Page 79 of Ravage
A third cruiser almost crashes into the back wheel of our car from out of nowhere, but Kellan yanks on the emergency brake and then shoots us away from him. We jump over a curb and hear metal snap and scrape against the concrete, then drop back over the other side of the median to drive back in the opposite direction.
We weave through the city in a way only someone who knows the streets inside out could do, turning down roads I couldn’t even see were there until we’d disappeared down their unlit alleys.
After a while, Kellan drives down another alley. “We’ll hide here,” he starts, moving his foot to the brake and then cursing when the car makes no move to stop. He wrenches the emergency brake to slow us down, but the solid building wall at the end is closing in faster than the brake will slow us down.
“Kell!” I cry out in panic.
“Pull your knees up!” he bellows, then flips us around and crushes me into the seat. His body covers mine, and his hand pins my neck to the back of the seat.
The car smashes into the wall, and I release a choked scream as the hood bunches up like an accordion and the windshield shatters. I wait for the dashboard to squish us both, but the car groans and then quiets.
I’m struggling to breathe, and I’m terrified when Kellan doesn’t move. “Kell? Kellan?!” My hands are stuck between my chest and his, my body pinned to the seat and my neck still captured in his hand. I’m immobilized.
He doesn’t answer and the panic claws up my chest and into my throat. “Kellan! Wake up! I know you’re alive, you prick!” Tears are clogging my voice, and I curse them for weakening it when it’s the only thing I can use to try waking him up. Because he can’t be dead. His gift wouldn’t allow it.
Right?
The longer he stays quiet, the more I struggle under him to do anything I can to wake him up. “This isn’t funny, Kell. Move. Say something. Please.”
He’s not breathing.
I should hear or feel him breathing over me, but there’s not the slightest movement of his chest.
“No, no, no. Kell, you can’t do this. You’re invincible, right?! Wake the fuck up!”
Is it because the car is crushed too much into him that it’s not letting his body heal? He always had to take anything stuck in his body out before his body could heal, so is that why? Then, how am I supposed to get the car out of him to heal if I’m trapped?
I struggle against him. Even if it means pushing him further back into the car, if I can shift enough that his body has some room from the car, then maybe…
I keep wiggling and throwing my body back and forth against his.
How long can he stay like this without dying?
He can’t die.
He can’t.
I just got him back. We were figuring things out. I was having fun again.
Everything I’ve done has been to protect him and the others. So, he can’t die when I’ve been fighting for him all this time.
“Please, Kell,” I beg again, imploring him to move. “Don’t leave me.”
A sob slips free, and I give one final shove.
Then he groans, and his body shifts over mine.
“Kellan!” I croak out.
He pulls away from me as much as he can in this overly-tight space, his shoulders and head ducked down from the roof, and he winces at the movement. His blue-green eyes rake over me with worry. “Are you okay?” He releases my neck and starts searching my body with his hands for signs of injury.
I suck in oxygen now that my airflow is no longer restricted and hurriedly wipe the tears from my face. “I think so.”
I’m so relieved he’s alive that it’s taking everything in me not to descend into bawling madness. I turn my focus on making sure he gets himself healed so I don’t do exactly that.
Kellan’s knees are on the floor in front of the seat, and the dash of the car is embedded in his back. I can’t even see his lower legs or feet beneath the crumpled mess. It’s like it gobbled him up.
“Oh shit, Kell.” I reach for his back, and he grabs my hand.
