The rain and thunder set the scene like it’s straight out of a movie. Lights and voices are everywhere around us now, as the rest of my crew makes their way carefully to where we are. The embankment is steep. One misstep and we will end up at the bottom.
“Talk to me, Black,” Grady shouts over the pounding rain.
“I need to get her out. That guardrail can only hold so much weight and this car is going to go any second. I need to cut her from the belt and help her out.”
Everyone who is able descends upon us, trying to secure the car in place, but the added movement on the mud under the slick roof of the car starts making the car slide forward, adding tension to the piece of metal holding it in place. The metal begins to creak and crunch as it moves.
“Get back!” I wave them back up the hill. “Don’t come down here.”
“Go back up!” Grady shouts back.
“I have to break the window,” I tell him. He is the only one down here with me now. “I’d have to tug on the door too much to get it open and I don’t want to jostle it around.” I take off my helmet and jacket, leaving it in the mud.
“Isaac, you don’t have long.”
“I won’t let this car go with her in it. We are getting her out first. If nothing else, you make sure you get her out first, okay? Even if it means I’m in the car if something happens. She comes out first.”
“Isaac…”
“Look at me!” I nearly scream, grabbing the front of his helmet. “She comes out first. Okay?”
“Not a chance I’m leaving here without both of you in tow. No exceptions.”
I nod once and lie back down on my stomach, pulling the bright orange window punch from the utility belt around my waist. I give the window a tap, to see if I notice any twitch or movement from her hand, but I do not.
God, if you take her away from me… I’ll never forgive you.
“Busting now!” I communicate with Grady before giving the window a firm stab with the pointed end of the punch, causing the window to shatter into a million pieces.
I toss the tool back out behind me, and use my gloved hand to move the glass out of the way, before sliding the front half of my body into the window of the car.
It’s never easy to keep your bearings inside of an overturned car, and unfortunately, this isn’t my first time inside of one. It’s confusing at first and feels so foreign for something you’ve been inside of so many times.
The airbags have deployed, causing the white, fire suppressant dust to cover the dark interior of her vehicle.
I carefully roll over to my back, and slide my body underneath what is left of the steering column when the metal begins to groan again. I freeze, closing my eyes and holding stock-still until the sound stops.
When I open my eyes, a sight I never hope to see again greets me.
Sawyer face is swollen, covered in blood, coming from somewhere I can’t pinpoint yet. She nearly doesn’t even look like herself.
“Baby? Sawyer?” I slip my glove off then reach up and touch her face, sliding my fingers down the column of her neck and holding there, praying I feel the beating rhythm of her pulse. “Come on, baby. Come on.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
There has never been a better feeling.
“She’s alive!” I call out to Grady, and I hear him relay the message up the embankment.
I feel around her, trying to see if I can just unhook the seat belt and get her out, but the angle of everything and the state of the car itself makes it impossible.
“Isaac, we’ve got a lot of water coming down this hill. The rain is picking up. We gotta move it!” Grady warns me, as I reach down and pull the seat belt cutter from my belt.
“Get down. Get ready to pull her out!”
I yank the belt away from her skin and line the blade up with the material and try to yank the slice through in one motion, because doing it more than once becomes a game of Russian roulette. I know when I finally get her free; her entire body weight is going to shift. I have to be able to brace her on top of me to keep from jostling the car too much.
“Are you ready?” I ask out to Grady, and he confirms he is.
“I won’t let you die out here, baby… I promise,” I tell her, even though she can’t hear me, then I slice into the seat belt across her lap, cutting it into two pieces.
As expected, her body begins to slide down from the seat, but I grab her, as best I can, guiding her down until she’s lying on top of me.
Cradling the back of her head, I roll us to the side so I can help Grady get her out.
“Grab her legs!” I tell him, trying my best to protect her head and body because I just don’t know how extensive her injuries are.
“I’ve got her, I’ve got her!” he shouts back, as he begins to pull her free.
I don’t want to move, not even a little, until I can see she is completely out of harm’s way.
The moment her feet clear the window and Grady confirms she’s clear; I begin the slow process of extracting myself from the car with careful precision.
A crack of thunder sounds through the air and lightning flashes with the loudest snap I’ve ever heard in my life, just as my legs clear the window frame.
“Isaac! Look out!”
Snap.
Crash.
Chapter 25
Sawyer
Beep.
Turn it down.
Beep.
It’s so loud. My head is killing me.
Beep.
Wake up, babe.
That voice. It sounds so distant in my head. So far away it’s like it didn’t even happen, like
