Page 30 of Ruined Wolf

“But it’s your home too, Asher,” she replied, sounding genuinely upset.

I sighed, steering the truck carefully around a sharp bend. The forest stretched off to one side, but on the other side was a steep drop off to rocks and trees farther down. It was a dangerous road, especially in winter.

“It was, but it’s not anymore. It’s yours and Maverick’s and Lucas’s. This is fine, Nova. It means we’ll have some space, and then hopefully we can be friends, and I don’t have to watch you parading around in nothing but a shirt.” I’d meant the last comment as a joke, but she blushed.

“I wasn’t parading,” she muttered.

“I was kidding,” I said softly.

“Oh,” she murmured. She wrung her hands in her lap, not looking at me.

“Nova, talk to me. I really want us to be friends. I don’t want to lose that.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted, then sighed. “If you think it’s just physical, then I guess... I can’t argue with that. I can’t make you do something that you don’t want to, and if you don’t want me any other way, then I guess I would like to keep you as a friend too.”

I didn’t answer for a moment as I watched the road ahead. Smaller roads led off this one, winding into the forest, and the fog was rolling in off the sea, making it harder to see.

“Asher?” she said.

“Mmm?”

“What if... Can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” I replied. “You can—fuck!” I slammed on the brakes, but as quick as my reflexes were, they weren’t enough.

A dark truck shot out of one of the small turns, and I couldn’t stop in time. It hit us side-on with a sickening crunch, and the truck slid sideways. I tried to steer, but panic flared inside me as the wheels on Nova’s side left the ground and the whole truck flipped over. Awareness left me as the truck rolled down the cliff, our bodies flinging about like rag dolls despite the seatbelts. My entire being focused on the shattering of glass, the crunching of metal, and Nova’s screams. There was pain and blood, and then more pain as my head hit something hard and everything went black.

I groaned as the pain came flooding back with consciousness. Everything hurt like hell, my head most of all, and as I pressed my fingers to my forehead, I could feel the slow ooze of blood over my skin. The seatbelt was still in place, so I figured I’d hit my head on the steering wheel when the truck had forced us off the road.

My cloudy thoughts cleared at the memory.

“Nova!” I twisted in my seat to look at her. Thankfully, the truck had landed the right way up, though we were at a tilt. We hadn’t quite hit the sea, thank the moon, but the truck was wedged between rocks and partially underwater. Cold sea water filled the footwells, making me shiver, though that could also have been shock.

Nova lay slumped against the window. It was partially shattered, as was the windscreen, and her hair and clothes glistened with chunks of shattered glass. Tiny cuts covered her face, and she was also sporting a nasty bump on her head. She wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t tell if she was even breathing.

My own breath caught, and I could have sworn my heart stopped as I reached over to check her pulse.

“Nova, Nova, don’t be dead. Please, don’t be dead,” I prayed out loud as I searched her throat for movement.

After a minute, I sank back against my seat in relief. She had a pulse, slow and steady, and as I watched more calmly, I could see the slight rise and fall of her chest. She wasn’t out of the woods though. She might be unconscious, but the head wound could be serious, or she could be injured internally. I wriggled around, trying to free myself from the seatbelt, but it cut tightly into me, pinning me to my seat, refusing to release me.

I wondered if the other truck driver had called for help yet, then realised that since they’d hit us, they might have been injured as well. I fought against the seatbelt again, trying to reach my phone in my back pocket. I normally kept it in the centre console, but I’d been too distracted by Nova to put it there, and I gave a silent prayer of thanks as I pulled it from my pocket. Had it been in its normal place, it might have been thrown from the truck or even smashed, but it was completely intact.

I unlocked it and rang Maverick, hoping to God he’d left his phone on during the council meeting.

He arrived shortly before the ambulance and the two trucks, fighting his way down the steep cliff to the truck to get to us. I didn’t think I’d ever been so glad to see my big brother. My head ached, and I had an overwhelming urge to sleep, but I fought it, knowing that did not lead to good outcomes. Instead, I held Nova’s hand, talking to her the whole time. She couldn’t hear me, but it kept me thinking about the way she was still unconscious and the fact that her pulse seemed to be growing weaker.

There were tears on my face when Maverick wrenched my door open.

“Ash, Ash!” He grabbed my other hand, squeezing it tight as his eyes searched my face.

“I’m okay, we’re okay. I think. I think she’s okay, but... Rick...” Tears streamed down my face. Lucas would have laughed at me, but I didn’t care. My heart was breaking, and I couldn’t bear it.

Maverick’s face was white, but he swallowed and squeezed my hand again. “Does she still have a pulse? Is she breathing, Ash?”

I took a shaky breath, taking my hand from his to brush the tears away. “She’s breathing, and yes, there’s a pulse, but she’s not woken up since, and—”

“It’s all good. The ambulance is just behind me, and we’ll get you both to the hospital. It’ll be fine, Asher. We won’t let anything happen to her.”