating, eating up the distance between us at a speed that isn't accidental.
"Hold on!" Ace yanks the wheel.
Time fractures.
The SUV clips the front driver's side. The impact is a sound I'll hear for the rest of my life. The metal screaming againstmetal, glass exploding inward, the steering wheel ripping from Ace's hands. My seatbelt locks across my chest, and the force slams me sideways. My head cracks against the window.
The car lifts.
We're airborne. There’s a sickening weightlessness of a vehicle leaving the ground.
Then we flip.
The roof hits first. The crunch of metal. The shower of glass. My body slams against the seatbelt and then the door and then the roof, and I'm screaming, but I can't hear anything except the grinding of steel and the explosion of the airbags and Ace's voice shouting my name.
"HARPER!"
We roll. Once. Twice. The world spins. Sky. Ground. Sky. Ground. Everything that was inside the car becomes a projectile.
"HARPER!"
His hand reaches for me. I feel his fingers graze mine.
Then we hit something. Something solid and final that stops the rolling with a jolt so violent my teeth crack together and every thought in my head goes white.
Silence.
Not real silence. The ringing kind. I'm upside down. Hanging from my seatbelt. Blood in my hair. Glass in my lap. The car is crumpled around us, the roof caved in, the windshield gone.
I try to turn my head. Try to find him. Try to say his name.
"Ace..."
Nothing comes out.
My hand reaches across the wreckage. Finds his arm. His skin. "Ace..."
The darkness comes in from the edges, a curtain closing around me. My fingers tighten on his arm, but they're getting weaker. Everything is getting weaker. The ringing in my ears is fading to something softer.
My other hand finds my belly.
Please. Please be okay. Please.
The last thing I see before the black takes me is his hand, hanging limp beside mine. His knuckles split. His hat is gone.
And then nothing.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Ace
Song- White Blank Page, Mumford & Sons.
I come back in pieces.
Sound first. The boots on glass, some voices I don't recognize.
Then pain. I feel it everywhere. My ribs. My skull. My left shoulder is wrong, something is grinding when I try to move it that sends fire down my arm. Blood in my mouth.
