They’re getting hot and heavy across the front console, when lights flash in their back window. Aliah pulls away and turns back to see if the car is stopping and instantly ducks, with a scream, as the car rearends them at full speed. The impact alone sends Aliah’s head cracking against the passenger window.
The car backs away, dragging Aliah’s car a few feet with it. Then it spins around and squeals off. It looks like it’s leaving. But then it spins back around and starts coming for them again.
“Harley!” Aliah cries out.
He’s already one step ahead of her. With the car slammed into drive, he drops a heavy foot on the accelerator, as if he knows exactly what is going to happen next. “Are you okay?”
Aliah feels herself growing tired, dizziness causing her brain to falter. She can’t answer him.
“Aliah, stay with me.”
She touches her hand to her forehead. She finds a handful of blood. She takes a deep breath. “Oh God,” she whispers. It’s barely audible against the noise of her whining engine.
Within seconds, their playful night has turned into a high speed chase. She looks in the side mirror through the now speckled glass.
“Recognize that car?” he asks.
“Brandee.” Without a doubt, that nut bag has come to finish her off once and for all.
Aliah snaps on her seatbelt. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
He digs his phone out of his pocket and dials up his assistant. “Jillian. Call 911. Tell them Brandee’s lost her marbles. She’s trying to run me off the road, most likely with the intent to commit murder. We’re heading east on Highway 42, just before the Rouge river, and she’s right on our tail.”
“I’ve already got the police on the other line. They’re dispatching an officer as we speak.”
Aliah feels some relief, but as Brandee starts to gain on them, that feeling quickly passes. Her car has taken the hit pretty hard, and the side panel is rubbing against one of the back tires. The scent of burning rubber hangs in her nose and the tang of blood is apparent in her mouth.
“Ask them to send an ambulance too. Aliah’s hurt pretty bad.”
“Okay,” Jillian answers, and even Aliah can hear the fear in her voice. “David?”
“Yeah,” he says, leaving it on speakerphone.
“Be safe.”
Just as he goes to end the call, Brandee pulls up next to them.
“Harley!” Aliah screeches. But it’s too late.
As he looks toward Aliah, their gazes collide, and Brandee rams into them, sending their car ramping up the river bank. She would never forget that penetrating stare that lasts a mere millisecond but burns into her brain for all eternity.
That one hit sends her car sailing into the water.
The force of the crash locks her seatbelt and bruises her neck. Harley’s head smashes off the windshield, as her airbag deploys in her face. She’s stunned for a minute, but she recalls the severity of the situation. She pushes the airbag out of her way, to catch a breath, while it tries to suffocate her. When she finally makes contact with Harley’s slumped form, she knows that he is unconscious.
Aliah’s freaks, but she doesn’t cry. She can’t cry. She’s his only hope.
The car teeters on the surface of the water, but she’s read about this a million times before. The likelihood of them both escaping this accident alive is not good. One of them might be lucky to live.
She crawls on top of him and fumbles with his seatbelt. His arm is bleeding pretty bad and his recent facial wound appears to be seeping red. With the sharp edge of her battered car door still piercing his skin, Aliah doesn’t know how she’s going to free him.
Aliah gets Harley’s seatbelt off of him, but he feels like dead weight. The car starts to sink and she starts to panic. The longer the car sits there, the more water seeps in through the cracked windshield and demolished rear-end. She doesn’t dare try to escape, until she has a plan on how to get Harley out. They’re both running out of time.
“Harley!”
She screams and shakes him, but he’s not responding. She yanks off her jacket and rips it in two. She ties off his arm and presses the other scrap against his bloody face. He’s losing a lot of blood.
“Oh, God. We’re going to die in this car. Please, Harley. You have to wake up.” She holds her fingers against his throat and finds a very weak pulse.
Suddenly, like an angel, Jillian’s voice comes from out of nowhere. Aliah wonders if she is dead. Then she hears it again.
“Aliah, where are you? You have to tell me where you are.”
Shaking out of her dizzy spell, Aliah presses the airbag away and scours the floor for the phone. “Jillian!” she shouts. “We’re in the river at the Anderson crossing. Please send help. We don’t have much time,” she cries.
“David?”
“He’s out cold. I can barely move him.”
“They’re already on their way, hun. They shouldn’t be long now.”
“Jillian. Please tell Hannah I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. I’m taking her dad away from her. I’m sorry for you too.”
“No. I’m the sorry one,” Jillian answers. “I never meant for David to get hurt. He wasn’t supposed to be driving.”
Aliah is stunned by her confession, but a throb in her head won’t allow her to think on it.
“You listen to me, you hear?” Jillian states. “Don’t give up. You’re David’s only shot. I need you to save him. Get yourself out of there and scream for help. That’s the best you can do for him right now.”
“I can’t leave him,” Aliah whispers, feeling selfish for wanting to share these last few minutes with him alone.
“You must! He would be so irate right now if he knew you were risking your life for him like this. Don’t be stupid. Stay calm. You can do this.”
Her words ring in Aliah’s ears. A nervous laugh trembles from her lips. That is exactly what Harley would have said to her. She can’t give up. She has faith in the emergency response team.
“What do I do?” She pants, as the emergency vehicle lights appear from up above like a white flash from the sky. “Another minute and we’re going under.”
“Get out,” Jillian answers.
Aliah refuses to listen to her. “I have to get him out first.”
“Get yourself out, Aliah. Listen to me. Harley would never forgive himself if anything ever happened to you.” There’s a slight spark of jealousy that seems to lighten her words.
The tears start crashing down Aliah’s cheeks and mingle with the water splashing in through the dashboard. “I can’t leave him. Oh, God. I don’t know what to do.” She tries again to move him, as the cabin begins to flood with water.
The cold tenses her already petrified muscles. She tries the door, but the pressure is too strong. She starts kicking at the cracked windshield, screaming, in an attempt to flag down some help. It takes all the energy she has, to break a small hole through the glass.
She cranks her head around when she sees someone next to the car, yanking on the door. But he’s not having any luck either. With another kick at the windshield, it breaks open, letting the water rush inside. She covers her head with an arm and passes through the broken glass. It claws across her skin, as she crawls out of the sinking car. She gasps for air, kneeling on the hood of the car, surrounded by water to her waist.
Forgetting about the glass, Aliah reaches back inside the car and tries again to pull Harley from his seat. He’s easier to move now, with the water flowing freely around his body, but he’s pinned somehow, or he’s too heavy. She doesn’t know.
“I can’t get him,” she screams, her heart seizing in her chest. “Help me, God damn it. Please, Harley. I love you. You can’t die on me.”
She’s so blind with fear that she doesn’t notice Spencer’s the one dropping in the water and swimming toward her.
“I’m going to help you, Ally. Grab onto this.”
When he offers her a buoyant object, s
he tosses it away and screams at him.
“Don’t worry about me! Save Harley! I need you to help me save him. Please!” she screams, as she feels the dizzy spell take her.
She chokes on some water and feels her muscles seizing up. She feels herself going under the water, and she can’t bring herself back to the surface. She feels like she’s thrashing for help, but her body is completely limp and she submerges with her eyes wide open.
She turns her head under the water and sees a blurry version of Harley, still stuck in the driver’s seat, as the car begins to sink to the bottom of the riverbed. She squints at him, lost between dream and reality. Harley opens his eyes and smiles at her.
“I love you,” he mouths, as his eyes close again.
She closes her eyes, and slips completely unconscious, not much caring about her own life anymore, since she can sense that Harley will no longer be in it.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
If Hannah Gates knows one thing, it’s that her father is a fighter. She sits by his bedside in tears. He’s all she has left. If he leaves her, she has no one. She just finally started to feel like they had moved toward a new step in their life, with the addition of Aliah in his. And then this has to happen.
Is she doomed to a life without a parent? It’s bad enough God had to take her mother’s life too early. She intends to put up a fight of her own, if he thinks her dad’s time is up now.
Hannah watches the way her dad’s chest rises and falls, the only thing maintaining her sanity. The machines are constantly beeping, but she has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. She still welcomes the noise to douse the horrible sound of him sucking on that oxygen mask. A tear slips from her eye as Jillian bursts into the room, unannounced.
“I came here as soon as I could!”
Was she supposed to care?
“Is he going to be okay?” Jillian asks her.
Hannah tries to keep a straight face, but the scowl is unavoidable. She has never liked her dad’s flirty blonde assistant with long legs and an even longer nose. That bitch lies. She trusts her as far as she can throw her, which isn’t very far at all.
“Hannah?” Jillian demands, dragging her out of her reverie and back into her nightmare. Jillian looks perturbed by her ignorance.
Give me a God-damned break. My father is dying.
“He’ll be fine, as soon as he wakes up,” Hannah spits out, unsure how else she can word it.
Jillian gathers that Hannah doesn’t like her very much. “Is that what the doctors are saying?”
“How did you even get in here?”
Jillian doesn’t trust her. Hannah finds that laughable. Leave it up to a liar to have trust issues.
“Let’s drop the act,” Jillian croaks. “Just tell me that he’s going to be okay.”
Hannah shrugs her shoulders indifferently. “You’ve never listened to me before. Why start now?”
“Don’t get sassy with me, young lady.”
“Young lady? Really? What are you, twenty? Get over yourself. My dad has a girlfriend now. It’s safe to say you need to back the fuck off. He doesn’t want you.”
“You don’t think I know that?” Jillian’s voice screeches to an almost unbearable tone.
“Why are you here, Jillian?”
Jillian looks stunned, and is stumbling over her words. “I-j-just…”
“Just get the hell out of here. We don’t want you…”
“Shut your mouth, you stupid little bitch. I should have ridded David of your big mouth when I had the chance two years ago.”
Hannah’s eyes grow wide, as realization dawns on her. “That was you!”
Before she can form another word, Jillian has the door closed and has hands reaching out for her throat. Hannah chokes on a breath and claws at the psycho lady’s face, breaking her skin with her long nails.
“You crazy bitch!” Hannah screeches, fighting for a breath.
A nurse pushes the door and props it open, not realizing Hannah is fighting for her life.
“I’d appreciate if you would leave this door open,” the nurse says, paying them no attention.
When she glances up, she’s horrified by what she sees, next to the unconscious patient.
Jillian has Hannah on the floor, with her thumbs digging into her throat, shaking her neck like a rubber chicken. She’s snapping her head, like she’s trying to break a wishbone and starts bouncing it off the floor. The nurse charges them and bangs the crazy lady’s head off the hospital bed. She then reaches for the red button, knocking the mask off Harley’s face in the process.
Security has Jillian in cuffs, leading her kicking and screaming to meet up with the police on the main floor in a matter of minutes. Hannah is sitting there with security, her hands shaking with a potent mix of adrenaline and fear. She starts telling them what has happened, just as her father’s eyes open.
Harley opens a pair of dry, cracked lips, but no words come out.
Hannah can’t stop shaking, even with the thick blanket drawn over her shoulders. Her knee bounces the entire time she talks to the police, even though she has done nothing wrong. She’s relieved when the old man with the horrifying questions leaves her alone.
Suddenly, she catches a handsome young man with an attractive English accent asking about her. With but a glance in her direction, he makes his way toward her, smiling at her as if they are long-time friends.
“Are you okay?” he asks, kneeling next to her, gazing up into her eyes.
The colorlessness in his irises hit her like a blast of fresh air. She nods her head, finding it difficult to speak after Jillian’s had her fingers digging into her throat.
The man turns away. “Get this poor girl a glass of water,” he orders. A glass materializes in his hand mere seconds later.
“Here. This might help your sore throat.” He watches her sip from the glass. “They’re treating you alright, yes?”
“Yes,” she sputters, taken aback by her attraction to this older man. But he’s charming and well-dressed and really cute.
“I’m Sergeant Caldwell. But you can call me Spencer, if you like.”
She nods yes, hiding her smile behind her jittery nerves.
“You’ve done well. We’ve been trying to catch this woman for years,” he explains, in the sexiest accent that has ever graced her ears. “When she became employed by your father, we knew it would only be a matter of time before she reverted to her old ways.”
“My dad knew?” she asks, finally regaining her voice.
“He knew.”
“Who are you?”
“The fuzz,” he says, with a wink.
“But you’re not dressed in blue.”
“Would you like it better if I was?”
She shivers from his intimate suggestion. She’ll deny it if she’s ever asked, but she’d like very much to see that ass in uniform.
“I apologize. You’ve been through enough. You don’t need me harassing you. How’s your father doing?”
Hannah wishes he’d return to their other conversation. It had taken her mind away from the series of stressful events that had just occurred, if only for a moment. “Not good at all.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. He’s a good man. But if he’s with my girl, Aliah, then he’s got his work cut out for himself. Even if he thinks he’s ready to die, Aliah isn’t going to let him call the shots that easily.”
Hannah smiles softly. “You know Aliah?”
“Ah, yes. I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with her on many occasions. I admit most of late have involved cherries flashing and a high-speed chase to the fitness club.”
Hannah loves how the words roll right off his sexy tongue. “She does have a fast ride.” Her eyes grow wide, as she slaps her hand over her mouth.
I can’t believe I just admitted that to him!
His smile is slanted and mischievous. “It sounds like I’ll be having to add you to my watch list, Miss Gates.”
Her heart flutters at the
thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
“Harley. Harley,” Aliah cries. “I can’t get you! I’m sorry.”
Abigail Santora leaps to Aliah’s bedside, as fast as a pregnant woman can. “Ally, I’m here. It’s Abby. You’re okay.” She grabs Aliah’s hand and squeezes it, hoping Aliah awakens with a clear head.
Aliah’s eyes flash open, and she looks like she’s returned from the dead. “Where am I?” Her question is borderline hysterical.
“You’re at the hospital. Don’t worry. You’re going to be okay. Just relax.”
“Harley?” she screeches. Her eyes scatter around the room looking for someone else; for any indication that he is with them.
“Don’t worry about that. You have to concentrate on you right now. You scared us all with that bump on your head.”
“Abby, I swear to God, you’re going to tell me right now, or I’m going to rip these machines off of me and go on a rampage tearing up every room until I get answers. If he’s dead, just say it. Have the decency to just tell me.”
Aliah closes her eyes, keeping her tears locked inside her eyelids. She knows that Abby is going to tell her, but she’s not sure she’s prepared to hear the news. If he has died, she’ll never be able to live with herself. They might as well pull the plug on her now.
“He didn’t die,” Abby says, clearly leaving something out.
“But… Abby, don’t bull shit me right now.”
Abby sighs and rubs her swelling belly that is pretty-near ready to burst. “You’re not well enough to be dealing with this right now.”
“If it was Edwin, wouldn’t you want to know?”
“Edwin’s my husband. Of course I’d want to know.”
“Oh no,” Aliah states. “You’re not playing that card on me.” Then she delivers Abby an emotional plea, acting totally out of character. “I love him, Abby. Please. I have to know.”
Twisted Desire (The Twisted Series) Page 22
