Chapter thirty five #2
Dion stays glued to my rear bumper while Nadia is a few paces in front.
It quickly becomes what everybody secretly wanted from the start.
Me versus her. King versus queen. Husband versus wife, though they didn’t know that part.
The higher we climb, the more treacherous the roads become.
And somehow Nadia was still pushing harder.
Rain from earlier slicked the pavement hazardously as she drifted around Devil’s Bend so beautifully it almost pissed me off. I stay on her ass the entire time. Getting close enough to see her hands working the wheel. Close enough to remember every scar on those hands. My chest tenses violently.
Because I love her. Even now. Even after everything. The radio crackles again.
“Final descent approaching!”
The crowd at the finish line shouts faintly in the distance below us.
Nadia was ahead by half a car length, her Viper weaving through the mountain curves like the road itself bent for her.
I could catch her. I knew I could. But for the first time since she came back, winning suddenly felt less important than watching her survive the mountain. Then, headlights appeared.
Not behind us. To the left. My stomach drops instantly.
An old mining access road cuts through the side of the mountain ahead, partially hidden behind rock and trees.
Nobody uses those roads anymore. Half of them were supposed to be collapsed.
But headlights explode out of the darkness anyway.
A black SUV bursts onto the course at full speed.
The SUV doesn’t brake, doesn’t fucking hesitate. It shoots directly toward Nadia. That’s when I understood it. They weren’t trying to pass her. They were trying to kill her.
“Nadia!” I scream too late.
The SUV slams into the rear side of her Viper with catastrophic force. The metal shrieks. Her car spins violently across the gravel road, tires screaming as sparks erupt beneath the chassis. Nadia fights the wheel desperately, trying to correct it, but the mountain had already decided.
The Viper hits the guardrail backward hard enough to snap steel.
The windshield shatters. Nadia’s body went airborne.
My entire fucking world stopped. She flies through shattered glass and twisted metal before hitting the gravel several yards away with a sickening force that makes my stomach lurch violently.
The remains of her car flip over the side of the mountain seconds later, fire igniting below the cliffside. But I couldn’t look at that. Couldn’t look at anything except her. Motionless on the road. Blood spreading beneath her body.
No. No no no.
I slam on my brakes so hard the NSX fishtails sideways across the mountain road. I barely remember getting out of the car. One second I was behind the wheel, the next I was running toward her like a fucking madman.
“Nadia!”
My voice cracks so violently it barely sounds human.
Behind me, an engine zooms past. Dion. He hesitated for half a second; I saw it.
Saw his headlights slow. Saw him look toward her body lying on the road.
But then the finish line flare exploded in the distance.
And like the fucking snake he was, he fucking went for it.
His Mazda disappeared down the mountain, and the crowd became unhinged for the new King of the Daredevil. None of it fucking mattered. I dropped to my knees beside her, and the hard pain shot up my legs.
“Nadia.”
Her name came out shorter this time. Broken. There was blood everywhere. On the road. In her hair. Running from a cut near her temple. Glass glitters around her body like diamonds. For one agonizing second, she doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. My chest seizes so violently I thought I was dying too.
No. Please no. Not after I just got her back. My hands shake as I grab her face carefully. Too carefully, like she’ll fall apart if I touch her wrong.
“Nadia,” I called.
Nothing. The panic hits instantly. Absolute and consuming.
Too loud. Too hot. Too much. I couldn’t fucking think.
Couldn’t fucking breathe. Because this was my fault.
I should’ve stopped the race. I should’ve seen the SUV.
I should’ve protected her. I lost her once already. I couldn’t survive this again.
“Nadia, wake the fuck up,” I beg, my voice breaking harder that time.
Blood coats my fingers when I brush hair from her face. Her body looks so wrong sprawled across the asphalt. One arm bent awkwardly beneath her while shallow cuts covered her shoulders and stomach from the windshield glass.
And she was so. Fucking. Still.
Terror claws its way up my throat violently enough to make me nauseous. I lean down quickly, pressing trembling fingers against the side of her neck. Nothing. No no no no. Then a pulse. Weak, but
there. Relief hits me so hard it nearly knocks me unconscious.
“Fucking hell.” I bend forward instantly, forehead pressing against hers while my entire body shakes.
“You’re alive.” The words came out wrecked. Barely audible. Behind us, people started arriving. Tires screeching. Footsteps pounding against pavement. Voices shouting frantically.
But they sounded far away. Because all I could see was her.
Her ring was still on her finger, mine hanging on her dog tag.
Her blood was on my hands. And suddenly I couldn’t stop thinking about the courthouse.
About her laughing in the parking lot. About the shape of her lips as she said ‘I do’.
About her promising she wouldn’t leave again.
“Riven!” Somebody shouts, Shane maybe.
“We gotta move her!”
“No!” The scream rips out of me instantly. Violent and animalistic. Everybody froze. Because I had never sounded like that. I cradle Nadia closer carefully, breathing hard enough that my vision blurs.
“She could have spinal injuries.” Somebody else warns.
“Don’t move her.” I couldn’t stop shaking. Couldn’t stop staring at the blood running down her face.
“Nadia,” I whisper again desperately.
“C’mon, daredevil. Wake up.”
Nothing. The mountain wind tore through the road violently while flames from her wrecked car burned below the cliffside. Then suddenly her face twitches. Tiny. Barely there. But it’s enough to nearly destroy me.
“Nadia?”
A weak sound left her throat. Pain, but she was fucking alive.
Her eyelashes fluttered slightly before her eyes cracked open for half a second.
Unfocused. Dazed. Then, she looked at me.
Actually looked at me. And the first thing she did, the very first thing, was try to smile.
That fucking broke me. Because she was bleeding and shattered and probably dying, and she was still trying to comfort me.
“Hey.” She whispers weakly. My eyes burn instantly. I grab her hand hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t talk.” Blood slides down the side of her face as she blinks slowly at me.
“You look…” She coughed painfully.
“Terrible.” A horrible laugh tore out of me unexpectedly. Half sob, half hysteria.
“You got launched through a windshield, and you’re makin’ jokes?”
“Commitment to the bit.” She shot back, her voice barely there now, and fear surged through me again.
“No, no, stay awake.” I grip her hand tighter.
“Look at me. Stay with me.” Her eyes started slipping shut again.
“Nadia!”
This time, my voice echoes through the mountain so hard it silences everybody around us. Because I knew. If she closed her eyes right now, I might lose her for real this time.
“Please, you said you’d never leave me.” I press my forehead to hers.
“What am I supposed to do without you here? How do you expect me to live? You’re the only thing keeping me together.”
Her body was cold, her skin going pale, losing that flush of life. Soon, her family was there. Deck and Abby were kneeling with me, Deck barking orders into his phone and Abby crying angry tears. Isla was somewhere, and Pop was here too, but I paid them no attention.
I looked at the moon hanging in the sky, and I made a vow. A promise I would never break. If she went into the ground, I would go with her. Even if I had to carve the way myself.