She lifted a hand to press it against her forehead, to massage away the fog and the pain.
No, she didn’t.
She tried to. She couldn’t.
Her arm was leaden, immobile.
Am I lying on it?
Nope. She wasn’t lying at all. She was upright. Sitting.
But why was she sitting? Where was she sitting?
Panic slid into her cognizance like smoke under a door. The haze inside her head was no longer soft and quiet. There was a heat to it now. A burn that spread down her neck and chest to smolder in her belly.
Where am I?
She blinked and tried to clear her vision as scraps of memory bubbled up through the soup of her semi-consciousness.
I was driving, wasn’t I?
Yes. I was driving and thinking about Hew. Thinking about Martin. Thinking about my future and then?—
She remembered bright lights. Remembered the crunching sound of metal. Remembered a scream.
My scream?
Yes. Definitely hers. And then there was fishtailing. Sliding. Trees. She definitely remembered trees.
I crashed!
Her breath caught at the memory of the big oak looming in front of her car’s hood and her helplessness in avoiding it. But why had she crashed? Had she hydroplaned? Had a deer run into the road and?—
No.
A black van. There’d been a black van. It had surged up behind her, advancing, swerving, clipping her rear bumper.
She’d fought to keep control of the Prius. She could still feel the wheel in her hands, that first list sideways as her wheels lost traction with the roadway, the fear that gripped her as she careened toward the trees.
Except…she hadn’t crashed.
Or, she had crashed, but not really. It’d been more like a fender bender with the big oak. Her airbag hadn’t even deployed. But the silence that followed had sickened her. Sickened her and terrorized her, because when she’d tried to move, she couldn’t. Her seat belt had seized up.
Her fingers had been as useless as wet spaghetti noodles when she fought with the buckle. But then…finally…freedom!
She’d pushed open the door, shoved out of the vehicle into the soft, misty rain, and turned to run, but?—
The woman.
Sweet baby Jesus, the woman!
Dressed in black, platinum hair streaming behind her like a banshee.
Sabrina had barely had time to register the blonde’s intent before she sprang forward and landed on Sabrina.
Sabrina had opened her mouth to scream again, but the cry had died in her throat when she felt the sharp pinch in her neck. A pinch and then warmth and then…
Nothing.
