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As the car meandered across the highway and horns blared around us, I lunged over to grip the steering wheel, fear spiraling through my stomach. “Rose?”
Aiden swore. “What is with both of you going catatonic on me?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the unrelenting trauma we’ve experienced,” I snapped back. “Sorry it’s so inconvenient.”
Sometimes I felt like I’ve become a shell of a human being over the last several years. But it was different around my siblings. I always had a smartass remark for them.
Aiden unbuckled his seatbelt so he could lean forward and shake Rose’s shoulders. She didn’t respond and I tried to steer us toward the gravel on the side of the road as Aiden attempted to wrestle her back over the seats.
Just then, Rose’s lips parted. Blood flowed down her chin. The car swung around the road, and I tried desperately to right it.
Aiden finally pulled Rose free. I slid over to get into the driver’s seat, slamming my inner thigh into the stick hard enough that it would bruise. But finally, I landed in the driver’s seat, frantically reaching my foot for the brake pedal. As horns sounded around us, I slammed on my brakes as we bounced into the gravel.
I finally brought us to rest on the side of the highway.
But there was no time to breathe. I twisted in my seat to see Aiden white-faced, holding Rose. Her head lolled back, her eyes closed. She was unconscious, and the red staining her chin and her shirt made me panicky.
“We should have a cell phone,” Aiden said, then swore.
I threw open my door—another frantic honk as a car swerved away—and ran around to the embankment. I pulled open the passenger door. Dylan sat wide-eyed and frozen. “Move,” I told him, grabbing his hands and trying to pull him out. After a second, he responded. “Sit in the grass!” I told him, terrified he would head toward the road.
Then I helped Aiden get Rose out of the car. We laid her down on the grass, and I cradled her head in my lap to protect her from the rough gravel. I pressed my fingers into the side of her throat, searching for a pulse, and it was hard to find one at first over the frantic beating of my own heart. But finally, I found her pulse.
“We need to call 9-1-1!” Aiden shouted at me. He ran out into the highway, trying to flag someone down to call for us, but no one stopped.
“You hold her!” I shouted at him. I desperately wanted to keep holding her and make it better, but I had to be the one that got us help. “They’ll stop for me!”
As soon as he was holding Rose, I ran into the road. Dylan was crying and I desperately wanted to comfort him, but the most important thing right now was getting help for Rose.
I flagged down a car, and a man finally stopped. “Please call 911. I don’t have a cell phone and my sister needs an ambulance. Tell them she started bleeding from the mouth.”
“You don’t have a cell phone? What are you, Amish?” the passenger in the car asked. But the driver was already dialing for us. I ran back to Rose.
Aiden’s eyes met mine grimly. For a second, my heart bottomed out. I thought she was gone.
“She passed out,” he said. “I think she went into shock. Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?”
I shook my head. I felt like I couldn’t think straight. I scooped up Dylan and held him, running my fingers through his auburn hair and swaying with him against my hip. I was comforting him, but he was comforting me just as much.
In the distance, the sound of the ambulance sirens rose.
But I wasn’t sure they would save my sister.
CHAPTER9
Stone
There wasno sign of Amelia.
Teresa had gotten the plate number when she chased the car. Cole had the cops run the plates. A few of our shifters worked for the local PD. They made it a lot easier to make sure our packs stay out of trouble.
And of course, no one made it very far in pack territory without Tee knowing everything about them.
But the plates hadn’t popped.
I paced toward the house, but I couldn’t bring myself to go inside. The lights shone brightly out of the window, and the house looked comforting and warm. It should have been Amelia’s home. One where she felt safe. But she was out there somewhere, no doubt in danger.
Because of me.
