Page 51 of The Prince Falls First
“Yeah?”
“Something’s wrong.”
Gen’s gut clenched. “It’ll be okay. I’ll run and get help and they’ll fix you right up.”
“I can’t stay awayyyyykkkkeee.”
Oh fuck, she was slurring her words. She started patting her face. “Sam? Sam, honey? You can’t go to sleep.” She was crying again. “Pl-please stay awake. Please!”
“Love you. Love pare…”
Gen was patting her face, her arms, her hands. “No, no, no! Sam, please. You have to stay with me!”
“Ddddddd.” Sam gasped in a breath. “Get out of that house. Don’t be afraid to love him, Gen. Promise me. And tell my parents…”
Gen was sobbing now, her ribs and chest burning like fire with the movement but she couldn’t stop. “Don’t leave me alone. I love you, Sam. You have to stay awake. Please!”
But in the next breath, her eyes had closed again. Gen leaned over more and felt the smallest bit of air and realized she’d just passed out. She kissed Sam’s hand, then scrambled quickly out of the car. The smoke seemed to have intensified, so she stumbled around the back of the car, her feet slipping on the wet road, and carefully pulled Sam out and away from the car.
She checked the other car and found it empty, so she tried to grab the man on the hood, but the car was too hot. She grabbed a beach towel from the back seat, and the scent of sunscreen hit her nostrils, a reminder her of their last beach day all thoseweeks ago. Sam had wanted to go back again but Gen hadn’t been able to convince her mother to let her. Why? Why hadn’t she convinced her mother and taken the time?
She draped the towel on the hood and screamed as she dragged the man across the hot hood. She tried not to jostle him too much—his head was bleeding more than Sam’s—but she couldn’t help it. When she finally dragged him near to Sam, she was exhausted, had mild burns from the hood, and wasn’t sure what to do next.
She looked up and down the street. This late at night, there were no cars nearby but maybe she could find a house or a pay phone. She ran to grab their purses—she’d need change for a pay phone if she didn’t find a house or another person first—and just as she went back to check on Sam once more before she started walking, the car burst into flames.
She screamed in shock and stumbled back, her ass skidding as she hit the ground, the palms of her hands scraping across the asphalt.
She heard a car coming and turned. She saw headlights glinting off the wet road as a car came up behind them. She screamed and tried to move out of the way, but she needn’t have worried; the car stopped several feet away from her.
“Are you all right?” a stranger yelled out as he ran towards her.
“I-I think so. My friend’s hurt and the other driver’s hurt though.”
The man was in his 20s, clearly on his way back from a night out, but he didn’t seem as if he were coming off a party high; he seemed alert.
“I pulled her out of the car, and the other guy, he was on the hood, but I got him off too. Can you find a pay phone? Call an ambulance? I have change.”
She started rooting through her bag, but the man was already running back to his car. “I saw a gas station a back down the road. I’ve got change. Just hold on.”
She nodded even though the man wouldn’t see it. She sat down next to Sam, held her warm hand, and prayed as the man drove away.
She glanced at the other man, who didn’t move, then back to Sam who didn’t move either.
Please. Please don’t leave me alone here. Please make it through this.
She was crying again, her tears falling onto her now grimy hands. What else could she do?
“Please, please, please be okay. Please, Sam. I promise. I promise everything you wanted. I’ll leave that house, and I-I won’t close my heart,” —sob—“and I’ll do anything you want. Please just wake up and get through this.”
eleven
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. ~ from the journal of Prince Gabriel
GABRIEL
Gabriel, using a sort of ‘back door’ into the hospital to keep his presence there unnoticed, walked calmly through the halls, despite feeling the exact opposite, his security close behind. It had barely been thirty minutes since Corrado had informed him of the accident, and his heart had not stopped pounding since.
The news had only stated that one of three people had died and another was on life support in an accident involving two prominent young women, but they had not released names. He’d asked his security to look into the incident, but he had not received an update yet so he headed to the hospital anyway to see if Genevieve had been the one injured.
