“Paisley,” he said again. “Now.” The look in his eyes made a tremor slither up my back. Ann-Marie continued to grip my hand like a lifeline, unaware she was still holding it.
“Ann-Marie,” I said, and her eyes popped open. Something in my voice set her off. Even children know when danger is lurking.
“Are you leaving?” she cried. “Are you going without me? Don’t leave me here. Please, don’t leave me here!” Hysterical tears streamed down her face as she gasped at the air, fighting to breathe—fighting tolive.
“I’m not leaving,” I said quickly, unable to look at Hansen. “I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together.”
“Paisley, I—” Hansen tried to interrupt.
“Go find out what’s happening,” I said. “And fix it. Now.”
Hansen opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Time was of the essence. There was no point arguing about it. This would end in two ways, one preferable to the other.
Hansen slid carefully back out from under the SUV, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying over the fire engine’s roar and the metal twisting.
“Ann-Marie, I need you to look at me,” I said firmly. “I need you to look at my eyes right now.”
After what seemed like an eternity, her little eyes popped open, and she looked at me, but her attention was vacant. She was about to check out and protect herself from whatever was coming.
“I need you to breathe with me, steady and deep, okay? Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in…” She did what I asked, closing her eyes all the while. Her hand shook in mine, her whole body trembling with shock. She was on her sixth or seventh breath when the metal squealed again, and I think it was me who screamed piercingly loud as the SUV dropped another few inches, pressing us both back into the ground. I tasted dirt and gravel, maybe some shards of glass against my lips. I couldn’t look behind me, but I didn’t have to. I wasn’t getting back out; not anymore.
“We’re going to die,” Ann-Marie sobbed. For a moment, I didn’t doubt her words—but I certainly couldn’t tell her that. I tried to lick my lips clean and tasted blood instead.
“I forgot to bring your brother over to see you,” I said instead, trying to draw her back to reality. If I could keep her occupied, it might settle her down. And me too. “That was my fault, and I’m sorry. Just know that he’s happy to see you. He’s beautiful, too. I saw him standing with your mom by the ambulance. How old is he?”
“He-he’s three.”
“You must be a really great big sister,” I said. The metal on top of my body pushed into my back and lungs, and a searing pain zipped from my neck and down to the tips of my toes, toes on a foot I could no longer feel. I closed my eyes, praying to a God I didn’t believe in that the both of us would get out of this alive—especially her. Only her. I squeezed Ann-Marie’s hand, fighting for breath. None came.
“I’m mean to him,” she said quietly. “I wish I wasn’t so mean to him.”
“Well, when you see him in a few minutes, you can redeem yourself, right?” I said, and Ann-Marie nodded frantically. A dull, throbbing pain simmered down my back. I opened my mouth to say something else when a loud crash like rolling thunder rattled through the car, and it dropped a few more inches. Ann-Marie screamed, a real, genuine, terrified, pain-filled scream that pierced its way into my eardrums and echoed in my head. Glass cut into my body, slicing minor, clean cuts into the skin on my arms, neck, and face.
This is it,I thought, a blanket of panic sweeping over me.Jeremy was right. This is how I’m going to die.
As soon as the thought entered my head, the metal groaned again. I waited for the final push against my spine when the SUV would drop, killing us both, hopefully instantly. But it didn’t come. Instead, much to my frantic relief, it went up again, an inch, and then another. Ann-Marie was still sobbing, but I think she knew that we were being saved because her grip on my hand loosened slightly, and she held her breath to listen. So did I.
The girl kept hold of my hand until the SUV was at least two feet above us. A mere second later, I was joined by a middle-aged woman in a white coat, sliding her way in beside me.
“Are you okay?” she asked me. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” I sucked in a deep breath of air, filling my lungs with sweet, fresh oxygen. “Take care of her.”
“I’m Doctor Hanson, Ann-Marie. We’re going to get you out of here.” She shot a look at me and smiled gratefully, reaching for her trauma bag. “Thank you very much, Miss Hill. I think we’ve got it from here.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? I—” on the other side of the vehicle, one of our guys in a suit pushed himself up to the other side of Ann-Marie to free her from the wreckage with an electric saw. It was Korbin.
“Go,” he said and smirked. “People are worried.”
Reluctantly, I untangled my hand from Ann-Marie—who was watching Korbin work, slightly more settled—and slid out from under the SUV, allowing the trauma doc access. Hansen was standing there when I got to my knees. He grabbed me by the arm before I could even push myself up, hauling me to his side. Then, in an unexpected moment of weakness, he pulled me into his arms and held me tight against him until, once again, I could barely breathe. My legs shook like Jell-O, and my ribs hurt from where the metal had pushed into me, but I was alive.
“Jesus Chris, Paisley,” he said. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, my words muffled by the wrong of his shirt. “I’m okay.”
Still, he held me like I’d fall into a black hole of nothingness if he let me go. I tried to poke my head up and look around to see who might be staring at us, but if anyone was, Hansen didn’t seem to notice or care. It seemed we were past the formalities, and that was fine with me. Walking out of that alive was all I could have asked for and being in Hansen’s arms was the best place to be.
“I’m not sure why you feel the need to do exactly the things I tell you not to do.” Hansen’s handsome face flourished with a florid pink; his lips pressed into a firm line. He helped me back to the ambulance for an unnecessary look-over, arm still holding me close, molding my body into his.
