“Shiiiiiit.”
I gasp for air I can’t quite find.
It feels like I’m drowning on the thing I need to live.
My lungs won’t fill.
Arms locked around my ribs won’t uncurl when I hear my name again.
“Get him,” I whisper to the voice and roll to my knees, my face buried in the grass.
“I can’t lift him, Tristen!”
Blond hair.
Pretty eyes.
Like a rubber band, my mind snaps back from that deep, dark place.
Those sweet, haunted eyes.
The grass beneath me is wet.
I blink against the darkness lit up by flood lights.
Gasp in air that’s humid and too warm, and feels like it’s stabbing inside my chest, cracking all the way through to my spine.
“Tristen.”
The desperation in his voice snaps me upright and I wheel around, searching. Seeking.
“Emmett.”
Blond hair fills my vision, and fists wrap up my shirt just as I see the lights flash over the side of the house.
The sound of sirens filter in, close. So close.
My feet are under me before I realize I’ve moved and I’m helping Emmett hoist a passed out Hatley into the truck. I shove Em in next and run for the driver’s side.
I’m slamming us into drive before the door closes me in and peeling out, my chest clenching up for a whole new reason.
“Get him on his side as best you can,” I pant out and jam the shifter into a higher gear.
Emmett pushes at Hat’s side until his head is hanging off the seat next to my knee.
Bracing an arm across him, I whip the wheel around, sending the truck out onto the back alley I know leads the opposite direction of the flashing lights.
They fill the rearview, the red and blue.
Gogogogogogo.
The gas pedal hits the floor.
All I see is flying pavement, the road moving.
All I hear is the engine rumbling, choking on the force it’s moving with, the creaking of gears grinding.
The lights get dimmer in the little mirror, the glass filling with other cars following us out.
