Camille was crying silent tears. The hope, the plans from moments ago seemed to vanish into the dark.
“911, what is your emergency?”
Before Remi could speak, Camille gave a heart-rending sob as the headlights got closer, blinding them in the mirrors.
“He’s trying to kill us,” Camille whispered.
“I won’t let him,” Remi said.
“What is your emergency?” the operator repeated.
But it was too late. The car rammed them from behind again. The impact sent her body lurching against the seatbelt as the Mercedes smashed into the guardrail that separated them from a dark drop-off. Metal scraped and buckled. Sparks lit up tiny pockets of the night.
Shrill screams echoed over the music. Remi didn’t recognize her own voice.
The high beams disappeared around the next bend in the road.
“Hello? Can you hear me?” Remi yelled, blindly feeling for her phone.
Camille was frozen in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the wheel. Chest heaving in shallow breaths. Remi’s own lungs burned.
The Mercedes was still running. But the acrid smell of smoke and rubber filled her nostrils.
“He’s gone,” Remi breathed. “He’s gone.”
Camille was shaking her head. “He’s never gone.” Tears glistened on her cheeks in the light of the dashboard.
“We have to get out of here,” Remi said sharply. “We have to get out of the car.”
“He’ll find us. He won’t stop.”
Remi was reaching for her seatbelt when more lights cut through the windshield. High beams traveling much too fast. For one second, Camille’s lovely profile was frozen in time, burned in the light of the approaching vehicle.
And then there was nothing.
She wasn’t sure if she’d been knocked out or if she’d blinked and the world had gone away. Her vision was obscured by the airbag that had deployed. Something felt unstable, wobbly. Almost as if the car wasn’t on solid ground anymore.
Camille’s head hung limply, face down.
Remi could smell something besides smoke now. The brackish tang of blood.
“Oh my God. Oh my God.”
The music was still on, still loud. But the world tipped. Or was it just the car. Through the splintered, fractured windshield, Remi saw trees and twisted metal.
He’d pushed them through the guardrail. And they were balanced precariously on the edge. How long of a drop was it? Her brain scrambled to calculate how far from Camille’s house they were, but her thoughts were sluggish.
Behind them, maybe above them, Remi thought she could hear the muffled purr of another engine. Another car. But turning her head hurt.
The world tipped. Or maybe it was the car. But this time, it went just a degree farther.
As the nose of the car dipped, Remi opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. There was just the music loud in her ears and the first roller coaster hill drop in her stomach as she went weightless. As gravity pulled the car down, down, down.
There was a crunch, and the car’s descent slammed to a brutal stop. Her seatbelt cut painfully into her chest.
The music cut off and was replaced by a hideous creaking sound. Trees. A pair of them sprouting out of the steep ravine and stretching toward the black heavens had stopped their descent. But how long could they hold back the mangled wreckage of the car against gravity?
“Camille?” Remi whispered. She reached out and touched her friend’s limp arm. “Camille. We have to get out of here.”
There was no response. She was sick and woozy and fucking terrified.
But in the eerie silence, she heard something else. A car door closed.
If she could hear that, they couldn’t be that far from the road, she realized. Maybe they could climb back up and—
She realized whose car door it was. Whose footsteps she could hear through her broken window. Her breath was nothing more than ragged whimpers, and she clamped her free hand over her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds.
He was looking down at them, debating if his job was done. If he could go home and start practicing looking concerned, then shocked. That motherfucker. Hate fueled her, giving her a cold kind of calm she’d never before experienced. An icy rage took root in her soul. He wouldn’t win this. He wouldn’t end Camille’s life because he found her humanity inconvenient. And he sure as fuck wouldn’t end her life. She had paintings to paint. Men to kiss. Worlds to explore.
He wasn’t going to take those things from them. He didn’t deserve to wield that power.
She let it play on a loop in her head until her breathing slowed. Until she didn’t have to fight the panicked screams in her throat.
She sat in silence, ears straining for the sound of his approach. If he climbed down here to finish the job, there was nothing she could do. They were too vulnerable. All he’d have to do was give the car a push, and they would plummet out of existence.
She sat and she waited, gripping Camille’s limp hand in her own. Brick Callan’s stern face flashed into her mind. He’d know how to fix it. He’d ride to the rescue and save the day. He always did.
She held on to that image of her hero as she waited for the villain to appear in the dark.
The tree in front of her gave an ominous creak, and there was a cracking sound. Tears leaked from her eyes as she silently willed him to walk away.
That’s when she heard it. That faraway, dismissive laugh.
That disgusting motherfucker was laughing at them.
The laughter carried down to her, sounding inhuman and evil. Just like the man himself. The sound of it branded her soul. When she heard the car door slam again, the engine rev and then grow fainter before finally disappearing, a keening wail built from aching lungs.
He’d left them there to die.
Remi blinked through the tears, peering into the black beyond the trees. The car gave another shudder as one of the tree trunks groaned. “Fuck,” she whimpered, unbuckling her seatbelt. “Please don’t let me step into nothingness.”
A thick branch tumbled out of the dark and landed on what was left of the hood of the car.
“Okay. Fuck. Calm the hell down,” Remi warned herself. The sound of her voice cut through the unbearable silence. “Just climb around and get Camille out. That’s all I have to do.”
Easy peasy. No big deal. She felt for the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried muscling it open, but the motion rocked the car, terrifying her into stillness.
“Okay. No on the door. That’s okay. I’ve got three others to try, Camille. We’ll be fine.”
Carefully, because her friend’s life depended on it, Remi climbed into the back seat. Her lungs were on fire, and each breath became like an impossible task.
“How lucky am I that I didn’t end up conked on the head or with a broken face,” she wheezed conversationally. “This is good. This is fine.”
The rear driver’s side door was jammed shut, but the one on the passenger side eased open when she tried the handle.
“Oh, my God. Thank you, Sonny and Cher.” Her cheeks were wet, and she realized that she was crying. “Thank you thank you thank you,” she chanted as she eased herself out into the snow.
She sank in up to her ankles, immediately losing both her stilettos. It was fucking cold. But damn it, she’d been born on Mackinac Island. She could survive a barefoot stroll through the snow.