Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR | COLTEN
My body is hurled into a free fall.
Not the good kind where your stomach dives, tossing you into an addicting adrenaline rush. It’s the type that slams your heart into your gut when you realize the nightmare is a living, breathing thing.
“Fuck! Taryn,” I bellow in the cab of the Aston Martin as I slam my foot on the gas pedal, trying to keep my eyes focused on the approaching curve through the heavy rain obstructing my view.
Yet all I can concentrate on is her.
The terror flashing through her eyes.
The fearful thoughts swarming her head.
The thought of her beautiful body being hurt in any way floods the sides of my vision with red.
But she is. She must be with a fall like that.
It’s a thirty-foot drop to the water, and as I start to slow the car, so I don’t follow her off the cliff, my dread devours me.
“Siri, call Cameron,” I yell, the valuable seconds ticking by before my car answers with, “Calling Cameron.”
Each ring rattles my bones, but then he answers the call. “Did you find he—”
“I need you to call 911 and get them here as fast as possible. Taryn—she…”
Cameron’s tone is laced with alarm. “She what?”
Oh, fuck.
How the hell am I going to get her out of this?
It could be thirty minutes before first responders arrive, and we don’t have that long—a few minutes at most.
“Her truck went off the cliff.” My eyes burn, my hand clutching the wheel as if I can shatter it into a million pieces, exactly like my heart is.
“Oh, shit! Brennan,” he shouts, not bothering to remove the phone from his ear. “Call 911 and get them here now.”
“What?” Brennan’s muted, confused reply drifts through the phone from wherever he is in the house.
“Do it now,” Cameron snaps. “Taryn’s truck went off the cliff!”
I attempt to swallow the anxiety, but it stays glued to the inside of my esophagus. “We’re going to need a helicopter, Cam,” I manage to say with an obstructed windpipe as I fling the door open.
“Wait,” Cameron says frantically. I pause. “What are you going to do?”
He already knows the answer to that question, and I don’t have to think about it. “I’m jumping in.”
“Are you fucking kidding? That drop—”
“We’ve cliff-dived plenty before,” I rush out, “And there’s no other fucking option, Cam! Unless you want her to drown—”
“Just— Shit. Just be careful.” A few words are exchanged in the background before he talks again. “First responders are on their way, and Bren and I will be there as quickly as we can.”
Acid burns my throat, tears pooling in my eyes.
“And, Colten?”
“Yeah,” I breathe heavily, jumping out of the car.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, brother.”
The call is disconnected, and the rain pelts my head, dripping off my hair and down my temple as I open the trunk to find something. Anything that can help me get her out.
My brain pounds against my skull, making it hard to form cohesive thoughts since she is the only thing I see.
Reaching into the trunk, I haul a black bag forward, digging through the contents and tossing them aside until I find what I need. Thank fuck we all keep a set of tools in our cars. Grabbing the screwdriver, I leave the car running and track through the mud to the edge of the cliffside.
Her truck is nosediving into the river, her headlights and red rear lights taunting me under the waves as she sinks further. Glancing around briefly, I notice a rock shelf above the water, big enough to fit us both, just ten feet from her submerged vehicle.
If I can get her out—
When I fucking get her out, we will have to wait there for the helicopter. With the thirty-foot cliffside, there’s no other way.
Swimming isn’t an option.
Gripping the screwdriver handle in my hand, I blow out a breath and notice that her truck hasn’t sunk any further.
“Hold on, Little Ghost.”
Inhaling a deep breath, I jump off the side, my veins flooding with adrenaline.
The sound of rain hammering the surface grows louder until the water engulfs me and bubbles ring in my ears.
Jumping from that height pushes me farther down into the river, so I open my eyes and locate her truck when the water settles around me.
Quickly kicking myself up to the surface against the current, I prepare myself to take the last breath I’ll need if I’m going to save her.
Filling my lungs, I hold my breath, pushing my body downward.
The closer I get, the lack of movement in the cab cracks all the bones in my sternum, urging me to gasp for air.
But I can’t.
I won’t.
Come on, baby, fight for me.
Reaching for the door handle to keep myself steady, fight-or-flight for her tears through my soul. I’d rather it be me succumbing to the Columbia than her.
Through the driver’s side window—open slightly—her brown hair floats around her face like the tentacles of a jellyfish, beautifully gliding through the ocean. But nothing about her pale face, floating limbs, and open eyes is angelic.
It’s fucking horrifying, and not even half a second passes before my fist clenching the screwdriver drives into the glass. The metal tip smashes into the side where the glass is weaker. The inferno in my lungs rages, my brain screaming at me to focus on the breath in my lungs instead of hers.
She is my oxygen.
Taryn was my first breath of fresh air since that horrific night. The night that stabbed and scraped into my skin with a serrated blade. She has filled my torn flesh and implanted herself in all the holes.
She is my lifeline, and I refuse to let her go this way. Taryn will hear the words I should’ve said.
Spiderwebs form in the glass. One more blow causes the window to shatter, and the shards flutter into the truck and around me, settling onto the rock platform below it.
My hand releases the screwdriver, and I instantly reach for her. The headlights flicker a few times before the river devours us completely.
Breaking the surface should be relieving. My lungs should be able to draw in the air they need to satisfy them. To keep them inflating and deflating the way they are meant to function so I stay alive.
They don’t.
Because Taryn is slack in my arms.
Her dead weight hangs over my shoulder, my body fighting against the waves and current to the ledge in the distance I saw from above before I jumped.
Her head is lolled, wet hair clinging to her lifeless face. My ears concentrate on catching any breaths, listening for anything expelled from her.
Wading through the river, my body tensely holding on to her, I wipe the water from my eyes to see more clearly through the dark. It does little against the rain.
“Come on, Taryn, I need you to wake up!”
No response, but I didn’t think I would get one.
She’s not dead.
She won’t die like this.
Even if it meant begging the Grim Reaper to take my soul in place of hers, I would do it without hesitation. I would crash down onto my knees and give myself over because the world needs her more than me.
I thought the clouds were raging above before. Flashes of lightning brighten the wet rock walls and surface around me, the sky’s screams and angry voices crackling through the air as I slap a hand onto the ledge, pushing her weak body up before me.
Our clothes cling to us like a second layer of skin.
I should be shivering, convulsing from the chilled waters of the Columbia and the relentless rain.
My body should be reacting to the cold encasing my skin instead of heating to temperatures that rival hell because of how angry I am at myself for letting this happen.
Pulling my frame up on the ledge, the jagged rocks dig into my knees as I crawl toward her head. Her lifeless eyes stare into the unforgiving heavens. Water droplets cascade down her creamy and colorless skin.
“Taryn, baby,” I whisper shakily, lifting my hand to the skin below her jaw, my fingers jittering against where the pulse in her neck should be responding.
Fluttering.
Dancing.
Giving any sign of life.
But there is nothing.
Rain in my gaze is replaced with the lick of flames, awakening my insides with a drive I’ve never known.
Raising my body above hers, I bring my hands to her chest, starting chest compressions.
I reach far back into the storage box in my memory, frantically pulling out the contents until I locate the CPR class I took as a lifeguard for a summer.
My knuckles turn white as I force some of my weight into a rhythmic motion against her fragile chest, attempting to fight the hold of death. My hands tremble uncontrollably, but I try to push through.
Fuck!
My arms burn, and my mouth mutters numbers out loud, counting the compressions.
“Breathe,” I shout the command into nothingness, the world around us insignificant and blurred. “Breathe, Taryn!”
My desperation overtakes my hands, and my movements come faster as fear grips me. Removing my hands, my thumb fondles her cold lower lip with a hue of blue only icy waters can create.
Lowering my mouth to hers, I draw oxygen into my lungs, then force my life, my breath, into the girl who has completely destroyed my world in the best way possible.
Taryn Meyers was destined to upend my life and devastate my control. And as my lips press into hers, I realize I never want to go a day without that aching burn deep in my chest that stirs with the craving to be closer to her, even when it’s impossible.
“You make me better, baby,” I mumble against her lips.
I rise above her, starting chest compressions again, digging my hands deeper this time, feeling the splintering of bone beneath my palms.
A faint ripple in her throat catches my eye.
“Come back to me,” I grunt breathlessly.
“Lash out at me. Show me that fight I’ve seen in you since the beginning.
Breathe so I can get on my knees and lay my heart at your feet and beg for your forgiveness before I tell you how much I love you—how badly and profoundly I’ve loved you since you sat across from me in that office. ”
Her blue lips part, her eyes blinking away the rain collecting in them. I hold on to the last sliver of hope wherever it’s hiding in my soul.
Yes, Little Ghost! Breathe for me.
Convulsing, her body twists to the side, expelling and coughing water out of her lungs onto the rock ledge below her. Sucking air back into her lungs, she frantically flails, her eyes widen in horror, locking me in place.
“It’s okay, I’ve got you—”
“Colten.” My name emerges, tattered and raw from her throat. “The car!” My eyes hold her frightened ones. “Your mother’s car—”
She grips me for stability, my heart lurching into my throat at the mention of my mother, but Taryn’s eyes flutter, her head lolling backward as oblivion consumes her.