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The window in front of us cracked, then shattered completely, hundreds of little bits of glass raining all over me.

I screamed as my side of the vehicle smashed into the mountainside, the window splintering into a web of cracks, the door denting inwards. The force of it threw my neck back.

The vehicle tipped over once more before landing awkwardly on its tires and coming to rest.

For several moments, I sat there, catching my breath.

“You... okay?” Asher wheezed next to me.

My eyes closed. He was alive. I was alive. We’d survived.

I swallowed and nodded. My stomach churned violently. I yanked on the door handle. When the door didn’t budge, I gave it up and scrambled out the shattered front window and slid off the hood of the car.

I barely made it to the ground before I vomited.

Just when I thought I might be over my car sickness.

I leaned over my legs, swallowing deep gulps of dusty air.

Aside from a bit of lingering nausea and sore muscles, I had escaped the crash unscathed.

Straightening, I headed over to the driver side door.

Asher watched me, a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he leaned back in his seat.

He hadn’t left the car. Unease pooled low in my belly. Why hadn’t he left the car?

Now it was my turn to ask, “Are... are you okay?” My heart beat madly.

“Fine...” A thread of pain slipped into his voice. Between that and his pinched expression, I didn’t believe him.

“You’renot, are you?” I was getting better at seeing through his lies.

“It’s just a cut,” he said, grimacing. He adjusted himself in his seat, but he wasn’t moving much.

Considering what my cut had done to me, this was not reassuring.

I was beginning to panic.

I yanked on the door handle. Metal groaned, and it gave a little, but it wouldn’t open. I tried again. This time it shifted even less.

I let go. “Can you move?” I asked him.

“My leg’s pinned,” he admitted.

The thought of him stuck and injured left me anxious. Desperate.

My hair snapped about my face.

Resolve settled over my shoulders. Iwouldbe getting Asher out.

Tucking my still tender arm close to my side, I scrambled back up the hood of the car and inside once more. The space was cramped, all sides of the vehicle had collapsed inward, especially toward the back of the car. There the frame had almost completely collapsed in on itself. Praise the Mother that it was the back end of the car that sustained the most damage. Stashed back there, Asher’s precious supplies were beyond retrieving—his weapons, his ammunition, his machines—all crushed. Everything except the gun on his hip.

I squeezed myself onto the center console, so close to Asher that my side brushed up against his.

I ignored the frantic tap of my heart, and I ignored my own fatigue. All I focused on was the way Asher’s thigh was trapped beneath the door. That part of the car had crushed inwards into the hunter, and I could smell his blood.

Bad injury.