“S-Steel?” Rose’s weak voice called out. She sounded woozy and out of it. Chances were she’d hit her head and been knocked unconscious.
“You need to get her out,” Blade said softly from beside him. “That tree is going to give at any second, and when it falls, it’s taking the car and Rose down with it.”
“Right here, little ladybug,” he assured her, while nodding at Blade to let him know he understood the stakes.
He hadn't lost Rose yet, but he could at any second.
“My head hurts,” she moaned softly, and he swore. He needed her focused and able to assist in her own rescue.
Even though he knew he could lift that car, it meant nothing if he tried to grab it and couldn’t get a hold. All he’d do was end Rose’s life instead of saving it.
Shifting slightly so he could get a better view, Steel could just make out the huddled form of Rose’s body, crammed in the space between the driver’s seat and the front of the car. How she’d ended up there he had no idea, and right now it didn't really matter.
“I know it does,” he soothed, or tried to, although he wasn't sure he sounded calming in the least. “The car is balanced over the edge of a cliff.”
“So it’s not just my head that makes it feel like the world is moving beneath me,” Rose groaned.
“No, it’s not. The world is really moving beneath you. We have to get you out. Do you think you can move closer to the door so I can try to reach you?”
A pained moan sounded from Rose, and he felt his entire body tense at the sound. She was in pain, and he couldn’t make it better. Couldn’t even order her to stay still because he needed her out of that car.
“I … don’t think so,” she murmured, defeat coating her words. “I feel … heavy.”
“Concussion,” Voodoo murmured from beside him.
If Rose couldn’t get herself to the door so he could try to reach her, he had no choice but to risk getting a hold on the car.
“It’s going to go at any second,” Blade warned as the car shuddered, making Rose cry out.
“Steel?” her panicked voice called for him, and while it soothed the roughness inside him to know that when she was scared his girl wanted him, it also amped up his fear. He was seconds away from losing her for good. Perched as she was in the recess at the front of the car, there was no way she could survive the fall.
“I'm here, little ladybug, and I got you,” he assured her, praying he hadn't just made the last words she’d hear from him a lie.
Tearing his gaze from her shadowy form, he forced himself to take a few steps back, so he was standing right at the back of the car, his eyes scanning for a place to grab hold of. Only cars weren't made to be held onto like that, so they didn't come with handy little handholds.
The sickening crack of splintering wood filled the quiet night, and as the car tipped forward, Steel threw caution to the wind and launched himself at it.
January 2nd
3:36 A.M.
She was going over the edge.
That was one thing Rose was certain of. The throbbing in her head made it difficult to think, and her entire body felt too heavy to move, but she did know that the tipping of the car she was in meant only one thing.
It tipped precariously, and she rolled further into the recess at the driver’s seat. When the car fell, she’d either stay where she was and get crushed to smithereens when they hit the ground, or she’d be tossed about like a ragdoll, or she’d get thrown out the open door.
Where the hell was Ridge?
He’d been there when they crashed, she knew that because they’d been fighting for control of the steering wheel. He’d been gone when she crawled back to consciousness, and she wantedto believe that it was because he’d been thrown from the vehicle and was dead now, but what if he’d survived the crash?
She had.
There was every chance her brother had, too.
If that was the case, he’d run as soon as he woke up, knowing that the men he had created were coming for him. Ridge might have been the one to play with their DNA and create them, but that didn't mean he wasn't terrified of them. He, better than anyone else, knew just what Steel and the others were capable of.
Another crack rang in her ears, and the car tilted further until it felt like she was lying on her back, and then she was falling.
