Page 110 of Iced Up Love: Part Two
The car lurches forward, tires catching as I push it too hard, too fast, the road barely registering under the speed I’m forcing out of it.
Behind me, Jackson is breaking.
There’s no control left in it.
“Lia, please,” he says, over and over, his voice raw, cracking. “Please, sweetheart, open your eyes, please—”
Zach’s voice cuts in, tighter, holding the line.
“Keep breathing. Just keep breathing. Stay with us—”
I check the mirror. Her body isn’t moving right.
There’s too much blood. Too much.
“She’s not dying,” I say again, louder now, like I can force it into reality if I don’t stop saying it. “She’s not dying.”
“Elijah—” Jackson’s voice breaks completely. “She’s not...she’s not waking up!”
“She’s not dying!”
I don’t look away from the road.
I don’t let the thought form.
Because it’s not happening. I didn’t find her, I didn’t get her back just to lose her now.
That is not an option.
I push the car harder.
Faster.
The engine strains under it.
The road stretches out in front of me, too long, too far, every second feeling like it’s slipping through my hands.
Behind me, they don’t stop.
Jackson keeps begging.
Zach keeps holding pressure.
And I...I don’t slow down.
Not for anything.
twenty-five
Zach
The blood is warm through my hands.
That’s the first thing that settles properly once the car is moving, once the tires catch and Elijah forces Paul’s car down the road hard enough that the whole frame of it shudders around us, because everything else is happening too fast and too loud and too wrong to land cleanly.
Jackson has her in his lap, half-turned across the back seat to keep her close, to keep her upright enough that her head doesn’t fall too far back, and I’m beside them with my shirt pressed into the wound at her side, both hands locked over the soaked fabric because the second I ease up, even slightly, more blood pushes through.
It isn’t slowing.
