Page 84 of Chasing Paradise

But the wind was picking up, so loud that even if he were awake, it would have been impossible for him to hear my cries as I tried to free myself, tried to get to him.

To no avail.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Wick

I came awake completely disoriented, the wind whipping heavy rains into my face, making it hard to see as pain shot through my head.

It took a long second for it to come back.

The sting, the pain, the relief, the men, the storm, the last lightning strike…

I shot up, my head spinning at the change, making me wonder if I’d hit my head, if I had a concussion.

Then, as the nausea rose up my throat, I knew that I did.

Dammit.

Like we needed any more complications.

We.

Violet.

Where was she? Why wasn’t she right with me?

Another deep rumble of thunder that shook the whole ground rolled.

One, two, three…

The lightning lit up the sky, and my gaze scanned around the field, seeking Violet.

Then my heart seized in my chest as I found her a yard or so away. Her legs were pinned under a fallen, blackened tree.

“Violet!” I yelled, trying to get to my feet, but the lightheadedness had me falling back down.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Finally, I stayed on all fours and fuckingcrawledto her.

“Vi, hey, you’re gonna be alright,” I said, my hands reaching for her face. “I’ll get it off you,” I assured her. Even though I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage with my head spinning and my vision swimming.

Violet’s eyes were squeezed shut as she took slow, deliberate breaths to either try to keep calm or focus past the pain.

“I thought you were dead,” she said, her pretty eyes finally sliding open, and the redness there said she’d been crying. Possibly for a long time.

“Nah. It’s gonna take more than assassins, killer bugs, and lightning to kill me,” I teased. Then, in a more serious tone, I asked, “Can you feel your legs?”

“There’s a lot of crushing going on, so yeah.”

“Can you move your feet for me?”

There was one long, awful second that had me thinking she couldn’t until, finally, they wiggled up and down.

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