Page 69 of Riptide
The car didn't turn. Didn't slow. Like Blaire couldn't control it.
Cara ran toward the wreck.
The Mercedes had hit the rock wall almost head-on, the front end crumpled like an accordion. Steam hissed from the destroyed radiator. One headlight still blazed, casting a harshbeam into the fog. The other had shattered on impact. The thick fog dampened the idling of the engine and the hiss from broken hoses under the crumpled hood.
"Blaire!" Cara yanked on the driver's door. The frame was bent, the metal buckled. It wouldn't budge. "Blaire, can you hear me?"
Through the spider-webbed window, she could see the woman slumped over the steering wheel, the airbag hanging limply from the center of the steering column. Blood ran down her face from a gash on her forehead. Her eyes were closed.
But her chest was moving. Shallow breaths. Alive.
Cara pulled harder on the door. Nothing.
Footsteps crunched on gravel behind her.
She spun, fists raised, adrenaline screaming?—
Wade emerged from the fog like a ghost, rifle slung over his shoulder, face grim.
"The car—it came right at me. I thought she was trying to—" Cara's voice broke. "But I don't think she could stop. The brakes or something. She was screaming."
Wade was already moving to the passenger side. He tried that door—also jammed—then pulled out a tactical knife and started working on the window frame.
"Step back."
Cara moved aside. Wade drove the knife into the seal, leveraged hard. The door groaned, then popped open with a shriek of twisted metal.
He leaned into the vehicle and checked Blaire's pulse. He switched off the ignition. "She’s alive. Concussion, probably. Possible internal injuries." He pulled himself out of the vehicle and looked at Cara. "You're bleeding."
She touched her face. Her hand came away red. Must have scraped it when she dove. "I'm fine. We need to call 911."
"Already done." Wade pulled out his phone, showed her the active call. "Ambulance is eight minutes out."
Cara sagged against the rock wall, legs suddenly too weak to hold her. The adrenaline crash was coming, that hollow, shaky feeling that followed every near-death experience.
She almost killed me.
No. Something went wrong with the car. I was just in the way.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing closer.
Wade touched her arm. "When the cops get here, you tell them exactly what happened. The meeting. The car coming at you. Finding her in the wreck. Nothing about why you were really here. Nothing about the team."
"I know."
Red and blue lights flickered through the fog. The ambulance, still a few minutes out.
Cara looked at the crashed Mercedes. At Blaire, still unconscious, blood on her face.
Twenty minutes ago, this woman had been blackmailing her. Threatening to destroy everything Cara had built. Offering a twisted partnership that would have bound them together in lies.
Now Cara had tried to save her life.
The irony was almost funny. Almost.
Lord, I don't understand what's happening here. But please—please help me figure it out before someone else gets hurt.
Footsteps. Different from Wade's careful tread. Heavier. More deliberate. Running.
