Page 41 of Memories with Fire

For one long, god-awful second I’m paralyzed with fear. Fear that she’s about to die. Fear that I’ll never get to kiss her again. Fear that I never got to tell her how I feel about her.

Then I use that fear.

“Hailey, I’m coming!” I yell, and hope she can hear me through the phone as I launch myself into the rain that’s become a torrential downpour.

The only thought that exists is getting her out of there. Her blue hatchback was stopped by a tree that smashed into her rear bumper after spinning around, while the front end balances precariously on a rock. The slope of the embankment is steep, and one move in the wrong direction could send her, and the car, careening straight down a dangerous hill full of trees, boulders, and god knows what else. The tree holding her in position isn’t overly large so there’s no telling if it’ll give under the weight of the car, or how stable the road and hillside are, considering one tree already came down.

I need to get her out. Now.

With the front end caught on a rock, the driver’s window is level with my head when I come to a stop beside it, my feet sliding along wet foliage on the ground. Hailey is staring straight ahead, her chest rising and falling in quick succession. Maybe in shock, terrified by what happened. But I need her to snap out of it so she can help me get her out, which would be challenging on a good day, let alone in the pouring rain.

“Hailey!” I yell as loud as I can, trying the door, even though half of it is caved in. Probably from the damn branch that hit her. “Hailey, roll the window down.”

There’s movement but it isn’t the kind I want to see. All she does is shake her head.

I try a different tactic. “C’mon Freckles! I know it’s scary, but you can do this.”

That’s better. She blinks a couple of times, her eyes moving to me before she looks all around at the scene in front of her. From where I stand, I can see the sharp inhale she takes, and I wince at the terror in her eyes as she brings them back to me.

“Luke!”

“I know, Freckles. It’s okay. I’m going to get you out of there.”

Pulling my keys out of my pocket, I yank off the little device I keep on my keychain at all times. An emergency window breaker and seatbelt cutter. Something every single person should carry.

“Luke!” she screams. “The windows won’t work!”

“Cover your face,” I yell back, putting the device up to the window.

When all she does is stare at me, panic and fear written in the tremble of her chin and the tears in her eyes, my heart clenches.

“Push it back, baby. You can cry when I get you out of there, but right now I need you focused. Work mode, okay? We’re out on a rescue and I need your help with it,” I tell her, trying to get her into a better state of mind. “Cover your face.”

After one last moment of staring at me, she turns away, giving me her shoulder and part of her back. Before I have a chance to puncture the window, the car shifts, groaning against the tree as it slips a few inches.

“Fuck.”

Pushing the little device into the window to puncture it, the glass shatters into tiny little dull pieces, exactly what the tempered glass is supposed to do. A second later I’ve got the window cleaned out, some of it falling onto Hailey, but I’ll take it.

“C’mon, let’s go,” I command, sticking the window breaker into my pocket before I’m halfway through the window, grabbing her under the arms as she undoes her seatbelt. Thoughts don’t exist right now. Only a growing sense of urgency to get her the hell out of this death trap.

When the car moves again, this time more than a few inches, we both pause, frozen, our eyes meeting. There’s fear in hers, but I can see determination overriding the emotion. She knows what’s at stake. Probably more than most people, given our line of work, and what we both see on a daily basis. She doesn’t want to become one of those victims any more than I want her to.

“Now, Freckles!”

My heart is lodged in my throat, and I can’t push the fear away, or tamp it down. I can only be one with it as I pull her towards me. Hailey works in sync with me, maneuvering herself from behind the wheel and through the window, but she isn’t quite clear of it when there’s a loud cracking sound from the back of her car, and she screams.

A broken leg is better than death.

Using every bit of strength and muscle I possess, I yank her the rest of the way out of the window. The power in my move flings us both backwards to the ground, and then we’re a tangled mess of arms and legs, rolling a few times through brush and rock on the side of the steep hill before a large bush stops our descent.

Both of us gasp for breath, my body sandwiched between the bush and Hailey’s. There’s another sound that mixes with our breathing and the rain, and it takes me a moment to realize that it’s her car hitting something solid. A tree. A boulder. I don’t want to know.

Hailey could have been in that fucking car.

My arms, somehow still around her, tighten at the thought. Not in the car. Not wrapped around a tree. Not dead. Here. With me, in my arms.

“Holy shit,” she breathes.

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