Once we get off this stupid bridge, I’m going to have to find somewhere to turn around. I don’t exactly want to be here. It’d be better if this shit could stay in Aston Creek but then maybe it’s safer for the town if I can lead this guy away.
We get halfway across when the SUV’s headlights are set to high beam, absolutely blinding me as I try to navigate my way across the bridge. Skylah screams in terror as her head flicks from the front window to the back. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
With my vision impaired, I have no choice but to ease up on the gas. It’s one thing driving like a fucking hoon but doing it blind is fucking stupid.
Within the blink of an eye, the SUV pulls out and speeds up. My stomach drops and bile rises in my throat.
No. Don’t you dare fucking do it.
I barely get a chance to even think before he swerves into my rear end, sending my Dodge into a wild spin. My tires screech in protest as Skylah screams. I do my best to try and right the car but it’s no use, at the speed we’re traveling, there’s no controlling this spin.
The car heads straight for the barrier but all I can concentrate on is Skylah’s piercing screams. The Dodge hits the barriers with a force that sends us both flying forward, catching on our seatbelts with a hard tug.
The Dodge crashes right through the barriers and we’re thrown right over the edge, hurtling down to the murky, dark water below.
Chapter 24
Slade
The car hits the water with a ferocious crash, instantly smashing the glass of the windscreen and sending sharp shards splintering across our faces. Skylah gets knocked around and her head is slammed against the door, leaving her with a massive gash that instantly starts spouting blood.
“FUCK,” Skylah screams, absolutely terrified as the freezing water comes rushing over the hood, filling the car faster than I ever thought possible. “What do we do?”
I reach for my seatbelt, desperate to get out of here but it’s not fucking budging. “We need to get free,” I tell her, feeling a panic coming over me while desperately trying to keep calm. If I panic, I won’t be able to help anyone and I need to get us out of here, our lives both depend on it but if Skylah drowns here tonight, that’ll be on me not being able to get to her in time.
The water pours in, smashing freezing water against my chest and making it hard to breathe but I don’t stop tearing at my seatbelt and when it’s clear it’s not about to release, I lean over and push Skylah’s hands away. If I can’t save myself then I’ll at least be saving her.
“BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.”
Five bullets come shooting down toward us. One hits the back of the seat right beside my head as the other four send water spraying up around us. We both freeze, terrified of the shots when Skylah screams out in agony.
“Were you hit?” I yell, demanding an answer.
“I think so,” she says between her teeth, trying to stop from screaming at the pain. “My leg. It fucking burns.”
FUCK.
What do I do? What the fuck do I do? We’re sitting ducks and I can’t even get to her to help her. Tears stream down her face as she struggles between holding her leg and trying to free her seatbelt.
My head snaps up to the bridge to find a man standing in the shadows staring down at us, watching as my Dodge rapidly gets lower and lower in the water. I can’t make out his face from down here but I know…I just fucking know and he’s going to pay.
“Lucien,” Sky cries, leaning forward and clutching her thigh as the water begins to creep up to her chin. She glances across at me, her teeth shivering in the cold water as she begins to sob in fear. “I can’t free the seat belt. We’re going to die.”
My hand slams down over the water. “Keep your fucking chin up, Skylah. You hear me? We are not dying tonight. Keep you fucking chin above the water.”
“I’m trying,” she cries.
I frantically search around. There has to be something here that I can use to break these fucking belts.
The water hits her chin and she screams, desperately trying to push herself up in her seat, keeping her chin high just like I told her. “I don’t want to die, Slade,” she begs. “Don’t let me die.”
“Never, baby. I’m going to get us out. I promise.”
“I love you.”
“DON’T,” I yell. “THERE ARE NO FUCKING GOODBYE’S HERE TONIGHT.”
I hear her sobs and I desperately try to tune them out as the water rises. I look around, frantically searching through the murky water when I hear her deep breath just moments before her precious head disappears under the water.
“NO. FUCK.”
Her hands pull at her seatbelt with desperation below the water when I notice a glass shard still connected to the edge of the windscreen. I instantly reach for it, stretching as far as I can go, but it’s not enough. I pull on the belt, cutting up my hands as I finally reach it and snap it off the front of the car.
With the glass in my hand, I reach for her, taking a deep breath just as the water completely submerges me.
I feel the car sinking quickly into the darkness below and I frantically rub the broken glass over her belt. Slicing, cutting, anything I can to get this fucker to break.
She’s been under for too long, far too fucking long. Her body starts to relax and I glance up, hardly able to even see her eyes in the cloudy water.
Her mouth is open and I know she’s giving up. There’s only so long someone can hold their breath in these conditions.
I’m too late.
I’m going to fucking kill him.
Seeing her slowly drifting away has my adrenalin working overtime. I furiously rub at her belt and as it finally breaks, I grab it with two hands and tear it apart with everything I’ve got, but despite her being free, she can’t get out of here without me. She needs me now more than ever.
This fight isn’t over yet.
I clutch onto the glass and tear through my belt, not giving a shit that each swipe over the belt cuts me deep.
Panic starts claiming me knowing that I still have to get out of here, get to the top and swim to the side before I can even begin to start saving her life.
My oxygen starts running thin and I see black spots appearing in my vision. My lungs scream in protest but I’m not giving in yet.
My belt breaks and I’m finally free.
I grab hold of my girl, begging for her to be alright as I push up off the dash and go straight through the broken windscreen. We haven’t sunk too deep and I’m relieved as I break the surface and inhale deeply, dreading the silence and wishing I’d heard Sky do the same.
I clutch onto her and race towards the edge, dragging her up onto the bank as I hear the sirens in the distance.
“Come on, baby,” I demand, slamming my palms into her chest and starting chest compressions. “Don’t fucking leave me, Sky. I need you here. Don’t you dare give up. Come back to me.”
My eyes fill with tears and I try to remember what I learned during health class. How many chest compressions to breaths is it? Was it thirty pumps to every breath? Every two breaths? Fuck, I can’t even think right now.
“Don’t go, baby. Don’t fucking go. I love you.”
The sirens get louder as headlights appear up on the bridge and I scream out toward the red and blue flashing lights, begging for them to hear me. “HELP! FUCKING HELP ME.”
A flashlight is shone down here before a flurry of movement as they get back in their vehicles and haul ass down to the river bank. Headlights hit us just moments before the ambulance comes to a screeching stop on the pebbled shore.
“Help her,” I beg as tears stream down my face. I can’t lose her.
Too much time has passed.
The EMT’s come tearing toward me as four police cars fill the space around. Someone tries to barge me out of the way, wanting to take over but I won’t let him. “Don’t fucking touch me,” I beg. “I can’t stop. She’ll die.”
Her
lips are blue. Why are her fucking lips blue?
“It’s okay. We’re here now,” someone responds way too calmly. What the fuck is that about? My girl is dying and they’re worried about trying to calm me?
“Don’t touch me.”
When I don’t move, a cop pushes down in front of me and tackles me out of the way. I scramble, trying to get back to my girl and when he clutches onto me, trying to hold me down, I nail him in the fucking jaw.
Two more cops rush in, trying to keep me pinned as Skylah is placed onto a stretcher and rushed away. I keep my eyes on her, refusing to look away as I focus on her chest, waiting anxiously for her to take a breath and cough up all the water drowning her lungs.
“LET ME GO. I NEED TO BE WITH HER.”
I kick at the guy holding me down and send an elbow back into the guy who’s attempting to restrain me. I scramble to my feet and rush after the EMTs, my eyes locked on the lifeless body on the stretcher.
Why won’t she breathe?
Sky is put up in the back of the ambulance and a guy instantly climbs on top of her, continuing chest compressions as the other works on strapping her down and making it safe.
They rush as fast as humanly possible and by the time I reach the back of the ambulance, the doors are being slammed shut in my face, locking me out as my girl fights for her life on the other side.
I grab the door and violently shake them as the tears continue staining my cheeks. “LET ME IN.”
The cops reach me and instantly take me down, jamming a knee against my spine as my hands are cuffed behind my back. “Calm down, Cruz,” someone from above me says, not surprisingly knowing my name. “It’s going to be alright, but you have to calm down.”
“I need to be with her.”
“We’ll take you to her, but you need to let them do their work,” the cop tells me as the ambulance pulls away. “We’ll follow behind. She’s getting the help she needs.”
My whole body sags, feeling completely useless as her lifeless body flashes in my mind, her empty eyes as the oxygen left her body, her desperate fight as she frantically tried to get free.
The trauma of the last fifteen minutes instantly catches up to me and my body sags against the cop as he tries to bring me to my feet. Sobs come tearing viciously from my throat and I know deep in my heart that I’ve lost her.
My girl is dead and it’s all my fault.
I couldn’t save her and that face is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.
The cops get me into the back of their cruiser and as the door closes, my head falls into my hands. She’s gone. She suffered through hell and she found her downfall just when she thought she was free.
The cops pile into the car and pull away, sirens on as the driver races after the ambulance. Someone leans over to me and unlocks the cuffs around my wrist. “There’s still hope, son. That girl is a fighter. She’s not gone yet.”
I don’t know if he’s right. I fucking hope he is, but I lost faith in a greater good years ago. How could she possibly come back from that?
I put the thought to the back of my mind. I can’t allow myself to have hope as when I realize that my worst nightmare is a reality, it’s only going to hurt that much more.
I have to prepare myself for the worst. When we get to that hospital, they’re going to tell me either one of two things. One, she didn’t make it, or two, she’s the fucking fighter that she keeps proving herself to be.
There are absolutely no guarantees right now except for one…
The next time I come face to face with Lucien Valentine, I’m going to fucking kill him and I don’t care if it costs me my life.
Where to Next?
Wild Girl – Aston Creek High (Book 3)
www.amazon.com/dp/B086N3N1MZ
Have you ever known what it feels like to die?
It’s not great. Trust me, I don’t recommend it.
I’ve always said that my life is about surviving, but I didn’t realize how true that was until the devil sent me soaring off a bridge with the love of my life and lodged a bullet through my thigh.
It’s not my time to die.
He should know by now that I’m a survivor and it’s going to take a little more than a submerged Dodge RAM in the bottom of the river and a bullet to take me out.
I want my revenge and I want it now.
Lucien Valentine will not get away with this.
Someone should have warned me that when you’re playing with fire, you’re bound to get burned. This game just upped the stakes and this time, I might not have what it takes to make it out the other end.
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it, please leave a review.
www.amazon.com/dp/B086N3N1MZ
For more information on The Aston Creek High Series, find me on Facebook or Instagram –
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Author Biography
Sheridan Anne is a wife to a smart-ass husband, Mumma to two beautiful girls, twin sister, daughter, and friend who lives in beautiful Australia. Sheridan writes both romance and young adult fantasy books on a variety of topics and can be found on most days with her family or writing during naptime. To find out more or to simply say ‘hello’, connect with her on Facebook or Instagram -
www.facebook.com/SheridanAnneAuthor
Other Series by Sheridan Anne
www.amazon.com/Sheridan-Anne/e/B079TLXN6K
Young Adult / New Adult - Romance
The Broken Hill High Series (5 Book Series + Novella)
Haven Falls (7 Book Series + Novella)
Broken Hill Boys (5 Book Novella Series)
Aston Creek High (4 Book Series)
New Adult Romance
Kings of Denver (4 Book Series)
Denver Royalty (3 Book Series)
Rebels Advocate (4 Book Series)
Men of Fire Rescue One (4 Book Series) Coming 2020
Lost Girl: Aston Creek High (Book 2) Page 20