“Wiggle your fingers and toes.”
She did, relieved to feel those. A similar look crossed Noah’s face, seeing her do it.
“You’re wearing your seat belt and the car’s on its side on a slope. Keep looking at me. Don’t look away. I’m your focal point.”
Dazed, she tried to look away, get her bearings, but he made that sharp noise. He even lifted an arm toward her, carefully. He had one hand wrapped around the chicken strap, elbow hooked around the seat back, one foot braced on the back of the driver’s seat. She could see sky through the back window. Their various luggage items seemed to be clustered at odd places in the oddly angled car, like one of those funny skewed perspective paintings.
“Gen.”
She forced herself to focus again, and he nodded in approval.
“You’re going to go out my window.” He pointed above himself and she saw it was broken, jagged pieces of glass forming teeth around the opening. She saw trees, smelled forest. As well as burning metal, smoke. “When I say go, I’m going to unbuckle you, give you a lift up there, all right? But you have to hold onto the seat so you don’t fall forward, and try to help me, move this way and come right to me, okay?”
She was starting to realize what was happening, understand the slight rocking motion of the car. She knew now why he didn’t want her looking toward the front of the car. She swallowed, hard. “Noah, what if…shouldn’t we wait…”
“We can’t. It will be too late.” Though he spoke calmly, his brown eyes were brilliant and intent. “You remember that day Chloe got hurt? I know you wish you’d been there. That you could have helped and protected her. This is your chance to do that, Gen. You’re going to save all three of us. Okay?”
“Okay.” She wasn’t sure of any of it, but then the car groaned, the seesawing abruptly becoming more pronounced.
“Now. Hold onto the seat.” With the sharp command and a curse, Noah leaned forward, his pocket knife already out to slice through the seat belt. Gen’s arms were too shaky, and she lost her grip, but Noah grabbed her arm. She was able to seize it with the other hand as well, and he pulled her up into the back seat. “Move slow and steady. Be still. Be still now.”
He held Gen against him with a rigid-as-steel arm. He made that harsh noise to keep her motionless, both their weights pressed to the seat like glue, against gravity. Slowly…so slowly, the seesawing went back to a more gentle motion again.
“Okay.” Noah let out a breath and lifted his head, directing her attention to where the broken out window beckoned. Then he looked back down at her. “Out of the two of us, I’m the only one who has the upper body strength to pull her free, lift her up to you. I’ll push and you’ll pull her through. Okay? I know your arms are shaking, but you have to find the adrenaline, Gen. You have to be strong enough. Understand?”
His dark gaze bored into her face. Though she sensed she was in shock, possibly concussed, things were becoming clearer and his message got through. “Okay. Yes. I will.”
“I know you will.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “Once you’re out there, move back as far as you can to counterbalance.”
She noticed he had blood on his neck, running down into his shirt from his hairline. She wasn’t the only one shaking. “Everything working good enough to do this?” he asked. “Anything feel broken?”
It wasn’t like they had a lot of options if anything was. He’d just made that clear. Maybe he was just giving her that extra second to let adrenaline juice her up even further. Kudos to the powers-that-be for providing that perk in life-or-death situations. But now that some clarity was returning, she had to look for Lyda. She had to, even when Noah tried to stop her. She looked toward the driver’s seat. And bit back a cry.
Her beautiful hair was a mass of blood. She was draped over the steering wheel like a ragdoll, face turned away. She wasn’t moving. “Noah.”
“She’s alive. I refuse to believe anything else.” He set his jaw. “We just do this. No talking about that.”
“Okay.” She bit back the fear, fought the fuzziness in her brain that could kill them all. “What do I need to do again?”
“I’m going to give you a boost out that window. We’ll try to do it smooth. Fast, but not too fast. Once you’re up there, move back as much as you can to help us counterbalance. Once we’re steady again, I’ll cut Lyda loose and push her up through the window. You pull, and we’ll get her out of there. Move both of you toward the back, so I have a clear track out the window. All right?”
“But…why not just get out and open her door?”
“Her door was the main impact point. It’s dented and probably not able to open. And there are other reasons. No time to explain. Here, use this towel to grab the edge of the window, since it has broken glass. Ready?”
Noah touched her face, held her gaze. She thought there’d never been a shorter or longer moment in her life than right now, seeing the steel nerve in those brown eyes, the deep fear, but not for himself. “If the car falls anyway, there’s nothing anyone could have done to stop that,” he said. “If it starts to fall, you jump off the rear wheel.”
“No.” A different kind of fear flooded her. “No. We just do it together and see what happens. We just do it. Stop talking about things like that.”
He stared into her eyes. “Okay.”
She nodded. “I’m ready.”
“Go.” He boosted her up before she could say anything else. She gritted her teeth, scrambled out the window, cutting herself on the glass in her haste, even with the protection of the towel. Stomach muscles she didn’t know she had helped her through that opening and she scrambled for the back tire. The car was wedged loosely between a stand of slender trees and perched on a jutting layer of rock, explaining the instability. She had a harrowing impression of the steep side of the mountain.
Forest covering the slopes had slowed the vehicle, but it wasn’t thick enough. Where it thickened was in the deep ravine about a hundred feet below them. A rushing wide creek cut through it, showing the depth of the drop over the edge of those rocks. The car would pitch straight down amid the tall pines, speared by or destroying them on its crashing descent.
The car teetered forward and she scrambled even beyond the wheel, onto the gas tank, not an advisable idea she was sure, but she wasn’t concerned about that. “No, no, no,” she gritted. Come back this way, come back this way. Her flight instinct told her to get off the car, get clear, but she denied it. No. I won’t leave them. I won’t leave them. And you’re not taking them with you. Come on.
If her heart rate had been harnessed to the back bumper, she could have pulled them all the way to the highway above. As it was, the car sluggishly stabilized again.
“Gen.” Noah’s voice was muffled. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Are you ready?”
“Give me just a sec.” Taking a deep breath, she looked up, hoping to see a team of emergency responders with helicopters and sturdy chains, a crane. The road had been busy enough, plenty of people had seen the accident. But it was likely only minutes had passed. “Noah?”
“Yeah?”
She held onto his voice as the most wonderful sound in the world. “You better get your ass out of there with her, or I will never forgive you. Neither will she. It will be worse than when you put Guns and Roses on her player. Far worse.”
She thought she heard a chuckle. “I love you, Gen.” Quieter, that time. Her heart twisted. No. Don’t you do that. You’re not saying goodbye, not to either one of us.
“Ready.”
She’d thought that moment inside the car with him had been the longest and shortest moment of her life. She’d been wrong. The car’s sudden pitch, Lyda’s limp body thrust through the window, Gen grabbing her under the armpits and hauling her up and back with every ounce of strength she had, that was it. The car started to slide.
“No!”
Noah had pushed Lyda’s weight into Gen’s arms hard enough that it u
nbalanced her, sent them both toppling off the car. The rear bottom wheel rolled against her thigh. As she spun away from it, trying to protect Lyda, she and Lyda were sliding, following in the car’s wake against a slick bed of leaves. Gen’s shin slammed against rock and she wedged her foot in a crevice, ignoring the bolt of pain through her ankle as it took the shock. The move brought them to a halt. The car didn’t stop moving. It was groaning, metal shrieking.
“Noah!” she screamed. Lyda’s blood was soaking Gen’s neck and shirt, her body a dead weight pinning Gen down, adding to the feeling of suffocation. “No, no, no…”
She lost time then, as if an angel of mercy was sparing her the agony of the truth. She was looking up into a man’s face, an emergency responder, his serious face taking up her vision. “Noah! No, no, no…”
She smelled smoke again, the kind of smoke that came with fire. She couldn’t stop crying, hurting, dying inside. She gripped Lyda so hard, the EMTs had to pry her fingers away, give her a shot, and then everything was lost, whirling away.
* * * * *
Something is wrong inside his head…I don’t think it will ever be fixed…
Love. That’s when you figure out what’s important and what’s not.
She’s an island. You take a boat out to her…
The car going over, smoke and fire…
Gen came out of the nightmare, a cry strangling her. Something yanked against her arm, a stabbing pain, and then someone was holding her arm, someone else holding the rest of her. Marguerite. Marguerite’s scent, her strength, wrapped around her.
“It’s all right, Gen. Sssh…calm down. You’re safe. You’re in the hospital.”
Chloe was holding her arm, where the IV needle and tape had pulled. She circled Gen with her free arm, eyes welling with tears. “It’s okay, Gen. We’re here.”
Gen steadied, trying to breathe, trying to calm down. Just breathe. Don’t go beyond that. Don’t go there. Beyond breathing was thinking, and a pain waited there she didn’t want to feel. It would be beyond what she could endure.
“Lyda and Noah are both alive.”
Gen’s head snapped up so quickly Marguerite might have gotten her chin rapped if she hadn’t anticipated her. Leave it to Marguerite to avoid any cliffhanging drama, just a quiet statement of fact, bringing the spinning world back to rights. “Oh God.” Gen pressed her forehead into M’s collarbone. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Though I’m sure God was there, you and Noah had a lot to do with it as well, according to the EMTs and eyewitnesses.”
“Mostly Noah.” It was coming back in harrowing pieces, including that horrifying image of Lyda’s twisted body, the bloody face and hair. “When you say they’re both alive…what does that mean? Are they okay?”
Marguerite eased a hip onto the bed so Gen could keep holding her. Chloe was cross-legged behind Gen, both as close as possible. Gen needed them that close. The room was whites and blues, medicine and disinfectant. She didn’t want that reality.
“Noah broke a couple ribs, dislocated his shoulder. He kicked out the back window and caught hold of the rocks as the car went into the ravine. Tore up his hands pretty good on the rocks and the things inside the car, but the EMT who pulled him back over said it was one of the most impressive things he’d ever seen. Beyond all three of you getting out of the car alive, that is.”
“I think he hates he missed catching it on his phone for YouTube,” Chloe interjected.
They were trying to ground her, but now she only remembered that final second in the car, when Noah had met her gaze. He’d known the car wouldn’t maintain stability when Lyda was cut free. He’d pushed Gen to follow his direction, and she’d let him. Guilt and shame swamped her, even knowing she’d been too disoriented to think straight. He’d been the only one in the position to do that, and he’d been prepared to sacrifice his life to save theirs. But he’d fought to live. Whether for them or himself, it didn’t matter. He was alive.
“Lyda?” Dread filled her as Marguerite’s face became more somber than usual.
“She has a skull fracture and other broken bones. Do you know what happened?”
Gen shook her head. While Noah’s look was permanently engraved in her brain, the key moment was fuzzy. “I was looking at Noah, sleeping in the back. All I saw when I turned was Lyda’s face. A flash of another car.”
“You were on a sharp curve and the other driver was texting and crossed the line. Lyda took the brunt of the impact on the driver’s side when she pulled the wheel to the right, but her deceleration when most people would have accelerated to avoid impact may have been what saved all of you. You went off the road, but the car tipped after it took out the guard rail, rather than shooting out into open space.”
Only one thing was important. “How is she? Is she awake, talking?”
Marguerite shook her head. “But the swelling in her brain is already going down,” Chloe added quickly. “The nurses say that’s good.”
She thought of Lyda, so strong and beautiful, running up the hill, making teasing circles around them. “No.”
“They can’t guarantee anything with head trauma, but once she wakes up, they’ll be able to tell more. I think she’s just resting up.” M touched her face, gave her a steadying look. “You know Lyda’s very particular about how she presents herself.”
“I know. I know.” Gen’s voice was thickening. “If I’d lost them…”
“You didn’t.” Marguerite’s arms were around her again. “You didn’t, Gen.”
“First it was you and Chloe, and now this…” She lifted her head, looked at Chloe. “Did you tell Noah how I felt…about nearly losing you?”
“Yes,” the girl said simply. “In a way. He was as curious about you as you were about him. I told him you were the wonderful type of person who felt bad because you weren’t there, even though it wasn’t something you could control.”
“I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Either of you. It was so terrible. You’re my family. All of you.” Chloe and Marguerite, Lyda and Noah, all of them rolled together.
Chloe’s eyes filled with tears again, and the three of them held one another. “You didn’t lose us, and you didn’t lose them,” Marguerite murmured against Gen’s hair. “Most importantly to us, we didn’t lose you. You’re our family too, dear heart.”
Gen cried then. Not just because Chloe was crying, or because Gen was the type of person who cried in such situations, but because Marguerite was crying too, silent tears dampening Gen’s temple where the woman pressed her jaw against her.
They stayed that way for a while, then a nurse came in and discovered Gen was awake. Which meant she had to be prodded and poked. It turned out her injuries had been miraculously minor, the concussion the main cause of concern, but apparently they’d already done the diagnostics needed to verify no obvious serious brain trauma. Being awake and responsive to questions helped upgrade her status even further. Even so, the doctor made it clear she was going to be kept for at least one night’s observation and gave Gen a list of symptoms she was to report to the nurse immediately if they occurred.
It was clear Marguerite and Chloe were taking careful note of that list. She’d wanted them to stay close, so through it all, Marguerite remained at the door, Chloe in the guest chair. Tyler arrived and stood behind Marguerite. His amber-colored eyes brightened, seeing Gen awake. She managed a smile, her eyes filling again when he pressed his lips to his fingers and turned them in her direction.
The more awake she became, though, the more impatient she grew. She needed out of this bed. She needed to go to Noah, to Lyda. Tyler would know where they were. That was probably where he’d been, getting a status report. As soon as the last nurse cleared the room, Gen was putting her feet over the side of the bed and looking for a robe.
Marguerite and Chloe didn’t chide her, didn’t try to stop her, but Marguerite did insist on a wheelchair. When Tyler disappeared and reappeared with one, she wanted to hold onto them all
over again and never let them go. But as much as she wanted that, her arms needed to be around two other people even more.
Marguerite glanced at her husband. “You found that pretty fast. Please tell me you didn’t dump a patient out of it.”
“He said he was fully capable of walking, and that a true gentleman never denied a lady a chair.” Tyler gave Gen a wink.
Their banter should have made her feel better, but the undercurrent of seriousness told her it wasn’t because things were rosy.
“Lyda is in the ICU, so she has restricted visiting hours,” Tyler said as they rolled down the hall. “Only two people at a time. We won’t be able to get you in to see her for about another hour. You can see Noah now.” He paused, and Gen sensed a look passing between him and Marguerite behind her. “He needs to see you. He’s been having some trouble.”
“Trouble?” Gen looked up at Marguerite.
“He refused to stay in the bed, refused to be away from either one of you. They had to sedate and restrain him.” Her boss spoke carefully. “They moved him to a psychiatric unit when his agitation disrupted other patients. Tyler arranged for Brendan to stay in the room with him, but you can help calm him down some. If you’re up for that.”
“Yes. Definitely.” It made her all the more anxious to see him. When they arrived at the psychiatric wing, seeing the buzzer on the locked door, the nurses’ desk like a guard station, made her nauseous again. “He can’t be in here, Tyler. He’s not crazy.”
Tyler put a hand on her shoulder, his strong fingers a soothing caress over sore muscles. “I know that, Gen. It’s to protect him. He has injuries that need care, bed rest, and this is the best place for those they can’t keep in bed in the normal ways.” He squatted next to the chair, laced his fingers with hers. “Brendan or I have been with him at all times in there. You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to him.”
“I know.” The reassurance was nice, but she knew the words were more than that. He was preparing her for what she was going to see.
Nature of Desire 8 - Divine solace Page 41
