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Too much air.
Damon. Tears burned my eyes. My body felt heavy, disconnected. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. I struggled against the pair of hands holding me.
I wouldn’t survive this. They might as well kill me, too. If they weren’t already planning on doing exactly that, because if I survived, I knew I wouldn’treallysurvive.
Damon.
My eyes closed—I couldn’t keep them open any longer—and my body sagged. Hard, cold cement met my temple with a thud. Not as hard as I thought it might, but it still stung.
Damon.
Footfalls shuffled away from me. A horn blared. A car door shut. “Lizzie.” A warm hand shook my shoulder. “Lizzie.”
Gasping for air, I clawed at the arms connected to the hands that were shaking me.Help…Damon.
I couldn’t talk. Too much air. Too lightheaded. Too scared.
Something covered my mouth. Raspy and rough. I tried to push it away.
“It’s a bag. Just breathe, Lizzie. Help’s on the way. Breathe.”
Slowly my heaving stopped. It’d been a brown paper bag pressed against my face. Carl. That’d been Carl’s voice.
He’d found me.
I finally gathered my wits and held the bag to my face. Carl’s blue eyes came into focus. Creases along his forehead tripped my worry trigger again.
I turned my head to find Damon. Please let him be okay.Damon.
But he was gone. I pushed up, and Carl guided my movement. “Ambulance is on the way. Where’s Damon?”
They must have taken him. I pulled the bag from my mouth to say, “They took him.”
Carl’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s get you in the car.”
“I have to call Drey.” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. The face was cracked, but it still worked, so I dialed Drey.
“Hello?” He picked up on the first ring.
That’s when the tears turned on. “They took Damon.”
Sounds of squealing tires. An explosion. Gunfire. All sounded in my head on rapid-fire. Over and over. The same noises I’d heard for years. Same damned noises.
I dropped the phone and covered my ears. The feel of the frozen barrel against my forehead from all those years ago roared to the surface. The snow around me. My frozen fingers. I rubbed my skin to get the cold off. Couldn’t breathe.
“Lizzie?” Carl’s voice trickled through the static drowning everything out. The buzzing. The…
Three, six, nine, twelve.
“No!”Iscreamed,sittingup in my bed.
“I’m here, Lizzie.” Angelina hopped up from the chair beside my bed and reached for me.
Sweat drenched my shirt. My face burned. And my temple stung.
“Wait. Hold on.” Angelina reached for my face. “Bandage came off.”
I felt what she was doing, and my fingertips met a gauze pad. “What happened?”
