Slow motion.
Loud noises.
Utter carnage.
The last thing I remembered was skidding, smashing into a boulder, and flipping end over end over end.
Then...
Nothing.
Chapter Ten
Nila
I LIVED IT all.
Jethro fighting with the wheel.
The rain of gunfire.
The buck and kick of the Jeep as its nose ploughed into earth and sprang upward into the air. I witnessed Jethro’s head snap sideways, his temple crunch against the windshield, and the bone-shattering landing when air turned to ground and the Jeep morphed from car to flattened sandwich.
Vertigo had affected me all my life. But this...the flipping, ricocheting, swerving nightmare was ten times worse. The hurl, the roll, the loop de loop forced our bodies to forsake our bones and turn into cartwheels of flesh.
Down was up. Up was down. And fate had well and truly abandoned us as we came to a teeth-chattering stop upside down.
I hurt.
I throbbed.
The engine wouldn’t stop whining. The shattered glass rained like fractured crystals. Blood stung my eyes, but I refused to tear my vision from Jethro.
Jethro...
Tears clogged every artery. Panic lodged in every vein.
We’d been so close...
He hung unnaturally still. Blood dripped from his temple, splashing against the roof of the car with morbid artwork. His side bled a rich scarlet while the gash on his forehead oozed almost black-red. His arms dangled, wrists bent and lifeless on the roof.
No...no. Please, no...
He couldn’t be dead.
He couldn’t.
Life wouldn’t be that cruel.
It wouldn’t bait hope before us and then yank it away as we reached for it.
It can’t be that cruel!
Jethro...
I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to speak and assure him. I wanted to pull him free and drag him far, far away.
But my brain had no power to send the message to bruised limbs.
