I turned, glancing around the car. Nothing looked broken or bent out of shape. No airbags. No blood.
Still, I checked myself. Arms, legs, chest. Nothing screamed pain, but adrenaline had a way of dulling everything. I couldn’t trust it yet.
I leaned over the center console, getting close to Skye. Gently, I touched my fingers to her cheek and turned her face toward mine.
“Skye, I need you to talk to me,” I said, my breaths almost as heavy as hers.
At the sound of my voice, her gaze found mine. Those beautiful, hazel-green eyes latched onto me. The panic was evident in her expression.
My thumb brushed across her cheekbone. “Are you injured? Does anything hurt?”
Her gasping didn’t slow, stare not moving from mine.
“No,” she eventually breathed. “I’m not hurt.”
Relief crashed over me. I sagged forward, my forehead touching hers. Her scent wrapped around me, bright bergamot and something darker—ink, maybe—and I let myself savor it for a moment.
We were okay. She wasn’t hurt.
What the hell had just happened?
Too soon, I pulled back from her. “Stay right here,” I instructed.
I didn’t wait for her to respond before I unclipped my seat belt and swung the driver’s side door open. Rain poured, instantly soaking my hair and my clothes, but I could see through it better now that we were stationary.
We had spun off the shoulder and into a small, grassy area. Headlights zoomed past on the highway. Nobody had stopped. Whoever had run us off this road was gone.
I clenched my teeth. Quickly, I walked around the SUV. There seemed to be minimal damage, if any.
When I climbed back into the vehicle, it was running fine.
I checked back in with Skye. “You still good?”
She was staring at the windshield again. Both hands were on her chest, pressing over her heart. She was still too pale.
“Skye?” I reached for her, brushing her hair back from her face.
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice strained.
Physically, she should be fine. I didn’t see any bumps to the head, though it hadn’t been that violent of an incident. We’d spun around once, maybe twice, gauging the distance we were from the road. We came to a stop fairly quickly. I didn’t even have any aching where my seat belt was.
Another crack of lightning flashed, and Skye jumped.
I instinctively put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re okay,” I reassured her.
She was shaking.
“We need to get out of this storm,” I muttered.
It was getting dark now, and I wasn’t about to get back on this road—a road someone had ran us off—in the dark and in the rain.
Skye had been through enough today.
“What happened?” Skye stammered.
I fished my phone out of my pocket. I debated calling the cops, but I wasn’t going to make Skye sit here and wait for them to make a report. I wasn’t interested enough in an insurance claim to make her suffer any longer.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” I did a quick search on my phone for the nearest place to stay.
