Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
One second, she’s close enough to reach out and touch. The next, she’s sliding down the side of the embankment, followed by a rush of mud and a small tree that’s been uprooted by the sudden violence of the storm.
On instinct, I lunge for her, but it’s already too late.
She’s gone.
Chapter 9
BINX
I’m wearing my grippiest hiking boots, the ones that have saved me on more slippery rock faces than I can count, but it’s not enough. I dig my heels into the soaked ground beneath me, scrambling to gain traction, but my shoes only glide across the slick mud as I zip down the hill, faster and faster.
I throw out my arms, trying to find something to hold onto, but the plants I manage to grasp slide through my wet fingers or are instantly uprooted by the force of my momentum.
I’m really moving now, careening down the mountainside with a speed that would be exhilarating if I didn’t know it’s only a matter of time before I run into a tree or tumble off a ledge. I don’t know this area well enough to be sure, but it looks like there’s a drop off ahead. How big a drop off, I have no idea, but I don’t want to find out at twenty miles per hour.
A fresh rush of adrenaline dumping into my bloodstream, I roll over onto my side and then my stomach, wincing as my hip skims over a rock. But better bruised than broken beyond repair, and I’ll have a better chance at holding onto something if I’m using both hands.
I try clawing my fingers into the mud but realize almost instantly that that’s a losing game. The sudden downpour has made the top level of soil unstable. I throw out my right arm to catch the trunk of a tree, instead, but am quickly knocked loose as a smaller, uprooted tree, tumbling down the hill behind me, collides with my shoulder.
I curse and sputter, flailing my arms as I try to free myself from the tangle of limbs, but it’s no use. I’m trapped.
And then, I’m out of the mud.
I hit open air and time slows for a horrible, gut-wrenching second, electrifying every nerve in my body. Then, before I can brace myself, before I can do anything except utter a string of mental obscenities that are a sorry excuse for “last words,” I’m falling.
Thank God, I don’t fall far, but it’s still terrifying.
I hit the ground with a cry of pain, my breath rushing out of my lungs with enough force to leave me paralyzed.
I’m still on the ground, clutching at my chest beneath the limbs, fighting to suck in oxygen and assess my injuries at the same time, when suddenly Seven is there. He lifts the tree off me and tosses it aside like it weighs nothing at all, his soaked hair flying around his face as he moves.
For a moment, as I lie there in the mud, looking up at him, I can’t help but think how fucking gorgeous he is when he’s filthy and worried about me. But soon, the fact that I can’t breathe becomes my one and only concern.
I roll onto my side, attempting to struggle out of my pack—thinking that maybe getting the straps off will help—but it’s like my chest is caving in. My shoulders curl forward, no matter how hard I try to roll them back, and my fingers are going numb.
“Lie still. I’ve got you.” Seven crouches beside me, quickly freeing the clasp holding my straps together across the top of my chest.
In seconds he has my pack off and is running gentle hands over my neck and ribs to check for broken bones. I try to tell him that I’m okay—I just can’t breathe—but oxygen is required for speaking, as well.
All I can do is wheeze and panic in earnest as my brain begins to ache in my skull and the next inhalation refuses to come.
“In your belly, baby,” he says. “Breathe into your belly.”
He shifts on top of me, guiding my arms up over my head. Pinning both my wrists to the ground with one hand, he brings the other to press lightly against my stomach, just below my ribs.
“Right here,” he says, his worried gaze locked on mine as he gives my belly a gentle shake. “Breathe into my palm. Drop your diaphragm and fill your stomach with air.”
I try, I really do, but my ribs remain locked and the panic is becoming overwhelming. Silent tears stream down my face as my heart threatens to pound through my ribs, and for a moment, I’m certain I’m going to die.
I’m going to die from getting the wind knocked out of me. I’ll be a sad punchline in some medical journal somewhere, like those people who died from hiccups, and my family will never live it down. My mother will have yet another reason to be upset about my weirdness, her black sheep of a daughter who couldn’t even die in a normal way, and Wendy Ann will never forgive herself for her disastrous attempt at playing matchmaker.