Chapter 27
Pulling out of her neighborhood, Natalie headed in the opposite direction from her office, forcing herself to shake off the ugly encounter with Mark. She wasn’t going to give him space in her head—not today. Today was supposed to be hers and Rylan’s.
A message chimed on her phone, and her first instinct was to check it, but she kept her hands firmly on the wheel. Whatever it was—probably Rylan—it could wait. She’d be at his house in less than seven minutes.
She never made it that far.
The awareness came first—something primal and cold slithering down her spine. She didn’t see the car until it was already on her, a flash of blue in her peripheral vision. The impact slammed into her like a sledgehammer to the ribs.
The sound wasn’t the screech-and-shatter she’d always pictured in a crash. It was worse. A wet, crushing groan of steel being mangled, metal folding like bone under too much force. The jolt wrenched her sideways so violently her teeth clacked together, pain shooting through her jaw.
Then came the silence—thick, suffocating, unnatural.
Her vision went milky at the edges, and the world slowed to a sluggish, warped crawl.
The steering wheel seemed miles away. The airbags had deployed, leaving a white, powdery cloud.
For a beat, she wondered if she’d gone deaf, because all she could hear was the hollow thump of her own heartbeat hammering in her ears.
When awareness returned, it came with pain—burning, sharp, electric pain that made her gasp. Her head lolled against the headrest, and it took effort just to lift her eyelids.
She was still in her car.
The blue sedan was mangled into her driver’s side door, its front end a twisted, snarling wreck of metal and glass. Her brain was slow to make sense of everything.
“What… happened?” Her voice was barely a whisper, thin and cracked.
Then she looked down and froze.
Her arm—God, her arm. The skin raw and scraped, blood oozing in a slow, sticky line toward her elbow. A deep burn radiated from wrist to shoulder, making her stomach pitch.
Movement outside her window made her flinch. Slowly—too slowly—she turned her head.
A figure was walking away. Not running. Not even glancing back. Just… walking, like they’d crossed a street on their lunch break.
Tall. Long blond hair that swung perfectly with each step, too perfect, too shiny—like it had been bought and worn for effect.
A tailored black blazer. Heels clicking against the pavement in an unhurried rhythm.
Before the woman was too far, she turned and Natalie saw dark sunglasses, one red nail reaching up to push right over the bridge of the woman’s nose, sliding the sunglasses higher.
Something about the red nails, sunglasses and the woman’s stride seemed familiar, but…also sent a ripple of unease through her. The gait was wrong—too heavy, too wide-shouldered.
Her brain struggled to make sense of what her brain was trying to tell her. Was it a man in a wig? Or was she hallucinating because she’d been knocked on her head during the accident?
“Hey…” She tried to call out, but her voice came out weak and broken. She swallowed and tried again, “Hey, stop!”
The figure didn’t even pause. She melted into a loose cluster of bystanders now hovering at the edge of the scene. The people there were staring at her, not at the woman walking away. And even more disturbing, no one came toward her.
Why weren’t they helping?
The sound of sirens started faintly, as if very far away, then swelled into something sharp enough to slice through her haze. Red and blue lights flashed at the edge of her vision. Someone banged on her passenger-side window—rapid, urgent.
She turned her head an inch, fighting the heaviness in her skull. A woman’s face peered in, mouth moving fast, brows drawn tight with alarm. Natalie couldn’t hear a single word.
Her arm throbbed in time with her heartbeat, her head pulsed like it was being crushed in a vice, and every breath tasted faintly of metal.
She forced her gaze back toward the street. The blond figure was gone.
Her tongue felt thick as she tried to speak. “Someone… walking…” The words tangled and died before they reached her lips.
The pain roared higher, hot and merciless, and black closed in from the edges of her vision.
Then there was nothing.