They’re not echoes. They’re happening right now. Outside the crumpled SUV, cars are skidding, hitting, smashing into each other. Sirens blast in the distance. Shouting and shrieking and car alarms howling so loud I feel their vibrations in my chest. The dizzying reek of burning plastic and leaking petrol inundates my nostrils.
There is something warm and sticky on my cheek and lips. Flinching, I think it’s blood, but when I suck my lower lip between my teeth, I taste sweet and citrus—juice.
I try to move again, but I can’t. I focus on my baby’s skin under my touch. “It’s okay—”Mummy is here.I want to speak, to tell them it will be okay, to soothe, to coo, to promise, ‘Mummy is here! You’re safe. I promise.’ But my voice comes out choppy, clogged with tears.
Mummy is here.
Mummy is here.
There is so much going on outside. People are shouting—some in accents I can’t place, voices of women, of men—all frantic and ripe with fear.
But it’s quieter in here. I realize that the armoured SUV has protected us in ways I’ll never truly understand, the baby seats have held my boys throughout the crash, and that outside is now a horror scene. I remember bickering with Clay about theridiculous baby seats, being like fortresses, not at all soft and pretty, but fucking armour.
I choke on the taste of blood and sugar and tears and try to speak again. “Mummy is here.”
I said it!
It feels like the most important thing to say, as if nothing in my life has ever been more significant than letting them know I am here.
Louder this time: “Mummy is here.”
“Don’t move!” HJ’s head snaps back, eyes like lasers. His forehead is split open, blood matting his brow to his hairline. “They’re coming. Stay still in case you’ve broken something.”
“My babies?” I whimper.
He flicks his gaze from one car seat to the other, making sure I see his serious analysis. “They’re alive.”
“But they’recrying—” My voice cracks. Panic snatches my air. “Why are my babies crying? I want to see them, but I can’t move.”
“Hurt or scared, Fawn. ‘Course they’re screaming. Stay calm. Help will be here soon. If you force yourself to move, you might do more damage. Please, just for once, do asIask.”
Why aren’t you moving?
“Canyoumove?” I sob.
“My legs are stuck. We hit a pole,” he admits darkly, before saying something into his microphone. His tone is urgent as he curses and speaks, alternating between his earpiece and me. To me—“Stay still.” To them—“We are trapped.”
Static.
“Where is the boss?” he asks someone on the other side of the speaker.
Clay…
“Clay!” I whisper his name as a plea. “Is he close?”Clay, Clay, Clay! Clay will be here soon. Clay will come.
Suddenly the door at my feet is wrenched open, the frame creaking in protest. Light floods my body from the newly opened door.
I blink hard, trying to focus. I see a silhouette, the harsh Australian sunlight bleeding around a big blockage. Behind the black form, another car is on its back, wheels still spinning in the air.
Squinting at the vehicle, I glimpse a pale arm flopped through the broken window, slapped to the road—everything upside-down—a dark red stream snaking down the limb. I close my eyes.
“Don’t touch her!” HJ barks.
My eyes snap open when two big, rough hands move up my body, massaging, feeling, untangling. Hands of a blue-collar worker, someone who spends hours growing callouses on their palms, working on machines or rock or brick. I see only a black oval hovering above me, not a face.
HJ’s car door is opened and another man leans in. “We need the jaws over here,” he shouts.
Then I am scooped up.
