Page 45 of Brutal Kiss

I need to stay conscious. Need to figure out where I am, how to get help. Sofia will be waiting for me at the safehouse. She'll wonder what happened when I don't come back.

But the darkness at the edges of my vision is growing stronger, pulling at me with fingers I can't fight off.

My eyes are starting to close when I hear something that doesn't make sense.

A voice. Soft, feminine, scared.

"Dante? Dante, can you hear me?"

That's impossible. I'm alone. I've been alone since I left the city. There's no one else here, no one who could be?—

Through the haze of pain and confusion, I see a face above me. Green eyes, dark hair, features I know as well as my own reflection.

Sofia.

But that can't be right. Sofia is back at the safehouse, miles away, probably asleep in her room with Elena and Gianna watching over her. She's not here. She can't be here.

"Stay with me," the voice says, and there are hands on my face now, gentle and warm. "Don't you dare pass out on me."

I try to speak, try to ask how she's here, what's happening, but the words won't come. The darkness is winning, pulling me down despite my efforts to fight it.

The last thing I see before everything goes black is Sofia's face, rain-soaked and terrified, her lips moving in words I can't hear.

But how could that be?

How could she possibly be here?

CHAPTER 23

Sofia

The first thingI'm aware of is the taste of blood in my mouth.

The second is the silence.

The car has stopped moving, stopped spinning, stopped making that terrible grinding noise. Now there's just the sound of rain hammering against metal and the steady tick of something cooling down.

My head throbs where it hit the window during the roll, and when I touch my forehead, my fingers come away sticky with blood. But I'm alive. I'm conscious. I can move.

Dante isn't.

He's slumped over the steering wheel, completely still. Blood trickles down from a gash above his eyebrow, and his breathing is shallow and uneven.

"Dante?" I shake his shoulder gently, then more urgently. "Dante, wake up!"

Nothing.

Panic floods through me as I climb over the seat to get closer to him. His pulse is there but weak, and the cut on his head is bleeding freely. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

My phone. I need to call for help.

With shaking hands, I dig my phone out of my pocket, grateful that it somehow survived the crash intact. I scroll through my contacts until I find Gianna's number.

She answers on the second ring.

"Sofia? What's wrong? You sound?—"

"Gianna, I need help." The words tumble out in a rush. "There's been an accident. Dante's hurt badly, and we're stuck in the middle of nowhere, and I don't know what to do."