Page 45 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Clay

Time is in slow motion. Everything is black around me. Tires squealing and the sounds of glass shattering and metal crushing blare inside my ears. The car spins. Josie screams, and the airbags pop from the dashboard with the kind of force that shoves me back into my seat.

The sounds of Josie’s screams fade as I feel a sharp stabbing pain in my stomach, and by the time the car comes to a stop, my ears are ringing loudly and my mind swirls with shock.

I stare straight through the place where the windshield used to be to the dark, snow-covered field in front of us. Cold, wet flakes land on my skin, and frigid wind howls past my face.

Adrenaline laces my blood, and my heart pounds so hard that it’s all I can hear inside my ears. Time doesn’t exist, and my cognition is definitely impaired.

Everything hurts, and any movement at all takes Herculean effort.

Josie.

I force myself up to sitting and crane my neck to the side, my breath coming in short pants. “Josie?” I ask, my voice sounding stilted through gritted teeth. She’s still in the driver’s seat, and her whole body is covered in glass, her eyes wide and scared. “Josie?”

“Clay?” she whispers, not looking in my direction. I think she’s in shock. “Clay?”

“I’m here,” I tell her and squeeze her hand. “I’m here. Look at me, Jose.”

She turns to meet my eyes slowly, and I get a look at the blood that’s trickling down her forehead on the other side. It’s in her hairline, muddying the bright blond, too. “Fuck, Jose. Are you okay?”

Her whole body shakes as she takes me in, and I reach for the wound on her head. But a stabbing pain shoots through my stomach, pulling me up short.

“Clay!” she cries out, fear etching every line of her face. “You’re bleeding!”

I look down and see that a large piece of glass has lodged itself in my stomach, just below my ribs on the left side. Every time I move, it pulls, so I reach down and pull the fucker right out.

Blood gushes from the wound, and my head spins immediately with the loss. I groan as the foggy realization that I really shouldn’t have done that sets in.

Pain radiates from my abdomen, shoots like a rocket on its way to the moon, and lands on every single nerve ending in my body.

“Oh my God, Clay!” Josie screams. “There’s so much blood!”

I feel like I should pass out, but I don’t. Instead, I feel like I’m floating above my own body, watching Josie as she reaches out to apply pressure to my stomach with two shaky hands.

“Clay, can you hear me?” she questions, and emotion makes her voice quaver and shake. “Clay, stay with me! Stay with me. Open your eyes. Please, open your eyes!”

Her desperation crushes my fucking soul, and I try with everything I have to keep my eyes open. To tell her I’m okay. To make sure she’s okay. Her head was bleeding.

Her head was bleeding.

Josie, are you okay? Tell me you’re okay. I love you. I love you so fucking much. You have to be okay. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

The words cycle in my mind, over and over, but they never find their way to my lips.

Everything around me grows blurry and, eventually, black, until conscious Clay Harris has officially left the building.