Page 83 of The Dating Charade

One yank on the locked door and he whipped off his helmet. There was no choice. There was no time.

He smashed it once, twice into the window. Reached inside and unlocked the door, then yanked.

The mangled door resisted, and another deep creak ran through the cab overhead.

Jett reached through the window.

Sirens got louder as he bent inside, fumbled with a car-seat buckle. Face soaked in tears and blood, Drew wailed, reaching desperately for Jett. The buckles were flimsy but Jett reached the lock, pressed hard, and felt the release. Drew’s head scraped against the quickly crumbling roof. His scream pierced inhumanely high as Jett pulled him through the window.

He started to set Drew on the ground, but suddenly there was Captain Ferraro, a firm hand on his shoulder. Kevin and Nick followed shortly behind.

“Give ’im over,” Ferraro commanded, and Jett pushed Drew into his arms.

“Someone get Trina,” Jett began to say, but Kevin was already taking off his helmet, was smashing her window.

Jett began to press his body through the small window opening, but his coat pulled against him, his shoulders fighting to get through the rapidly declining hole. Swifter than he’d ever done in his life, he stripped off the coat. Shards of glass pressed against his waist as he levered half his body into the hole. Within the car’s confines, everything felt eerily silent as he pressed his shaking hands against Dakota’s buckles. Blood covered her blond curls, her head pressed forward against the weight of the crushing roof.

Another creak overhead as he pulled her limp body into him, the roof crackling like an empty plastic water bottle.

He fell to his knees with her in his arms, ripping one glove off with his teeth. He wiped away the blood-soaked curls. Wiped. Wiped. There was no movement.

Oh, God. Please.

The door pushed open in the cab overhead, and one arm of the truck driver reached over the edge.

“Don’t move!” Ferraro yelled to the man above, now working with Nick to pull Trina out of the car. Kevin held tightly onto Drew while he screamed.

No time.

Jett’s face turned to the crumpling inside of the vehicle, and he yanked Nick’s ankles. “Help her,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Nick immediately knelt down.

Ferraro yelled to Jett as they heard the roof crush several more inches. He grabbed at Jett’s shirt. “It’s not going to hold, Bentley. Wait for the jaws!”

But one glance over to the fire truck still five cars back was enough confirmation. Jett shook his head.

Ferraro gripped his shirt harder, watching the roof with his calculating gaze. There was pain, but steadiness, in his words. “That’s an order, son.”

Jett blinked. Shifted his gaze. Saw the window and the crumbling roof and the menacing cab overheard. Saw it for a split second as Ferraro did.

And threw the arm of his captain off him.

“That’s my family,” he said and squeezed his upper body through the window.

His head pressed against the roof as he reached beyond the two car seats for Timothy. He reached blindly for the car-seat buckles.

Felt one click.

Then another.

A second later he tore Timothy’s body out of the seat.

He felt his own waist bending under the weight of another deadly creak. There was no room left between his body and the door, not an inch, not a millimeter. It was now, with everything he had, or never.

Knifelike scrapes cut from his naval to his neck as he threw his body backward, not daring to stop, to slow down.

And then he was free. He stumbled back, cracked the back of his head against the pavement.