Page 9 of Die for You
Before I can ask for her name or thank her, Finn races to me, grabbing my arm and tugging me to my feet.
She straightens, and I tower over her. Someone like me should be protecting her, but she’s the one who saved my ass.
Our angel saved me. All of us.
“We need to get the fuck away from the car before the engine explodes,” she warns.
Dark, thick smoke billows from the engine now. Oil must’ve caught fire. She’s right—if the engine blows, we’ll be caught in the shrapnel.
I grab her hand to pull her with me to the sidewalk, to safety. This time, I’m not letting her out of my sight.
Chapter 5
Aurora
The Devils.Finn Ashby, Knox Rockefeller, and Damien Vanderbilt. Right winger, center, and captain for the Diamond University hockey team. Five minutes in the hospital and I’ve gleaned everything I need to know about the Devils from the nurses, who are apparently obsessed with their team.
Of course the three giant men I rescued from a car accident are hockey players. I can’t get away from these motherfuckers. I bet they’re all just as obsessed with my ex as every other fan of their team. Who cares if he was asked to leave the league for inappropriate, violent behavior? He’s still a star in their eyes.
“So you weren’t in the car?” Under the fluorescent lights, a nurse examines me for injuries, despite my protests to the paramedics and every hospital staff member I’ve encountered that I wasn’t in the accident.
“For the tenth time, no, I saw the accident from the sidewalk.”
She glares at me and drops her hands. “How are you feeling? Mentally? Witnessing an accident can be traumatizing.”
“I’ve been through worse. Tonight doesn’t even break the top one hundred.”
From the sidewalk, I heard the squeal of their tires first. The car spun twice before the rear end collided with the guardrail. The cacophony of the accident echoed in the silence—the screech of the tires slipping over ice and failing to gain traction as they skidded across the pavement, followed by the clang of metal against metal.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe. Then my legs moved of their own accord as I raced toward them, no thoughts in my head. The first door I reached was the rear driver’s side, and the man back there was passed out.
I shook his shoulder, terrified of hurting him more, as I tried to get him to wake up.
After a few heart-stopping seconds, his eyes finally opened. He searched the interior, slowly remembering where he was, before his gaze landed on me.
The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. His midnight-black hair a startling contrast to his sapphire-blue eyes. Blood trickled from where he’d hit his temple, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
When he saw me, he froze. For a moment, I forgot where I was. The accident that I had just witnessed.
Finally, I managed to shake myself out of my stupor. “Are you okay?”
All he did was nod. The words were enough to break him out of his trance, and he slipped past me, his heavenly pine scent wrapping around me like a blanket. He yanked the driver’s side door open to reveal two men unconscious in the front seats.
He pulled the biggest one out from behind the wheel. Despite the lack of visible injuries, it was obvious by his reaction to me that the driver suffered some kind of head injury. He clearly thought I was someone else.
First responders at the scene informed us that the engine fire was caused by fuel that may have already been leaking beforethe accident. Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire, but if I hadn’t been there to wake the Devils up,they might not have made it.
So even though this night was beyond shitty, something good came out of it. If I hadn’t gone to that party, if I hadn’t left when I did, no one would’ve been there to witness the accident.
“How are they?” I ask the nurse.
“You can go see them.” She steps away from my bed in dismissal. Fucking finally.
“I’m good.” I jump down from the bed. “I’m leaving now.”
She blinks at me, lips flattened. I’m clearly the worst part of her night. She doesn’t say another word as she leaves the room, and I wait a few seconds before slipping out.
The hospital is eerily silent at this time of night. Hushed voices to avoid waking sleeping patients, steady beeps from the machines in each room. The sterile scent of bleach envelops me, the fluorescent lights blinding as I pass each room. I’m fucking exhausted, and now I have to hope some night owl out there is operating a ride share service to drive me home.
