Literal fear lines my face, as if I suddenly can’t bear the thought of not saying all the fecking shit I should’ve said weeks ago. Of Sab never knowing he was more than a hookup to me. That he always will be, even if he never speaks to me again.
I’m running out of time.
I type, quick and raw, words spilling from my fingers unchecked. The undeniable feckingtruthpouring from my heart to fill the screen in black and white.
Reeling, I hit send as the engine lurches through a savage pothole. There’s no time to read what I wrote. No time to think—to breathe, as my heart finds that eerie calm unique to the most horrible fecking things, and the pump lurches to a stop.
Brakes screeching.
Sirens the soundtrack to hell.
I drop my phone, switching modes so fast I lose track of my precious scrap of paper. I’m out of my seat as the doors fly open. As blue lights flood the scene and the world spins into pandemonium.
The broken bridge.
The coach, roof-deep in coal-dark water, mist rising from the ice.
Screaming.
So much screaming.
It consumes me like the raging river water and I hit the ground running, anchoring Sonny to me, knowing by the strangled sound he makes this is the worst thing he’s ever seen.
It’s not great for me either, but in the split second before the scene swallows me whole, one thought tethers me.
He knows.
Whatever happens to me tonight.
Sab.
He knows, probably with more clarity than I do, that I think I might love him.
The scene is carnage. Blue lights shatter the dark, the mangled coach on its side in the black water, three-quarters submerged and still sinking.
There’s no time to do anything but run, years of drills and past disasters powering my body through muscle memory so potent I almost turn to Sonny and shout Logan’s name.
I catch myself. Just. But I don’t stop to shake my head. Or heed the reminder I still need to apologise to the lad for ripping his head off in the yard.
Instead, I bark orders. Deploy lines and thermal kit. Tune out the shrill and panicked screams of the trapped souls on the coach.
Right now, they’re numbers.
They have to be.
Kitted up, I lead Sonny to the water line. He’s sharp-eyed and ready, but apprehension darkens his young eyes, and I don’t blame him. Freezing water on this scale, rushing at this sheer speed, it’s a goddam horror, and Christ knows I needed someone older and uglier than me to guide me through it the first time I faced it.
I seize his lapels with both hands. “It’s going to becold,” I warn him. “Worse than anything you’ve done in training, and it’ll hit you like a hammer until you ride it out. Thirty seconds, okay? That’s all it takes to get control back and push on.”
Thirty seconds the coach passengers don’t have, but I don’t tell Sonny that.
He knows.
Nodding, I release him from my grip and turn back to the water, steelingmyselffor the frigid shock I’ve never got used to. Harness clipped, line secure, I steer Sonny in front of me where I can keep an eye on him, and enter the water, cursing up a storm as freezing water surrounds me, the razor cold an absolute bastard, even through the kit.
I don’t take my thirty seconds.
Sonny doesn’t either.
