Relief hit her like a visceral thing.
But then Dylan, who was leaning back against his headrest, rolled his face toward her, and she saw panic in his dark eyes. He made a high-pitched rasping sound that told her he was fighting to get air. “Can’t ... breathe.” The words were barely audible.
She tried to jerk open his door, but the impact had warped it. “Sebastian!”
“I’m here.”
“He can’t breathe.”
Sebastian leaned inside the truck. “Can you move your hands and feet?”
Dylan gave a desperate nod.
Sebastian reached in, hooked his arms around Dylan’s upperbody, and pulled him through the opening. Leah caught his legs. They lay Dylan on a flat stretch of earth and dropped to their knees beside him.
“Leah,” Dylan wheezed, looking at her the way he had when he was little and scared.
“It’s okay,” she told him, though she was dying inside. She wrapped her hand around his. “You’re going to be fine.”
Sebastian rested his ear on Dylan’s chest. Then, gently, he probed Dylan’s throat. “Injury to the larynx. It’s preventing airflow down the trachea.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” the driver of the sedan said. “He was in my lane. I honked and he swerved—”
“Call 9-1-1,” Sebastian told him.
The man blanched. He fumbled for his phone.
“I need a straw,” Sebastian said.
“There’s one, ah...” The man pushed a shaking hand to his temple. “In my car. I stopped at 7-Eleven earlier.”
Sebastian sprinted to the man’s car.
Dylan was trying to say her name, she could tell by reading his lips. But no sound was coming out now. She squeezed his hand. He was struggling for air, like a fish in the bottom of a boat, and the sight of it was the very worst thing she’d ever seen. She wrestled down the sob that wanted to rise.
“I love you,” she told him. “So much. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Dylan’s lips were beginning to turn blue.
Frantic, she looked up for Sebastian. He was reaching into the trunk of his Mercedes. The stranger was talking to 9-1-1 dispatch.
God!she begged silently.God, please. Please!
Sebastian ran to them, knelt on Dylan’s other side. With one hand, he flicked open a Swiss Army knife. With his other, he felt the area just below Dylan’s Adam’s apple. “Dylan, I’m going to open an airway into your lungs.” Then with full assurance and zero hesitation, he slid the knife through the skin of Dylan’s throat. Instantly, blood rose to meet the blade. He twisted the knife justenough to open the incision he’d made, pulled a wide red straw from his jacket pocket, and inserted it into the hole.
She heard air pulling through the straw, urgent and deep.
Dylan relaxed slightly.
“That’s it.” Sebastian used his fingers to close the hole around the straw. “Take it easy and breathe.”
The whistling, beautiful sound of an exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
“Good job.” Sebastian looked straight into Dylan’s eyes. “Did your throat ram into the steering wheel when your truck hit the tree?”
Dylan gave a slight nod.
“Your lungs are getting the air they need,” Sebastian said. “You’re going to be okay. Do you hear me, Dylan?”
