Page 96 of Living with Fire
It’s all I can manage before I start screaming as the car flips, and everything in it gets thrown around. There’s a loud pop, and white dances in my vision as the airbags go off. Then something large smashes through the windshield, but I can’t tell if it was coming in or going out. I know the roof is caving in more and more every time we land on it, but I stay rooted in place thanks to my seatbelt.
That doesn’t mean I don’t feel like a rag doll being tossed around in a washing machine.
The sound is something from a horror movie. Metal scraping, crunching, cracking, grating on every nerve I have left. It feels like it takes forever, but also happens in the blink of an eye, time feeling like a strange, unruly concept.
Then it’s over. The car stops, the ride is done, and the only sound I can hear is someone shrieking. It won’t stop, and I need it to stop, because it’s horrifying to listen to.
I turn my head to the left to see if it’s Vincent, but he isn’t there. The only person in the car is me.
I’m the one screaming.
Sucking in a breath, I contemplate doing it again because I know I’m on the verge of a major meltdown, but find some scrap of strength left to swallow the urge.
I need to get out of the car. Before it catches on fire, or Vincent comes back with the gun, or something comes down from the mountain to eat me because I’m a sitting duck and the scent of blood is all over me.
I look around the car, trying to figure out why everything looks so weird when it hits me. I’m upside down.
“Oh God,” I gasp, hating the thought of being upside down even more than the thought of something coming to eat me.
I’m stuck in this small, tight space. It hurts to breathe. It feels like someone is sitting on my chest, making it impossible to pull air into my lungs.
No. No, I need to breathe. I can’t melt down right now.
Closing my eyes, I focus on trying to breathe to a count of four, but I only make it to two. My chest is on fire. Hanging upside down is doing nothing to help. In fact, I’m starting to feel a little woozy and lightheaded.
“Savanna!”
Nate. Oh, sweet, wonderful Nate. The man I love. I need to hold on, I need to tell him that I love him. I need to make sure he heard me.
“Savanna!”
Turning my head towards my window, or what’s left of it, I blink slowly at the face that drops in.
Not Nate. Liam.
“Liam,” I say, but my voice doesn’t sound right.
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen, don’t move, okay? We’re going to get you out as quick as we can,” he says urgently. “Can you tell me what hurts?”
I can’t hold my head the way I need to in order to see him, so I stop trying to crane it. I do, however, see movement come through the small sliver of window that’s left and then feel his fingers at my neck.
I whimper. “Chest. Arm. Head. Maybe everything. Liam?”
“I’m here,” he says, but I already know that because he hasn’t taken his hand away.
My stomach lurches with fear. “Vincent?”
There’s a pause before he answers. “He won’t be able to hurt you ever again, Sav.”
“How do you know?” I ask hoarsely. Though it hurts to do so, I turn my head again, trying to peer at him, then beyond him. There’s hardly any space for me to see through, but if Vincent is out there, if he’s close, he could hurt Liam while he’s on the ground trying to help me. “I don’t want him to hurt you. Liam, he has a gun—”
“Sav,” he interrupts in such a way it demands my entire attention, pulling me back into the moment. “He went through the windshield. He isn’t going to hurt anyone. Ever again.”
For one heartbeat I stare at Liam, unable to comprehend his words. My body understands before my mind, a breath of relief whooshing out. Safe. My family, my friends, my love. All of them are safe.
The motion sends a flurry of pain through me so severely I become nauseated. I stop craning my neck, my eyes closing as I manage to say, “Liam?”
“Yeah?”