Find Me in the Dark (Nighthawks #6)

Chapter 1

JENSEN

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, THE DAY OF THE ACCIDENT

We’re going to die, and it’s all my fault.

My sister’s car rolls and plummets over the edge of the bridge. For a split second, the world goes silent, and then … it becomes unbearably loud.

Our bodies fly forward, smashing into the windshield.

“Jensen!” Carly, my older sister, screams, panic straining her shaky voice, which gradually fades away as we crash into the river.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

What should I do?

Think!

Think!

My eyes lock on to her teary brown gaze as the nose of the car pulls us deeper beneath the cold, dark water. As hard as I will myself to move, I remain frozen. It’s like my lungs aren’t working, nor my entire body, and I don’t know why.

“It’ll be okay,” I try to assure her—and myself.

Something wet trickles down my forehead, and I lift my hand to touch it, wincing at the stinging sensation from the contact. As I pull it away, I see bright red blood.

The vision makes the pain suddenly kick in, and my head pounds like it’s being smacked repeatedly against a wall. I guess that’s what I get for not wearing my seat belt and nearly going through the windshield during the free fall.

My scalp burns as I touch it again, trying to gauge how bad it might be. That’s when I see the circular cracks in the windshield that my head carved in the glass.

Jesus.

The entire right side of the windshield is destroyed, blood splattered over the broken glass.

God, I’ve lost a lot. Am I going to be okay?

“Jensen,” Carly murmurs timidly, her voice thick with emotion as water begins pouring through the wide cracks, the glass chipping away more and more. Her voice is haunted as she murmurs above the rolling tide, “I love you.”

“Don’t say that like this is the end. We’ll be just fine!” I snap, something inside of me finally kicking into gear. “You gotta undo your seat belt.” Water begins soaking my clothes as the floor fills up, my socks, shoes, and pants nearly underwater.

I have to get her out of here. That’s all that matters. I might not be able to be strong for myself, but I can be for my sister.

Turning to the car door, I press the window button, and thankfully, it’s still working. I watch my window roll down, water pouring over with vigor at the gap.

“You need to get out, or you’re going to drown,” she says coldly, her voice suddenly muffled.

My head whips her way, an eerie, sharp tingle slithering down my back. “I’m trying to get us out …” My words fall away at the sight before me, at the lack of what I should see—or rather who. “Carly?”

Dread claws at my insides. Her seat is empty and her body nowhere to be found.

“Carly!” My voice cracks. “Carrrlyyyy!” I shout her name as loud as I can, a vision in my mind fighting to break free, but something stops it. “Carly! Please!”

I scream, my voice ragged, raw, and tired as the car continues to fill up. I don’t understand what’s happening. It doesn’t make any sense. She was just right there!

The cold water reaches my chest, rising faster and faster as the most horrifying image flits before my eyes the second they land on the gaping hole on her side of the windshield.

She wasn’t wearing her seat belt.

But neither was I, and I’m still in the car. Pieces of the memory break through the wall my mind quickly built.

She flew through the windshield when we crashed into the barrier. She wasn’t in the car with me when we hit the water. She hasn’t been here the whole time …

A burst of excitement hits me, giving me hope. That means she’s probably swimming in the water and getting to safety. Carly will be okay. I know it.

Right?

Wetness streams down my forehead, falling into my eyes. I attempt to blink it away, but it doesn’t help, only clouding my vision more. Reaching up to my scalp, I try to feel for the tender, painful gash, but it doesn’t sting. Neither does the aching pulse in my ribs.

Nothing hurts anymore. Everything’s gone numb.

My body floats up off my seat, lifting me toward the roof of my car as my vision spots out and my strength begins flickering away.

Just get out of the car.

Grabbing the edge of the window, I take a deep inhale before pulling myself down to try to swim through the opening.

Keeping my eyes open, I slither halfway through before something inside of me powers down.

I don’t make it through the window, not before my vision fades to black and the car pulls me deeper into the cold depths below.

A loud beeping fills my ears, and they start to ring as I come to. Gradually, my consciousness becomes more aware, and I hear a voice.

“I’ll get the doctor,” someone mutters nearby, but I can’t make sense of who it is.

Doctor? Where am I? What happened?

It takes everything in me to try to force my eyes to open. A millimeter of light trickles in, and I slam them shut.

God, it’s so bright.

“Jensen, I’m right here.” I recognize the voice, but it takes me a moment to put a face to it. Dark brown hair, brown eyes just like mine, and a soft smile. It’s my mom. “Can you open your eyes?”

“No.” My thought slips past my lips, jagged and raw in my dry throat.

She inhales sharply, her breath catching before she cries out, “Oh, thank God you’re okay.” She bursts into tears as I try once again to open my eyes to comfort her.

Why is she so sad? I’m fine.

It hurts, but I slowly open them, taking a second to adjust to the bright fluorescent lights. It’s blinding at first, but the ache fades away after a moment. But new pain takes Its place as my body awakens, soreness throbbing everywhere.

My mom’s holding my hand, cradling it so gently as she rests her forehead on my fingers, shaking softly with sobs.

She’s not the only person here.

My best friend, Luca; his sister, Lainey; and their mother are standing behind my mom, all smiling from ear to ear yet sorrow darkens their eyes.

“W—” I try to speak, but my voice is too dry.

My mom sits up, wipes her eyes, grabs a water cup from the tray connected to the hospital bed, and helps me take a sip. The first swallow hurts a little, but I quickly down the rest of the cup, enjoying every drop.

“What happened?”

Her lips quiver, and her nostrils flare, panic widening her gaze. “You don’t remember … anything?”

Glancing away, my gaze rises to the TV as I try hard to recall what happened before I woke up. But the last thing I remember is … being at school.

A commercial is playing on the TV. A golden retriever runs through a yard as two adults chase after him. The dog races across a dock and leaps, jumping as far out as he can, straight into the water …

An image flashes before my eyes, and my blood runs cold, the air freezing in my lungs. Suddenly, everything slams into me like a freight train.

The car crash.

The river.

It floods back into my mind, and it’s too overwhelming, too much to handle as my brain works through the events—out of order, scrambled, and blurred.

From what I can recall … I lost control of the car, and we rolled down a small hill and through the barrier into the river.

I see a flash of the empty front passenger seat.

Carly.

That’s right; Carly had already gotten out somehow.

I was alone when it went down.

My head whips back to my mom, and I ignore the pain that follows the jarring movement. “You guys found her, right? She wasn’t in the car. She got out before me. Is she in a different room?”

My mom swallows hard and her face contorts with anguish. “Jensen …”

My chest tightens, and my eyes burn as I fight the truth staring me in the face—the truth that’s been there all along that I desperately want to ignore.

“Carly … didn’t make it, baby,” she whimpers and cups her mouth, indescribable pain threaded in her words. “She went through the windshield when you crashed. She was unconscious when she went into the water …”

“No,” I state matter-of-factly, shaking my head side to side, ignoring the pain that’s throbbing in my skull. “No. No. No.”

She’s lying. She’s wrong. Carly’s fine. She has to be.

I don’t know why my mom would do this to me, but this has to be some cruel prank. It’s my fault that we ended up in the water. She has to be okay. There’s no alternative.

“Carly!” I cry out her name at the top of my lungs. “Carly, where are you?!”

Silence roars in my ears.

I try again, but Carly doesn’t answer me.

“You’ve got to calm down, sweetie. Take a deep breath,” my mom whispers, but I ignore her.

I need to find Carly. This game needs to end.

When I sit up in bed, my ribs catch fire, but I push through the pain and throw the blanket off my legs. “Carly!”

A nurse frantically walks into the room and asks a question, but I don’t bother to listen or pay her any attention.

Scooting to the edge of the bed, I start to slide off when the nurse stops me, grabbing my shoulders and pushing me back.

My focus shifts to her, and we lock eyes, anger flooding me. “If you’re not going to take me to my sister, then get the hell out of my way.”

“Lie back down for me, okay?” she asks politely as my mom yells at me to relax.

I don’t have time for this, for any of them.

“Carly!” I scream again as I try to stand up from the bed, my legs shaky and weak, but I try over and over until I find my balance.

“Carly!” My voice cracks, and a vision crashes into me, my shouts blurring with the flashbacks of the accident, my cries blending together until I can’t tell if I’m in the car again or in the hospital.

“Sit back down, Jensen,” the nurse orders me, but I step forward toward the door as a stinging pain cuts into my hand from the IV.

Two other nurses walk into the room, blocking my path. But I don’t care. They’re not going to stop me. I take another agonizing step.

Striding forward, I hear my mom cry out behind me again. I know she’s upset, but they can’t keep Carly from me.

“JD, come on, man,” Luca, my best friend, pleads firmly yet gently as he walks over to me, positioning himself between me and the nurses.

Lainey, his sister and my other best friend, stands beside him, and as I shift my attention down to her, I see her eyes are red and swollen, matching Luca’s.

“Don’t make this any harder on yourself or your mom, dude. Come on. I didn’t dive into that river just for you to be a dick afterward.”

He pulled me out?

Shit. Luca shouldn’t have put himself at risk like that. But I know I would’ve done the same for him and Lainey, so it’s hard to judge his actions when he’s the reason I’m alive.

He knows how to get through to me, how to reach that reset button in my brain. But I suppose that being best friends means knowing one another better than anyone else. It’s too bad that right now, I care more about finding Carly than I do about keeping him happy.

I take another step forward, and a hand flattens against my chest. Warmth spreads out from her fingers, and I find her stare, seeing the agony and desperation in her eyes.

Her thumb strokes the hospital gown on my pec, and I stop in my tracks. Lainey has always been one of my greatest weaknesses. I just wish she wouldn’t use that against me right now.

She parts her lips, sucks in a breath, and whispers, barely loud enough for me to hear, “Whale shark.”

Pain slices through my heart.

My voice is breathy and raspy when I say, “You can’t use that on me right now, Lain.”

“Please,” she murmurs, and I bite down hard on my bottom lip. “Please, Jensen.”

Time stands still as my heart beats in her hand, my eyes glued to the pain in her eyes. I exhale, knowing that I won’t take another step, no matter how badly I want to.

The nurse disappears as Luca and Lainey become the only things before me, the room falling away around us as they throw their arms around me. Seconds or minutes pass by as I melt into their embrace, tears flowing down my cheeks and sobs bursting from deep in my chest.

“We’re just going to give you something to help you relax, okay? You’re probably already feeling it,” someone says.

They’re right. Everything is slowing down around me, the room getting quieter.

“We’re going to help you sit down.”

Hands gently grab me, and before I know it, I’m lying back down in bed, my eyelids struggling to stay up.

“I love you,” my mom whispers as she takes my hand.

“I love you too,” I murmur.

Anxiety consumes me, my breathing quickens as I fight the medication. My body starts tingling, every cell buzzing rapidly before they power down, one by one.

Lainey takes my other hand and whispers something that I can’t understand. She brushes my worries away with the stroke of her thumb across my fingers, and for a split second, everything seems like it’ll be okay.

I’m slipping, my mind drifting further away with each breath.

“Stop fighting it, Jensen,” she murmurs, and my eyes drift shut.

“Lainey—” I can’t even finish saying her name before I succumb to the medicine and sink into the floor, slipping into the darkness, where a part of my soul will always stay.