Page 6 of Crashed (Driven 3)
I can’t swallow the sand in my throat to speak, so he gives me another shake. I’ve been robbed of every emotion but fear. I nod my head but don’t make any other movement. It’s utterly silent. There are tens of thousands of people in the grandstands around us, and yet no one is talking. Their eyes are focused on the clean-up crew and what’s left of the numerous cars on the track.
I strain to hear a sound. To sense a sign of life. Nothing but absolute silence.
I feel Becks’ arm go around me, supporting me as he directs us out of the tower on pit row, down the steps and toward the open door of a waiting van. He pushes gently on my backside to urge me in like I’m a child.
Beckett scoots in next to me on the seat and pushes my purse and my cell phone into my hands as he fastens his own belt and then says, “Go.”
The van revs forward, jostling me as it clears the infield. I look out as we start to descend down the tunnel, and all I see are Indy cars scattered over the track completely motionless. Colorful headstones in a quiet graveyard of asphalt.
“Crash, crash, burn …” The lyrics of the song float from the speakers and into the lethal silence of the van. My blank mind slowly processes them.
“Turn it off!” I shout with panicked composure as my hands fist and teeth grit, as the words embed themselves into the reality I’m unsuccessfully trying to block out.
Hysteria surfaces.
“Zander,” I whisper. “Zander has a dentist appointment on Tuesday. Ricky needs new cleats. Aiden has tutoring starting on Thursday and Jax didn’t put it on the calendar.” I look up to find Beckett’s eyes trained on mine. In my periphery I notice some of the other crew seated behind us but don’t know how they got there.
It bubbles up.
“Beckett, I need my phone. Dane is going to forget and Zander really needs to go to the dentist, and Scooter ne—”
“Rylee,” he says in an even tone, but I just shake my head.
“No!” I yell. “No! I need my phone.” I start to undo my seat belt, so flustered I don’t even realize it’s in my hand. I try to scamper over him to reach the sliding door of the moving van. Beckett struggles to wrap his arms around me to prevent me from opening it.
It boils over.
“Let go of me!” I fight against him. I writhe and buck but he successfully manages to restrain me.
“Rylee,” he says again, and the broken tone in his voice matches the feeling in my heart taking the fight out of me.
I collapse into the seat but Beckett keeps me pulled against him, our breathing labored. He grabs my hand and squeezes tightly, the only show of desperation in his stoic countenance, but I don’t even have the wherewithal to squeeze it back.
The world outside blurs, but mine has stopped. It’s lying on a gurney somewhere.
“I love him, Beckett,” I finally whisper.
I’m driven by fear…
“I know,” he says, exhaling a shaky breath and kisses the crown of my head. “I do too.”
… Fueled with desperation …
“I can’t lose him.” The words are barely audible, as if saying them will make it happen.
… Crashing into the unknown.
“Neither can I.”
The whoosh of the electric doors to the emergency room is paralyzing. I freeze at the noise.
Haunting memories flicker from the sound, and the angelic white of the hallways bring me anything but calming peace. It’s odd to me that the slideshow of fluorescent lights on the ceiling are what flash through my mind—my only possible focus as my gurney was rushed down the hallway—medical jargon sparred between doctors rapidly, incoherent thoughts jumbling, and the whole time my heart pleading for Max, for my baby, for hope.
“Ry?” Beckett’s voice pulls me from the panic strangling my throat, from the memories suffocating my progress. “Can you walk in?”
The gentleness in his tone washes over me, a balm to my open wound. All I want to do is cry at the comfort in his voice. The tears clog my throat and burn my eyes and yet they never well. Never fall.
I take a fortifying breath and will my feet to move. Beckett places an arm around my waist and helps me with the first step.
