Page 20 of Lethal Game

"Which seems like a miracle."

"You had good airbags."

"I never ever thought I'd use them," she said. "Nothing like this has ever happened to me. And I still don't know why it's happening."

"We'll figure it out. In the meantime…" He put his hand on the door handle. As he moved it, the door gave a loud creak, swung open, and then fell to the ground, making the car rock and sending a wave of new terror through her.

She held her breath, praying the car would settle back into place. Eventually, it did.

"We're good," Jason said.

"No. We're definitely not good. We're barely okay."

"I know I'm a pessimist. But you're giving me a run for my money," he said lightly.

"I always thought I was an optimist until the last week, but I don't feel that way now. Everything around me is dark."

He put a hand on her arm as he gave her a reassuring smile that seemed incongruous with the blood on his face. "You're doing great, Alisa. We'll put one foot in front of the other until we're out of here, and then we'll keep doing that until we figure out what's going on."

"Are you confident we will figure it out?"

"Yes," he said with a certainty that gave her hope. "Because I don't give up—ever."

She believed him. He certainly hadn't given up on getting them down the hill as safely as humanly possible. His confidence was contagious. They'd made it this far. She had to keep believing. "Okay. I won't give up, either."

"Good. Now I'm going to slowly get out of the car. Once I see where we are, I'll come around to your side."

"I'd rather get out at the same time as you, just in case the car moves when you do," she said, putting her hand on the door and giving the handle a yank. Nothing happened. She looked over at him, feeling panic again. "I don't think my side will open. It feels like there's a weight against it."

"That's okay. That means the car isn't going anywhere."

He slowly eased his body out of the car until he was standing on the ground.

"What do you see?" she asked.

"We hit a couple of trees. But the good news is that we're at the bottom of the hill, in what appears to be a gully. The car isn't going to slide any further. There's nowhere for it to go."

She blew out a breath of relief.

"I'm going to come around to your side," he said.

She felt another rush of anxiety as he disappeared from view, but she told herself to get a grip. The worst was over. Now, it was just about getting out of the car.

A moment later, she heard his voice behind the tree branches that were sticking through her window. "I can't open the door," he said. "It's crushed against a tree."

He came back around to his side and gave her a questioning look. "You're going to have to crawl out this way. Can you get the seat belt off?"

It took her a moment to wrestle with the belt, but she eventually got it off. It took another few minutes to crawl out from under the airbags, over the console, and then through the open door.

Jason helped her out of the car, wrapping his arms around her as her feet slipped on the rocky ground. They were still on aslight incline, but as she looked around, she could see that he'd been telling the truth. They were at the bottom of the hill, and far above them was the road that wound its way up to the medical center. Hopefully, someone would notice the broken guardrail and stop to question if something had happened.

"How are you feeling now that you're on your feet?" Jason asked.

She looked into his face, suddenly realizing he was holding her very close, and she wasn't making any attempt to get out of his embrace because it felt really, really good.

"Anything hurting?" he questioned.

"My head, my wrist, my knee…" She was slowly noticing the pain points in her body. She looked down at her left wrist, which was the same hand she'd cut against the car last night. Her wrist didn't look broken, but there was another long cut on the back of her hand that went up her arm. She glanced down at her leg. Her jeans were ripped at the knee, and there was blood on the denim. "Nothing is broken, but I'm cut in a few places." Her gaze moved to Jason, and she saw similar cuts and bloody spots on his clothes. "You are, too."

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