Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 812(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
“Alex!” Brianna shrieked and grabbed my arm.
I’ll never know how she saw the semi coming head-on before I did. I wrenched the wheel hard, the grating of metal crunching metal piercing my ears. The truck tore along the side of our car and propelled us into a lightning-speed spin on the icy road. I reached for Brianna and pressed my arm protectively across her body as I tried to straighten the car and slow it down. Her hands gripped my arm, hugging it to her, just like she did when we slept together.
A thunderous boom followed by a sickening jolt snapped my head back against the headrest when another vehicle slammed into us. The air was sucked from my lungs. My wife let out a scream that would imprint my soul for the rest of my life. We were lost in a chaotic blur of black and white. Instinctively, I hit the brakes, but the car took on a life of its own. Another deafening crack slammed us backward, and for a moment, there was a sense of complete weightlessness. Silence. Total nothingness except for the pounding of my heart. I thought I was dreaming. I silently begged to wake up home in bed, safe with my wife, our baby, and our dog in our little house with promises and hope and love. But that wasn’t meant to be. The hand of fate was already in motion, and it was an unforgiving, unchangeable force. One moment we were flying, and in the next, we were rolling and slamming over and over. We thrashed against each other inside the car in a horrifying dance of gasps, blood, and broken glass.
It stopped just as suddenly as it started, then everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I seemed to be floating among the treetops. I stared down at the car below—wheels up, a mangled pile of metal in the snow and earth.
Brianna and I lay motionless beside it.
Everything had gone still and quiet. I was numb, feeling neither warmth nor cold. No fear or pain. Snowflakes froze perfectly still in the air around me.
I wanted to stay there forever, enveloped in the safety blanket of numbness.
“Go back,” Brianna’s soft voice whispered in my ear. “Wait for me.” Then, an unseen force shoved me, and down I drifted through the trees with the reanimated snow—seemingly light as a feather. Suddenly, I jolted back to life on the ground several feet from the car—exactly where just moments ago I saw myself and Brianna from above, as we lay so still. Every bone in my body screamed with agony as I retched and sputtered blood.
When my vision partially cleared, a surge of fear barreled through me, so powerful I thought it would stop my heart. Her name tore through my throat in a gurgling scream. Half out of the car, my beautiful wife lay in crimson-stained snow.
“Brianna!” Frantically, I crawled over ice, broken glass, branches, and rocks to get to her. My heart seized at the sight of her—so still, so fragile, so quiet. “Bri…” Shivers racked my body when I gently turned her head toward me and moved her blood-soaked hair from her face.
Her green eyes stared right through me.
Like I was dead. A ghost.
Ice ran through my veins. I cradled her head in my hands. Rubbed my thumbs along the row of her perfect lower lashes.
“Look at me. Please,” I begged.
Her head lolled like a doll’s in my hands, her eyes pinned on something way beyond me, far beyond the depths of the sky.
I choked on a suffocating sob. My tears splashed onto her pale face. “No,” I rasped. “Please no…” My hand shook uncontrollably when I touched my fingers to her throat, making it impossible for me to feel a pulse of life tapping against my fingertips.
When I gently placed my hand on her stomach, my teeth chattered just as violently as my hand trembled. No tiny foot kicked me.
Lily.
I gulped for air, fighting a searing pain that roared up through my chest and splintered out to my limbs. I stared around wildly, trying to gather my wits. The car had busted through the guardrail and rolled down the side of the mountain, out of sight from the road.
But there were other cars on the road. There were other people. Were those voices I heard echoing through the trees? Or was it the wind?
“Help!” I yelled. “Somebody help!”
Blood dripped from my face when I yanked Brianna’s phone from her jacket and dialed 911. I begged and pleaded for help like an incoherent lunatic until my voice grew too hoarse and I became too disoriented to say another word. White-hot pulses of pain shot through my skull as the edges of my vision blurred. The phone slipped from my hand and fell into the red snow.