Divine Solace: 8 (47 page)

“Gen.”

She forced herself to focus again, and he nodded in
approval.

“You’re going to go out my window.” He pointed above himself
and she saw it was broken, jagged pieces of glass forming teeth around the
opening. She saw trees, smelled forest. As well as burning metal, smoke. “When
I say go, I’m going to unbuckle you, give you a lift up there, all right? But
you have to hold onto the seat so you don’t fall forward, and try to help me,
move this way and come right to me, okay?”

She was starting to realize what was happening, understand
the slight rocking motion of the car. She knew now why he didn’t want her
looking toward the front of the car. She swallowed, hard. “Noah, what
if…shouldn’t we wait…”

“We can’t. It will be too late.” Though he spoke calmly, his
brown eyes were brilliant and intent. “You remember that day Chloe got hurt? I
know you wish you’d been there. That you could have helped and protected her.
This is your chance to do that, Gen. You’re going to save all three of us.
Okay?”

“Okay.” She wasn’t sure of any of it, but then the car
groaned, the seesawing abruptly becoming more pronounced.

“
Now
. Hold onto the seat.” With the sharp command and
a curse, Noah leaned forward, his pocket knife already out to slice through the
seat belt. Gen’s arms were too shaky, and she lost her grip, but Noah grabbed
her arm. She was able to seize it with the other hand as well, and he pulled
her up into the back seat. “Move slow and steady. Be still. Be still now.”

He held Gen against him with a rigid-as-steel arm. He made
that harsh noise to keep her motionless, both their weights pressed to the seat
like glue, against gravity. Slowly…so slowly, the seesawing went back to a more
gentle motion again.

“Okay.” Noah let out a breath and lifted his head, directing
her attention to where the broken out window beckoned. Then he looked back down
at her. “Out of the two of us, I’m the only one who has the upper body strength
to pull her free, lift her up to you. I’ll push and you’ll pull her through.
Okay? I know your arms are shaking, but you have to find the adrenaline, Gen.
You have to be strong enough. Understand?”

His dark gaze bored into her face. Though she sensed she was
in shock, possibly concussed, things were becoming clearer and his message got
through. “Okay. Yes. I will.”

“I know you will.” He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead.
“Once you’re out there, move back as far as you can to counterbalance.”

She noticed he had blood on his neck, running down into his
shirt from his hairline. She wasn’t the only one shaking. “Everything working
good enough to do this?” he asked. “Anything feel broken?”

It wasn’t like they had a lot of options if anything was.
He’d just made that clear. Maybe he was just giving her that extra second to
let adrenaline juice her up even further. Kudos to the powers-that-be for
providing that perk in life-or-death situations. But now that some clarity was
returning, she had to look for Lyda. She had to, even when Noah tried to stop
her. She looked toward the driver’s seat. And bit back a cry.

Her beautiful hair was a mass of blood. She was draped over
the steering wheel like a ragdoll, face turned away. She wasn’t moving. “Noah.”

“She’s alive. I refuse to believe anything else.” He set his
jaw. “We just do this. No talking about that.”

“Okay.” She bit back the fear, fought the fuzziness in her
brain that could kill them all. “What do I need to do again?”

“I’m going to give you a boost out that window. We’ll try to
do it smooth. Fast, but not too fast. Once you’re up there, move back as much
as you can to help us counterbalance. Once we’re steady again, I’ll cut Lyda
loose and push her up through the window. You pull, and we’ll get her out of
there. Move both of you toward the back, so I have a clear track out the
window. All right?”

“But…why not just get out and open her door?”

“Her door was the main impact point. It’s dented and
probably not able to open. And there are other reasons. No time to explain.
Here, use this towel to grab the edge of the window, since it has broken glass.
Ready?”

Noah touched her face, held her gaze. She thought there’d
never been a shorter or longer moment in her life than right now, seeing the
steel nerve in those brown eyes, the deep fear, but not for himself. “If the
car falls anyway, there’s nothing anyone could have done to stop that,” he
said. “If it starts to fall, you jump off the rear wheel.”

“No.” A different kind of fear flooded her. “No. We just do
it together and see what happens. We just do it. Stop talking about things like
that.”

He stared into her eyes. “Okay.”

She nodded. “I’m ready.”

“
Go.
” He boosted her up before she could say anything
else. She gritted her teeth, scrambled out the window, cutting herself on the
glass in her haste, even with the protection of the towel. Stomach muscles she
didn’t know she had helped her through that opening and she scrambled for the
back tire. The car was wedged loosely between a stand of slender trees and
perched on a jutting layer of rock, explaining the instability. She had a
harrowing impression of the steep side of the mountain.

Forest covering the slopes had slowed the vehicle, but it
wasn’t thick enough. Where it thickened was in the deep ravine about a hundred
feet below them. A rushing wide creek cut through it, showing the depth of the
drop over the edge of those rocks. The car would pitch straight down amid the
tall pines, speared by or destroying them on its crashing descent.

The car teetered forward and she scrambled even beyond the
wheel, onto the gas tank, not an advisable idea she was sure, but she wasn’t
concerned about that. “No, no, no,” she gritted.
Come back this way, come
back this way.
Her flight instinct told her to get off the car, get clear,
but she denied it.
No. I won’t leave them. I won’t leave them. And you’re
not taking them with you.
Come on.

If her heart rate had been harnessed to the back bumper, she
could have pulled them all the way to the highway above. As it was, the car
sluggishly stabilized again.

“Gen.” Noah’s voice was muffled. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Are you ready?”

“Give me just a sec.” Taking a deep breath, she looked up,
hoping to see a team of emergency responders with helicopters and sturdy
chains, a crane. The road had been busy enough, plenty of people had seen the
accident. But it was likely only minutes had passed. “Noah?”

“Yeah?”

She held onto his voice as the most wonderful sound in the
world. “You better get your ass out of there with her, or I will
never
forgive you. Neither will she. It will be worse than when you put Guns and
Roses on her player. Far worse.”

She thought she heard a chuckle. “I love you, Gen.” Quieter,
that time. Her heart twisted.
No. Don’t you do that. You’re not saying
goodbye, not to either one of us.

“Ready.”

She’d thought that moment inside the car with him had been
the longest and shortest moment of her life. She’d been wrong. The car’s sudden
pitch, Lyda’s limp body thrust through the window, Gen grabbing her under the
armpits and hauling her up and back with every ounce of strength she had, that
was it. The car started to slide.

“No!”

Noah had pushed Lyda’s weight into Gen’s arms hard enough
that it unbalanced her, sent them both toppling off the car. The rear bottom
wheel rolled against her thigh. As she spun away from it, trying to protect
Lyda, she and Lyda were sliding, following in the car’s wake against a slick
bed of leaves. Gen’s shin slammed against rock and she wedged her foot in a
crevice, ignoring the bolt of pain through her ankle as it took the shock. The
move brought them to a halt. The car didn’t stop moving. It was groaning, metal
shrieking.

“
Noah!
” she screamed. Lyda’s blood was soaking Gen’s
neck and shirt, her body a dead weight pinning Gen down, adding to the feeling
of suffocation. “No, no, no…”

She lost time then, as if an angel of mercy was sparing her
the agony of the truth. She was looking up into a man’s face, an emergency
responder, his serious face taking up her vision. “Noah! No, no, no…”

She smelled smoke again, the kind of smoke that came with
fire. She couldn’t stop crying, hurting, dying inside. She gripped Lyda so
hard, the EMTs had to pry her fingers away, give her a shot, and then
everything was lost, whirling away.

* * * * *

Something is wrong inside his head…I don’t think it will
ever be fixed…

Love. That’s when you figure out what’s important and
what’s not.

She’s an island. You take a boat out to her…

The car going over, smoke and fire…

Gen came out of the nightmare, a cry strangling her. Something
yanked against her arm, a stabbing pain, and then someone was holding her arm,
someone else holding the rest of her. Marguerite. Marguerite’s scent, her
strength, wrapped around her.

“It’s all right, Gen. Sssh…calm down. You’re safe. You’re in
the hospital.”

Chloe was holding her arm, where the IV needle and tape had
pulled. She circled Gen with her free arm, eyes welling with tears. “It’s okay,
Gen. We’re here.”

Gen steadied, trying to breathe, trying to calm down.
Just
breathe. Don’t go beyond that. Don’t go there.
Beyond breathing was
thinking, and a pain waited there she didn’t want to feel. It would be beyond
what she could endure.

“Lyda and Noah are both alive.”

Gen’s head snapped up so quickly Marguerite might have
gotten her chin rapped if she hadn’t anticipated her. Leave it to Marguerite to
avoid any cliffhanging drama, just a quiet statement of fact, bringing the
spinning world back to rights. “Oh God.” Gen pressed her forehead into M’s
collarbone. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“Though I’m sure God was there, you and Noah had a lot to do
with it as well, according to the EMTs and eyewitnesses.”

“Mostly Noah.” It was coming back in harrowing pieces,
including that horrifying image of Lyda’s twisted body, the bloody face and
hair. “When you say they’re both alive…what does that mean? Are they okay?”

Marguerite eased a hip onto the bed so Gen could keep
holding her. Chloe was cross-legged behind Gen, both as close as possible. Gen
needed them that close. The room was whites and blues, medicine and disinfectant.
She didn’t want that reality.

“Noah broke a couple ribs, dislocated his shoulder. He
kicked out the back window and caught hold of the rocks as the car went into
the ravine. Tore up his hands pretty good on the rocks and the things inside
the car, but the EMT who pulled him back over said it was one of the most
impressive things he’d ever seen. Beyond all three of you getting out of the
car alive, that is.”

“I think he hates he missed catching it on his phone for
YouTube,” Chloe interjected.

They were trying to ground her, but now she only remembered
that final second in the car, when Noah had met her gaze. He’d known the car
wouldn’t maintain stability when Lyda was cut free. He’d pushed Gen to follow
his direction, and she’d let him. Guilt and shame swamped her, even knowing
she’d been too disoriented to think straight. He’d been the only one in the
position to do that, and he’d been prepared to sacrifice his life to save
theirs. But he’d fought to live. Whether for them or himself, it didn’t matter.
He was alive.

“Lyda?” Dread filled her as Marguerite’s face became more
somber than usual.

“She has a skull fracture and other broken bones. Do you
know what happened?”

Gen shook her head. While Noah’s look was permanently
engraved in her brain, the key moment was fuzzy. “I was looking at Noah,
sleeping in the back. All I saw when I turned was Lyda’s face. A flash of
another car.”

“You were on a sharp curve and the other driver was texting
and crossed the line. Lyda took the brunt of the impact on the driver’s side
when she pulled the wheel to the right, but her deceleration when most people
would have accelerated to avoid impact may have been what saved all of you. You
went off the road, but the car tipped after it took out the guard rail, rather
than shooting out into open space.”

Only one thing was important. “How is she? Is she awake,
talking?”

Marguerite shook her head. “But the swelling in her brain is
already going down,” Chloe added quickly. “The nurses say that’s good.”

She thought of Lyda, so strong and beautiful, running up the
hill, making teasing circles around them. “No.”

“They can’t guarantee anything with head trauma, but once
she wakes up, they’ll be able to tell more. I think she’s just resting up.” M
touched her face, gave her a steadying look. “You know Lyda’s very particular
about how she presents herself.”

“I know. I know.” Gen’s voice was thickening. “If I’d lost
them…”

“You didn’t.” Marguerite’s arms were around her again. “You
didn’t, Gen.”

“First it was you and Chloe, and now this…” She lifted her
head, looked at Chloe. “Did you tell Noah how I felt…about nearly losing you?”

“Yes,” the girl said simply. “In a way. He was as curious
about you as you were about him. I told him you were the wonderful type of
person who felt bad because you weren’t there, even though it wasn’t something
you could control.”

“I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Either of you. It
was so terrible. You’re my family. All of you.” Chloe and Marguerite, Lyda and
Noah, all of them rolled together.

Chloe’s eyes filled with tears again, and the three of them
held one another. “You didn’t lose us, and you didn’t lose them,” Marguerite
murmured against Gen’s hair. “Most importantly to us, we didn’t lose you.
You’re our family too, dear heart.”

Gen cried then. Not just because Chloe was crying, or
because Gen was the type of person who cried in such situations, but because
Marguerite was crying too, silent tears dampening Gen’s temple where the woman
pressed her jaw against her.