Page 59 of Under Fyre

I crash headfirst onto the roof of the cab. Or, I would have, if Arrow hadn’t been lying under me. She whimpers when I land on her, but she’s licking my face a second later so I guess she isn’t good at holding grudges.

“Shit, sorry,” I mumble through a sudden slicing pain racing through my chest. Even my fingers start prickling furiously, blood rushing to extremities that were ready to drop off.

I’m desperate to hike up my shirt and take a look, but now’s not the time.

I pat Arrow’s head and then grimace at her. “Are you hurt?”

She licks my face, but who knows if it’s a yes or a no.

“I should probably check, huh?”

Arrow whines a little and shoves her nose in under my hand. “I can’t just keep patting your head. I need to check the rest of you.”

I run my hands down her ears and neck, her broad chest. Arrow watches me with adoring eyes, but it worries me that her tail isn’t wagging.

What if she’s paralyzed or something?

There’s a lump in my throat as I work my way down her furry body. I keep my eyes on her, waiting to see a signal that something hurts, but she just stares at me.

It’s like she’s gazing straight into my fucking soul. I guess that proves she’s Fyre’s dog. Any other creature would have balked at what they saw in my eyes.

I reach her back left paw, the one that’s under her right, and give it a gentle squeeze like I have done with all the others.

Arrow whines, and leans forward to push her nose into my neck. She snuffles around, pushing, pushing, like she’s trying to distract me.

“That sore?” I give her another gentle squeeze.

Her snuffling becomes more intense, and she tries to pull her paw away from my fingers.

Shit.

“Okay, relax. It’s not too bad. I mean, it’s still attached, right?”

Arrow says nothing, because she’s a fucking dog.

“You’re lucky. You’ve got three backups.” I maneuver onto my knees and inch out of the torn open door, trying not to press down on broken glass.

There’s a clear path to exit, and once I’m standing up outside—or at least, leaning crookedly against the car with one hand while I adjust to the myriad pain signals my body throws at me anyway—I realize why.

We rolled down a fucking hill.

There’s a path of destruction hewn through the snow all the way down to where the ground levels off.

I turn with a deep, sinking feeling in my stomach.

“Oh my God.”

One tree.

Oneverytough tree.

That’s all that stopped Fyre’s truck from plummeting into a gorge.

I feel dizzy even looking at it, and I’m standing at least a yard away.

Oh fuck.

Fyre.

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