AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I hadn’t even really understood what he was asking her because I had nothing to do with her sister’s death.
“This prick,” Joel snaps maliciously. “Is the one who caused your sister’s accident.”
“No, I didn’t.” I try one more time to get Casper to move behind me. Obviously, this guy is going crazy or something.
“Yes. You are. I’ve been doing a little bit of research,” Joel says while patting a manila envelope that I didn’t see before. “And I hired a private investigator. Apparently, your car went off the road about a mile before Cassie’s did. Only, you weren’t found for hours, and it was just over the county line in Mount Vernon, so no one made the connection.”
“What?” Casper sounds broken. “Is that true, Cole?”
My head immediately starts pounding as I push myself back to that night. But just like every other time I try to remember, there is nothing there.
I look over at the woman I think I love and try my best not to let the panic attack that is threatening to take over win. The lights are getting brighter and it is getting harder to breathe by the second. Exactly like every other time I’ve tried. No matter how much I push, there aren’t any memories of that night before the metal bending and cracking around me.
“It was him,” Joel repeats himself. “I just got the file from the investigator, read it over, and I had to make sure you were safe when I realized how close you were to the person responsible.”
I try to move. To pull Casper into my arms. To tell her that Joel is lying. That he is mistaken. He has to be. None of my muscles are working. My arms stay lifelessly at my sides. My legs won’t shift. My eyes won’t even move away from her, pleading for her to see my pain.
There’s a disconnect.
I’m screaming in my head, roaring about the unfairness of his accusations. Nothing comes out of my mouth, though. I can’t even blink as my eyes feel like they are drier than the desert.
I watch her, unable to look away, as Casper tries to deny what he’s said. But I can only see the doubt there, the uncertainty, and I am helpless to reach out for her. My body betrays me as the panic sets fully in my bones, with nothing for me to do to fight it.
“Please…” Casper steps up to my chest and puts her hand on my racing heart. “Tell me that he’s wrong, Cole. Tell me that you remember that night. That you didn’t kill my sister. That you’re not the one responsible for the pain I’m going to live with the rest of my life.”
I manage to open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Not even a grunt. As a look of desolation clouds her face, I push harder than I ever have before to remember what happened.
I swear, I don’t close my eyes. I have my eyes locked on hers, but in the next moment Casper and Joel are gone. My panic at her words still fills my head—her doubt, her plea. That’s it, though.
Darkness surrounds me, making it impossible to see where I am. But I know. The distant hum of the radio transports me back to that night. To the only memory I have been able to retrieve. A song I can’t place, from a night I don’t remember. But everything I care about and love relies on me forcing myself to remember the memory.
I have to know if Joel told the truth.
I need to know if I’m the one responsible for tearing apart Casper’s family.
Did I kill her sister?
My body jerks, my head rolling from side to side with the impact of the crash, just like it had happened that night. Through the haze of darkness, I see one single flash of red to my left, and then it vanishes. After that, my eyes close of their own accord, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Screeching metal, the car slamming into an immovable force, and then nothing. A deadly silence, the absence of any other noise, fills my ears and drowns out everything except the blood pounding through my veins.
I struggle, trying to fight back, to regain my balance, but my eyes won’t open. I can’t breathe, and my chest rattles with every attempt to pull oxygen into my lungs. I can’t even scream as everything around me rocks and then comes to a frightening halt.
Even the radio goes silent. The only sound is the malevolent hiss of fluid draining from the radiator of my car, and the unmistakable gasp that tears from my throat as I try to move, but the pain becomes too much.
After the third attempt, I give up and wait for the throbbing pain to fade.
I still can’t see anything. Not for what feels like hours. When the haze finally clears, I can smell the oil, the gas, and the unmistakable scent of sulfur. Blinking doesn’t do anything except smear the blood that is dripping steadily into my eye.
“Fuck,” I groan, reaching for my seat belt, but it won’t budge. From where I’m sitting, I can hear the blood dripping down to the roof of the car.
During the crash the car must have flipped, but I can’t remember it happening. When I try to shift my position to reach into my pocket for the knife I always carry, agony fills every part of my body.
When my eyes blink open again, the pain has receded to a dull throb, and I know I’ve been unconscious. The clock on the dash flashing at 12:00 over and over again gives me no indication of how long I’ve been out.
Expecting an excruciating amount of pain, I reach for my pocket one more time, doing my best not to shift any other part of my body except my arm. When I hit my pocket, though, I’m out of luck.
The knife I keep in my pocket, the one my grandfather had given me before he died, isn’t there.
A pitiful groan is the only thing I can manage, and I curse the fact that I don’t own a newer car. If I did, roadside services would have been automatically called. Oh no, I had to be a jackass and own a muscle car from the 80s.
