Christian saw the break in the trees.
The curve should’ve revealed her taillights.Her SUV always rode a little high, headlights tilted just enough to bounce off the shoulder.But now, nothing.
Empty road.
No lights.
No SUV.
“Damn it.”He tightened his grip on the wheel and then yanked it hard, tires skidding sideways in the loose gravel.The truck fishtailed, back end swinging before catching traction and jolting to a stop half at the embankment, half in brush.
He threw it in park, already moving.Didn’t shut the door.Didn’t even kill the engine.No time.His hand flew to his holster in pure muscle memory and pulled the Glock to toss under the seat before leaping out of the vehicle.
The cold hit immediately, rain and wind biting through his shirt and propelling him toward the rushing river.He hit the rocks, his boots crashing through brush, his lungs already tight.
Going on instinct, knowing exactly where they were in the river, he ducked his head and dove out and down.
The river hit like a goddamn hammer.A solid wall he had to break through.His chest locked.Lungs seized.His arms, his legs, all of him went numb so fast it felt like fire.
He fought the pain and plunged down hard.He opened his eyes.The cold stabbed straight through to his skull.Visibility was shit with mud and silt clouding everything, but he forced his vision through it like he’d been trained.Pushed past the sting, the pressure.
The water enfolded him, encasing him.Panic surged first, and then training took over.He’d been waterboarded before, and he’d been shackled in a small cage.Eons away from this place and this time, but his body remembered.
His mind was stronger.
Amka.Her sweetness in tending to the hummingbirds out back of her tavern every spring.Her absolute kindness when feeding folks down on their luck who’d never be able to pay her.Her fondness of those same old and grizzly trappers who slicked back their hair and trimmed their beards before stepping foot in her establishment.She probably didn’t even know that.
Her kindness and light brought them all out of the darkness.Even him.Especially him.She was the only thing that mattered.
There.Headlights, weak and slanted, already ten feet under.The SUV’s nose had dug into the riverbed.Bubbles streamed up in angry bursts.It was going fast.Too fast.
Every local knew this spot.This river didn’t mess around.It dropped deep here, a cut between rocks worn by decades of runoff and bad luck.If she wasn’t out in the next sixty seconds, he was pulling a body.
No.
Not happening.
His hand found the knife strapped to his boot.Steel to fingers.Good grip.He angled his body down and swam with tight, snapping kicks.Short bursts.Controlled.The current shoved him sideways.He slammed into something hard and submerged, a branch or rock or both, but he didn’t stop.His ribs burned but he pushed through.
He reached the driver’s side.
She was still there, dark hair floating around her too pale face pressed against the window, eyes wide and glassy.But moving.A beat behind the panic was a flicker of recognition.She saw him.
He slammed the hilt of the knife against the glass.
Once.
Twice.
Third time—crack.
The front window burst to match the back one.More water surged in like it had been waiting.She jerked back and was sucked under.He went in after her, the force of the flood nearly taking him with it.
She fought the seatbelt as her hands clawed at the buckle, twisting and pushing.No give.
He jammed the knife in and sawed the belt at her waist.One, two seconds, and the thing snapped.Then he pulled her beneath the shoulder strap.
She came free, floating into his arms.Her body was heavy with soaked clothes, her limbs sluggish, her mouth slack.But her eyes remained open.Barely.
