Page 254 of Saving Her

A horn blasts behind us.

We reach the middle of the juncture, my focus moving from Sarah to the beaming lights barreling toward us from her side window. “Sarah,” I scream. “The truck.”

I brace for impact, my hands white-knuckling the seat. But it’s not enough to stop the force slamming through me.

My airbag deploys, knocking the oxygen from my lungs, belting me in the face.

Darkness steals my vision. I gasp for breath and blink rapidly, attempting to dislodge the inky black as my ears ring.

“Sarah?” I blindly reach for her. “Are you okay?”

She groans as my sight shifts from dark, to grey, to an almost decipherable blur.

I hear things. A rapid mass of noise. The hiss of something mechanical. A car door slams in the distance. Screams. Then gunfire—rapid, bone-chilling gunfire.

I scramble to undo my belt around the inflated airbag. “Sarah, wake up. You need to wake up.”

The shots ring louder. From different directions, the closest approaching.

My hands shake in my search for the goddamn buckle, my fingers trembling as I finally release the clasp.

“Sarah.” I reach for her again, this time seeing the crimson blood staining the airbag beside where her forehead rests. “Sarah.”

Everything quietens. The outside world becomes still as my heartbeat intensifies.

She’s hurt. Bad. The color once brightening her face is gone.

“Please, Sarah.”

She groans again, filling me with rampant hope.

The familiar tap against my window that steals it away.

I stop breathing.

Swallow.

Tap, tap, tap.

I remain frozen, caught between the need to scream and hide. Fight and surrender.

I know who’s at my door. I know without doubt before I turn and come eye-to-eye with Robert, his face now clean-shaven, his hair in a buzz cut as his gleaming smile bears down on me.

The instinct to flee is overwhelming; the necessity wails inside my skull. It takes all my will to shut it down.

What takes its place is a maniacal huff of laughter. I knew I’d never escape. Not from him. Not from the nightmares in Greece.

I could scramble into the back of the car and run from the other side, but he’d catch me.

I could yell for help, yet all I’d achieve is a bigger tally to the dead bodies lying on the ground outside.

The bad guys always win. Always.

He quirks a brow in question and shifts the aim of his gun from me to Sarah.

“No.” I push open my door. “Stop.”

He smirks and lunges for me, pulling me from the Suburban by my hair. I struggle not to cry out from the pain and scramble to find my footing while he pats me down with an aggressive hand, his gun still trained on Sarah.

---