Page 137 of Merry Fake Bride

“He has you, doesn’t he?” Kairo’s words cut through me like a blade, and I gasp.

The tears I was fighting suddenly flood my eyes as a wave of hopelessness washes over me.

Words catch in the back of my throat and the wipers rapidly careening back and forth over the windshield blur into nothing.

“I’m sorry,” I sob, the damn breaking. “I’m so?—”

“Hang up!” Axel yells, taking his hand off the wheel. “Hang the fuck up, you bitch! What did I fucking expect? You can’t even handle one simple phone call, can you? You fucking cunt, give me the phone. Give me the phone!”

He lunges for me and shoves the gun under my chin, but I push it away.

His other hand grabs my wrist so painfully that my phone is forced from my grasp and it clatters to the floor somewhere between my legs.

We both fight to get it as the car swerves dangerously and in a panic, I abandon the search and lean over Axel to try and grab the wheel.

“Axel! What are you doing?”

“You’re fucking useless! You fucking piece of shit, where is it? Where the fuck did it go? When I find it, I’m gonna ram that thing so far inside you that you’ll never forget what I said ever again?—”

His head jerks up as he yells, clipping my chin and sending my head snapping backward.

The wheel slips from my grasp as one of his hands seals around my neck.

The car skids and lurches and Axel’s furious face swims in front of my eyes.

Then, we’re both suddenly weightless.

The seatbelt tightens against my body and past the windshield, all I glimpse is a world of white.

“You fucking bitch!” Axel screams, finally realizing that his abandonment of the steering wheel has consequences.

The weightlessness ends when the car lands, but the momentary respite ends as the vehicle continues crashing down an embankment.

The last thing I see before darkness takes me is the snow giving way to a looming trunk of a tree.

I wake to a repetitive dinging sound that’s so loud it makes my teeth hurt.

Stupid alarm.

What could I possibly be late for?

It repeats, a constantding-ding-ding,but just as I try to open my eyes, the sound starts to get fainter.

Maybe I can sleep for five more minutes.

Cold seeps against my back and cradles my head in its icy hands.

Something catches and tugs in my hair and my mind drifts to Kairo.

Is he leaning on my hair?

Did we fall asleep together?

Kairo…

Kairo wasn’t with me.

The tugging fades as does the rhythmic beeping, but as consciousness trickles back to me, everything else warms to the front of my mind.