Page 138 of Salvaged Hearts

That would buy her the most time. Buyusthe most time.

To my relief, Jax’s knives were meticulously cared for. Even so, it took considerable effort to saw through the damn seatbelt, eyes flicking between my task and the encroaching water as it crept higher. If that cold wasn’t waking Jax…

“Jax, I swear to god,” I snarled, not finishing the empty threat, though it hung in the air to the grunts of Leighton and I both fighting the serrated edges through thick fabric.

God damn you, Royce.Bile climbed up my throat, a rush of saliva filling my mouth as my head pounded. I forced it back. Forced the panic back as a sudden surge of water rushed inside, the last hum of the engine flickering out. Oh god,ohgodohgod.

I needed to move faster.

Needed tothinkfaster.

Needed to see Greyson, just one more time. Tell him I loved him. That it was wholehearted and unconditional. That one person in his life loved him, not for what he could give me, but for the courageous, self-sacrificing hero that he was and would always be.

My hand was screaming by the time the threads finally snapped free, a rush of relief filling my lungs.

I caught myself on the driver’s seat, turning to see Leighton snapping out of hers.Thank fuck.She turned immediately for her seat, freeing the headrest in one adrenaline-charged motion before handing it to Mattie. Eyes on me, she yelled, “What now?”

“Jax,” I breathed, scrambling forward. Hands trembling, I eased onto the center console, somehow warring with the idea that my movement would send us sinking faster. Unsteady breaths miraculously got me close enough to see the blood across his chest.

Royceshothim. Shot the man keeping me safe. The only friend Greyson truly had.

One of his four.

First, they put Cap in the hospital, and nowthree ofthose four were trapped with a traitor in a sinking car.

Biting back the sob bubbling in my throat, I reached up to his pale neck, pressing my fingers against his pulse point and raptly watching the subtle rise and fall of his chest.

“Is he…” Leighton hedged, unwilling to finish the thought.

“Alive,” I said. “He’s alive.” But my relief was short-lived because we were sinking faster. Too much air was being displaced. Which is why it was a damn miracle when I plunged my hand into the icy water and Jax’s buckle clicked open on my first damn try. “Jax!” I barked, smacking my cold, wet hands on his cheeks. “Jax! You have to wake up.Please,” I croaked. The man was six-two and at least two hundred pounds of muscle. There was no way I couldmovehim. But I couldn’t leave him either. “Jax!”

“Sissy,” Leighton warned, and I looked down to see the water pouring in more aggressively now, about to reach my feet on the center console.

“God dammit.Jackson!” Nothing. Not a god damned flutter of lashes or twitch of a muscle.

“These will help!” If it was any other ten-year-old, I probably wouldn’t have looked, but it was Matilda’s little voice snapping my attention up. She was waving two yellow life vests in her hands. We’d used them on the boat this week, and never in my life had I been so grateful some wonderful idiot failed to do their job and left them in the car.

“Yes!” I cried, holding a hand out for one. Leighton tossed one my way, and then immediately busied herself strapping Mattie into the other.

By the time I’d heaved Jax’s muscled limbs through the damn thing, the water was hitting his chest, my knees soaked, and tears were burning down my cheeks. As I surveyed the navy, climbing up the window, a memory tugged like a thread pulled tight.

Window breakers in every car. That’s what Greyson said during his endless security briefing. I must’ve said it aloud because Leighton gasped, “Yes!”

I whirled, lunging for the keys and yanking them from the ignition. My shaky movements sent them flying, and I cried out as they splashed into the rising water. “No!”

“Sissy,” Leighton screeched as the back windows started leaking in a steady stream. Panic clawed up my throat. Hands trembling, breaths serrating, I threw myself down, water soaking my shirt, and reached into the icy water, trying not to panic, not to let the cold send my logic soaring. “Alice,” she said, her voice shaking now. She started slamming the metal tips of the headrest bars into the window. Again and again, she swung with every ounce of her strength.

“I know!” I snapped, fishing through the dark water with frantic fingers. “I love you. I love you, Leigh.”

“Stop that bullshit right the fuck now—”slam, “and find the goddamn keys—”slam, “so help me if you get us killed, I will beat you to death?—”

A morbid laugh caught in my throat right as my fingers hit the familiar handful of keys and pepper gel. Yanking them back, I rotated, cursing my shaking hands as I found the damn tool. “Thank you, Greyson.Leigh,” I barked. “I can’t get him up there on my own.” It wasn’t supposed to come out so hysterical. I wasn’t supposed to sound like I was being crushed. But the water was climbing, the cold inching onto my belly, and fear was beginning to riddle away any sense left in my head.

I assure you; you can breathe through it. Inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale. Like the desperate flutter of a caged bird, my lungs fought for air. For control.

With an unceremonious whoosh, Leighton flipped the back seat down flat, sending the water parting, and scrambled over it before doing the same to the one I’d occupied a moment ago. Together, we hauled a bleeding Jax over one hurdle after the other, dragging his body through the dark water, both sucking down gulps of air between whimpers of pain.

“He’s going to bleed out,” she brokenly sobbed as we pulled him into the damn trunk.

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