Page 120 of Distress Signal

The truck rammed into me once again, and it took every ounce of strength I had to keep my SUV steady and on the road.

Fuck, I should’ve listened to Finn and stayed home. But I’d been determined, certain I was safe as long as the sun was out.

Silly me.

My back bumper must’ve looked like an accordion by now, but the assailant matched my speed, increasing his, slamming into me once more.

The hit jarred my bones, forcing my hands off the steering wheel. I lost control, going too fast, spinning out on the gravel. I careened off the road—right into a tree.

All the breath vacated my lungs on impact, when the airbag deployed right into my chest.

Time seemed to halt before sensation returned to me all at once.

The hissing of the engine.

The cloud of smoke seeping into the cab and blotting out the night.

The excruciating pain in my left arm.

And beyond all of that…footsteps, growing closer by the second.

I couldn’t move, not only because shifting jostled my arm in a way that had me swearing through the pain, but because I was pinned in, both by the seatbelt I couldn’t unfasten and the steering column that had moved several feet closer in the crash.

All I could do was sit there and accept my fate.

A masked, shadowy figure appeared in my periphery, and I faced them, willing my brain to latch onto any defining characteristic.

But the darkness was too thick to see anything but an amorphous mass.

They reached for the door handle, wrenching on it, and I breathed a sigh of relief that it didn’t budge, that the locks hadn’t malfunctioned in the crash. The figure lifted their elbow, clearly about to smash out the window, but stilled when a distant voice cut through the night.

“Reagan? Oh my god, Crew, it’s Reagan!”

Aspen. And she obviously had Crew with her.

Thank Hecate.

I’d take any Lawless man I could get right now.

At her voice, the dark figure bolted.

“Help!” I screamed, trying to twist in my seat, hoping they could hear me, pounding on the window with my fist. “I’m stuck! I’m still in the car!”

“Reagan!” Aspen cried when she reached the door, her phone light shining into my eyes, and I lifted my good arm to shield them. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “My arm. I think it’s broken. And I’m stuck.”

Crew appeared behind her. “We’ll get you out, Reagan. I promise.”

All I could do was nod. I trusted him, and he did this for a living. I was in good hands.

“Aspen?” I asked when Crew disappeared.

“Yeah?”

“Call Finn.”

“Of course,” she said, bringing her phone down and tapping on the screen, but she paused, tipping her face up. Was she…sniffing? “Do you smell that?”