Noah touched her face, held her gaze. She thought there'd never been a shorter or longer moment in her life than right now, seeing the steel nerve in those brown eyes, the deep fear, but not for himself. "If the car falls anyway, there's nothing anyone could have done to stop that," he said. "If it starts to fall, you jump off the rear wheel."
"No." A different kind of fear flooded her. "No. We just do it together and see what happens. We just do it. Stop talking about things like that."
He stared into her eyes. "Okay."
She nodded. "I'm ready."
"Go." He boosted her up before she could say anything else. She gritted her teeth, scrambled out the window, cutting herself on the glass in her haste, even with the protection of the towel. Stomach muscles she didn't know she had helped her through that opening and she scrambled for the back tire. The car was wedged loosely between a stand of slender trees and perched on a jutting layer of rock, explaining the instability. She had a harrowing impression of the steep side of the mountain.
Forest covering the slopes had slowed the vehicle, but it wasn't thick enough. Where it thickened was in the deep ravine about a hundred feet below them. A rushing wide creek cut through it, showing the depth of the drop over the edge of those rocks. The car would pitch straight down amid the tall pines, speared by or destroying them on its crashing descent.
The car teetered forward and she scrambled even beyond the wheel, onto the gas tank, not an advisable idea she was sure, but she wasn't concerned about that. "No, no, no," she gritted. Come back this way, come back this way. Her flight instinct told her to get off the car, get clear, but she denied it. No. I won't leave them. I won't leave them. And you're not taking them with you. Come on.
If her heart rate had been harnessed to the back bumper, she could have pulled them all the way to the highway above. As it was, the car sluggishly stabilized again.
"Gen." Noah's voice was muffled. "Okay?"
"Okay."
"Are you ready?"
"Give me just a sec." Taking a deep breath, she looked up, hoping to see a team of emergency responders with helicopters and sturdy chains, a crane. The road had been busy enough, plenty of people had seen the accident. But it was likely only minutes had passed. "Noah?"
"Yeah?"
She held onto his voice as the most wonderful sound in the world. "You better get your ass out of there with her, or I will never forgive you. Neither will she. It will be worse than when you put Guns and Roses on her player. Far worse."
She thought she heard a chuckle. "I love you, Gen." Quieter, that time. Her heart twisted. No. Don't you do that. You're not saying goodbye, not to either one of us.
"Ready."
She'd thought that moment inside the car with him had been the longest and shortest moment of her life. She'd been wrong. The car's sudden pitch, Lyda's limp body thrust through the window, Gen grabbing her under the armpits and hauling her up and back with every ounce of strength she had, that was it. The car started to slide.
"No!"
Noah had pushed Lyda's weight into Gen's arms hard enough that it unbalanced her, sent them both toppling off the car. The rear bottom wheel rolled against her thigh. As she spun away from it, trying to protect Lyda, she and Lyda were sliding, following in the car's wake against a slick bed of leaves. Gen's shin slammed against rock and she wedged her foot in a crevice, ignoring the bolt of pain through her ankle as it took the shock. The move brought them to a halt. The car didn't stop moving. It was groaning, metal shrieking.
"Noah!" she screamed. Lyda's blood was soaking Gen's neck and shirt, her body a dead weight pinning Gen down, adding to the feeling of suffocation. "No, no, no..."
She lost time then, as if an angel of mercy was sparing her the agony of the truth. She was looking up into a man's face, an emergency responder, his serious face taking up her vision. "Noah! No, no, no..."
She smelled smoke again, the kind of smoke that came with fire. She couldn't stop crying, hurting, dying inside. She gripped Lyda so hard, the EMTs had to pry her fingers away, give her a shot, and then everything was lost, whirling away.
*
Something is wrong inside his head...I don't think it will ever be fixed...
Love. That's when you figure out what's important and what's not.
She's an island. You take a boat out to her...
The car going over, smoke and fire...
Gen came out of the nightmare, a cry strangling her. Something yanked against her arm, a stabbing pain, and then someone was holding her arm, someone else holding the rest of her. Marguerite. Marguerite's scent, her strength, wrapped around her.
"It's all right, Gen. Sssh...calm down. You're safe. You're in the hospital."
Chloe was holding her arm, where the IV needle and tape had pulled. She circled Gen with her free arm, eyes welling with tears. "It's okay, Gen. We're here."