The world became a blur of screeching tires and burning rubber.
A concrete post loomed in the windshield.
He wrenched the wheel hard, muscles screaming, and the car skidded sideways, metal shrieking against metal before shuddering to a stop inches from impact.
Airbags exploded even as white powder and smoke filled the cabin, acrid and choking.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then Zacharie was moving, shoving the deflated airbag aside, reaching for Mira. “Are you hurt?”
“I—I don’t—”
“Mira. Are you hurt?”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
They reached for the door locks at the same time, fingers finding latches, doors swinging open. Mira tumbled out of the car on her side while Zacharie emerged on his, glass crunching under his shoes.
They had rehearsed scenarios like this.
Over and over, every day, until she could recite the protocols in her sleep. Stay calm. Follow his lead. Never make a move without his say-so.
But all of it was for nothing.
The lessons completely forgotten the moment she saw him.
She took one look at him, saw the blood streaming from a gash above his eyebrow, and—
No, no, no.
He could see it in the way her face paled.
All the things they had rehearsed were completely forgotten.
His Mira was running before she knew she was moving, her feet carrying her around the smoking wreck of the car toward him, every instinct screaming that she needed to reach him, touch him, make sure he was real and alive and whole—
Her eyes were on him alone, and so she missed what she should have seen.
Braxton, barely alive, dragging himself up to a sitting position, his eyes on his moving target, gun still in his hand.
And Zacharie...
It was all too easy for him to calculate everything.
The trajectory. The timing. The horrible mathematics of a bullet and the woman he loved.
And there was only one thing to do.
To save her life, he offered his.
