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But time wasn’t on our side and when I heard the telltale blast just seconds later, my only thought was the man next to me, and the realization that I potentially only had milliseconds left with him. Even as my instincts took over and I launched my body at his, my mind went blissfully clear, and all I could see and hear and feel was Lucky. His infectious grin, his gentle touch, his unflappable kindness, his soft laughter…
And then there was nothing.
Chapter 22
Lucky
One second I was running for everything I was worth with Zach by my side, the next I was landing hard on a bed of rocks that cut into my exposed skin. Before I could even contemplate what had happened beyond being on my feet one moment and on my belly the next, a heavy weight landed on my back, knocking the breath from my oxygen-starved lungs. I tried to call to Zach to make sure he was still okay, but even if I could have found the air I needed to make a sound, the deafening blast that rocked the hill behind me muted the world around me. My addled brain managed to put together the fact that the helicopter had just exploded, but that was all I could manage to string together.
The pure strength of the rush of hot air that followed just milliseconds later was proof that I wouldn’t have managed to stay on my feet anyway. As it was, I had no clue how, despite the force of the blast, I didn’t feel my body being pelted with all the debris raining down around me. At most, there were a few small stones hitting parts of my extremities and nothing more.
Maybe I’d made it to the boulders after all. When Zach had pointed at them and yelled to head toward them, I hadn’t even considered why. I’d just put every ounce of strength into keeping up with the man beside me…
Zach.
Holy fuck, where was Zach?
Please, God, let him have made it to the boulders. Let him have made it to the boulders…
I knew before I even finished the silent prayer that he hadn’t. Just like I knew the heavy weight pressing me into the hard earth as rocks, ash, and embers blanketed the ground around me wasn’t the result of the blast knocking me off my feet but Zach’s body instead.
“Zach,” I croaked. I immediately began coughing as my body fought to expel the smoke and dust from my lungs. “Zach,” I managed to say a little more loudly. My ears were ringing, so even if Zach heard me, I wouldn’t have been able to make out his response.
My throat burned as I continued to try and suck in enough clean air so I could get my body moving. “Zach!” I screamed as loudly as I could but there was no movement above me. No reassuring touch, no whispered words in my ear that everything was okay.
No, I whispered to myself in denial.
I struggled to pull my right hand from beneath the crush of our bodies as my left hand reached behind me to touch Zach in any place I could reach. “Zach!” I screamed as tears pricked the back of my eyes.
Nothing.
Nothing but the roar of the fire as tree after tree behind us was consumed like they were nothing more than kindling.
It took every ounce of energy I had to pull my right hand free. My head hurt like a motherfucker but it had nothing on the pain in my chest.
The asshole was fine. He was fine! No way on God’s green earth was he going to do this to me.
My rage actually gave me the strength I needed to work my arm free. Once I had use of both my hands, I managed to get the leverage I needed to push my body up. It seemed to take forever to carefully ease Zach’s prone form off me.
And I spent every second of that time cursing the man.
“You are not doing this to me, do you hear me?!” Tears clogged my throat as I scrambled to move to Zach’s side. I should have been relieved to see that he didn’t have even a single mark on his beautiful face, but I wasn’t.
Because he was still.
Too still.
“Zach…” I whispered. I was too afraid to touch him. Even with the heat of the flames bearing down on us with frightening speed, I couldn’t move. Because moving meant knowing for sure if he was gone.
And he couldn’t be gone.
He just couldn’t.
It was Zach’s voice that ultimately tore me from my stupor. Not his actual voice, just the memory of it.
Airway. Breathing. Circulation.
I could do this… I could do this because Zach needed me to do it. I pulled in a breath, ignoring the sting of pain that accompanied it, and leaned forward to listen for breath sounds since I didn’t have a stethoscope. My fingers were shaking when I placed them against his neck to check for a pulse.
