Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Luke
“What the fuck do you mean she’s not here?”
Snow clings to my coat, melting fast in the heat of Holt and Tessa’s cabin. Or maybe it’s the energy radiating from me.
But I don’t have time to care about the puddles I’m leaving on their hardwood floor.
I pushed my truck to the limit in the building storm, driving the icy, snow-covered roads much faster than was safe. Even so, it apparently hadn’t been fast enough.
“She left,” Tessa says, coming to stand next to Holt. Her face is twisted into a mask of concern. “I thought she was in the bath,” she says. “We were in the kitchen talking, and when I came out and went to check on her…she was?—”
“When?” I cut her off, already moving, like standing still for one second longer will only make this worse. “How long?” I press when she doesn’t answer me.
“I don’t know, Dad.” She looks like she’s going to cry. “I’m sorry.”
Holt wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her tight. “Twenty minutes,” he says. “Thirty tops.”
Twenty minutes.
In this storm. In that ridiculous SUV she drives.
Fuck.
My chest tightens. “I did this,” I mutter more to myself than anyone else, turning for the door.
“Dad! You can’t go out there.”
She reaches for me, but Holt stops her.
He knows.
I don’t have any other choice.
I have to go after the woman I love.
Before I lose her for real.
Lilly
The tires spin searching for grip that isn’t there.
I knew the moment I pulled out onto the mountain road that it was a bad idea.
But staying was a worse one.
I need to get away. The only way I’m going to get through this is by putting as much space between myself and Luke as possible. I need to get off the mountain.
The faster the better.
Not that I’m moving fast.
Not in these conditions.
I can barely see past my hood. It’s like the entire mountain has been swallowed by the storm.
Snow is blowing sideways across the windshield, the wipers working overtime are falling behind, leaving streaks of ice that distort what little I can actually see.
I lean forward over the wheel, squinting into the white, my hands aching from the death grip I have on the wheel.
I shouldn’t be out here. This is crazy.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to stop, turn around, and go back to the safety of Tessa and Holt’s cabin.
But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not after the way Luke looked at me and told me to leave as if I were nothing.
And the hushed voices of my friends talking about the whole thing, like they understand something I don’t.
The reminder of it all tightens the knot in my chest until it’s hard to breathe, but I push through it and force my attention on the road.
I only travelled down to town with Luke a few times over the last few weeks, and I don’t know the road the way I’d like, but it feels like I must be getting close to the final turn that leads out to the main road. From there, I can go to the pub and wait out the worst of the weather.
“Just keep going,” I whisper. “You can do this.”
The road dips, and I ease my foot off the gas, trying to keep control as the tires shift beneath me, suddenly sliding to the side, sending a pulse of adrenaline through my veins.
I wrench the wheel to the left, and for a split second, I’m sure I’ve got it.
But the tires fail to find traction. The car keeps slipping. It’s too fast. I yank the wheel back to the right in a panic, causing the back end to fishtail. I’m sliding hard, the world tilting as I spin fast toward the trees.
“No. No. No.”
My heart slams into my ribs as the front end of the car drops, pulling forward as everything slides forward, the road gone.
I slam my foot on the brake, but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters.
The trees are right there. Too close.
A wall of them.
Everything narrows, the world collapses into the sickening certainty of what’s coming.
I don’t even have time to brace myself before?—