Page 65 of Booked for Murder

I doubted the driver behind me realized he’d lost traction, sliding despite his efforts to stop before hitting us.

Bradley kept talking, although his words remained lost to me.

All my attention focused on making sure his prized beauty of a car did its final task without fail.

If I let him hit me straight in the back, the curve ahead would prove our deaths, plummeting us into a ravine. If he rammed us into the rock cut, they’d need a shovel and bucket to collect our remains. No matter what I did, our vehicle would be shunted into a dangerous position, but I could force him to ram my side of the car and clip the rock wall, slowing us enough we wouldn’t go over the edge. My side of the car would take most of the damage.

Too many ifs plagued the scenario, but if I did everything just right, Bradley might walk away.

I accounted for the rain, waited for the last moment, and pumped the brake, turned the wheel, and made sure the bastard behind me hit me at an angle while I slammed the brakes, the only choice I had without crushing Bradley into the rock wall on one side or knocking us off the road into the ravine on the other.

Instead of only blackness, new memories trickled in. Smoke choked off my breath, and while somewhat aware of my surroundings, my eyes no longer worked.

I could taste blood in my mouth, hot and fresh from a jagged wound in my throat.

I didn’t need my eyes to fix that. I became aware of my magic, which I usually kept on a close leash, slipping out of my grasp. It still obeyed somewhat, staunching the flood of blood from my torn carotid. Maybe it understood if I continued to bleed from there, my lifespan would be measured in minutes.

Any other day, that would have scared me.

A new memory formed, one that slid into its rightful place, as gentle as a feather drifting down from the sky on a still day.

The magic I’d buried wanted me to live, and it listened to another’s will, as though it needed direction and couldn’t quite figure out what it should do despite understanding if it did nothing, I would die. I’d never believed my magic twas capable of independent thought or feelings. It’d been a part of me since I’d been a child, a lifeless thing I breathed life into.

My magic wanted me to live.

It could learn, and as more memories flooded in, I recognized who had taught it what it needed to know.

Bradley.

He lived, and although he used only one hand, he fought a battle he won without realizing why. Where he touched, my magic followed, closing the wounds that would have otherwise taken my life. My magic continued to learn, and the external wounds ceased bleeding, although Bradley had no way of knowing he worked a new magic, one that bound me to the life I’d willingly given.

Beneath the relief I’d done everything just right came a second emotion, one I’d done my best to ignore. Nothing good could come from me harboring any form of love for a man I worked for, one I’d sworn to give my life for if necessary.

The crystal clarity returned, and another facet returned, one that should have haunted me for years instead of hiding in the darkest recesses of my mind.

Pride in my work and flimsy sheets of paper with my signature on them hadn’t forced me to turn the wheel as I had without hesitation. Duty hadn’t played any part of my decision.

I loved him enough I hadn’t wanted to see a world without him in it, even if it meant throwing everything away.

Rather than fading to the silent dark I expected, flashes of light, hazy voices, and tortured breaths stolen accompanied the hammering of a frigid rain. Somehow, the rain washed away the blank spaces, penetrating through the fog I hadn’t realized I’d battled.

“It would be a mercy to let her go.”

That voice I remembered, that of a doctor I’d loathed for reasons I hadn’t understood.

I understood those reasons now. Of course I would resent someone who’d wanted to pull the plug and end a life I still fought for despite being unaware of it. The memory of his name slid into place.

Dr. Geran Avers.

What an asshole.

“Is she in pain, then?” Bradley asked.

“No. We have not recorded any significant brain activity in a month. Even if she does awaken, it is probable she will enter a vegetative state and stay there.”

“If she isn’t in any pain, then it doesn’t hurt anything for me to continue paying your hospital for all costs of her care. There is no mercy in murder, and killing her when she could survive is murder. She’s not dead yet.”

I’d have to thank him for that one. I’d also have to set him straight on a few things.