Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I grimaced. “Gotta get there and make sure he’s going to be okay.”
She nodded, eyes wet from tears.
I dropped a kiss on her head as I passed, then got dressed and headed out in the next moment.
It was as I was driving to Shaw’s place that I saw my sister in a black SUV swerving in and out of the oncoming lane of traffic.
I gritted my teeth and called Black.
“Hey, I’m on my way to Shaw…”
“My sister is in front of me, weaving in and out of traffic,” I grumbled. “She’s drunk.”
“Goddammit,” he said. “Where are you?”
I explained my location, and he said, “I’m about a half mile in front of you. Koen’s behind me with Ida Bell. I’ll tell him to pull off and…”
It happened almost before I could blink.
My sister started drifting off to the side.
Koen’s work truck pulled to the middle turn lane to turn onto the road that would take him to Shaw’s place, which allowed Black’s lights from the other side of the road to be seen.
Seraphina, seeing the lights, panicked and swerved hard to her side of the road. But she overcorrected, then violently swerved back to the left.
Right into where Ida Bell and Koen were stopped, ready to turn across traffic once it was cleared.
Seraphina slammed hard into the back of Koen’s truck, which pushed him forward and to the right into oncoming traffic.
The eighteen-wheeler coming toward him in front of Black tried to swerve, but it was no use.
The eighteen-wheeler T-boned Koen’s work truck.
Heart in my throat and lungs screaming in agony, I pulled as close as the accident would allow me to get and bailed from the truck.
I wasn’t even sure if I’d put it in Park.
I was running toward Koen’s truck before I’d consciously told myself that was what I was going to do.
The truck’s big diesel engine shut off and the man bailed out of his own truck, repeatedly saying, “Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.”
It was only when I heard the “please, please, please,” of my own voice that I realized I was having the same reaction.
“Koen!” I heard Black cry out. “Koen, can you hear me?”
Nothing.
No words, no nothing. Well, nothing but the sound of groaning and heated, popping metal.
I got to the side of the twisted metal frame that was once Koen’s truck and glanced into the cab window.
I was on the passenger side, and I could see Ida Bell’s long black hair lying over the powdery white pillow of an airbag, but nothing else.
“Ida Bell?” I called, pulling out my knife and puncturing the airbag that was blocking my view of her.
Nothing.
I followed the same route with the other two airbags that I could reach just as Black’s grim face appeared at my side. “Koen’s gone.”
I closed my eyes as a well of anger and hate started to overwhelm me.
“Ida Bell?” Black asked when I didn’t say anything.
“Don’t know yet,” I said as I got the last airbag down and her face was finally revealed to me.
Miraculously, the metal wasn’t totally squishing her like I could see that it’d done to Koen on the other side.
I looked away fast, my stomach souring at what I saw of the man that I’d seen last night looking so lively at Ida Bell’s side.
“Fuck,” I hissed as I reached in through the broken window and placed my fingers against Ida Bell’s throat.
The pulse of her heart was the sweetest thing I’d ever touched in my life.
“She’s alive,” I said. “We got medics on the way?”
The sound of a door creaking open behind me let me know that, unfortunately, my sister had survived.
Except the person who got out of her car wasn’t my sister, but Cain McDuff.
“What the fuck?” he slurred.
My sister got out of the passenger seat as I watched him, fury building in my veins, just as fucking drunk.
She stumbled off to the side, her hand to her head, as she looked dazedly at the accident they’d caused.
“What happened?” she garbled.
I turned my back on both of them and tried the handle of Ida Bell’s door.
It opened despite the frame being bent awkwardly at the door.
Black helped me open it completely, and I tried really hard not to look at my friend’s broken body in the front seat, the cab of the truck folded around him.
“Ida Bell, honey,” I called. “Are you awake?”
She moaned.
“Don’t move her,” the truck driver said. “9-1-1 is saying not to move her.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
“This is Sheriff Black. I need medics and a life flight to this location.”
I ignored them and caught Ida Bell’s hand in mine, talking to her about anything and everything as we waited long minutes for the medics to arrive.
Unsurprisingly, the first ones to arrive were more deputies, Gentry in particular.
“Fuck,” I heard him say. “Is she okay?”
“She’s going to make it, aren’t you, Ida Bell?” I ordered quietly.