Page 126 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

I turn and look through the back window. August is running after us across the gas station lot, his face white with terror under the lights. He slips on a patch of spilled water or gas or God knows what and catches himself on one hand before launching back to his feet.

The sight of him running toward me breaks something loose inside me.

“I said stop.”

Jake’s face hardens. “You never know when to quit, do you?”

The gas station exit is coming up too fast. Beyond it is the frontage road, the empty dark, the whole world narrowing down to Jake’s hands on August’s wheel.

No.

I grab the wheel and yank it with both hands.

The truck veers hard to the right.

Jake shouts and jerks against me, but he wasn’t expecting a fight from me. Not the woman he trained to apologize for taking up space.

The truck jumps the curb.

For one suspended second, the headlights catch nothing but grass and ditch and a flash of silver culvert before we crash.

THIRTY-THREE

AUGUST

It all happens so fast.

I never imagined Jake couldactuallytrack us here. But all of a sudden, I looked up, and Jake is closing the door of the truck, a car I don’t recognize parked on the other side of the gas pumps, and driving away with Lennon.

Oh my God!

“Lennon!” I shout, chasing after them, but it feels useless as he speeds away with her.

An alarm starts wailing as the gas pump snaps from the line as he drives off. Why the fuck didn’t I lock the door behind me? I just never thought?—

I sprint faster?—

And then watch as the car veers wildly.

For one suspended second, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. The world goes white with flashing headlights and the high shriek of tires tearing across pavement.

Then there’s the sick, heavy sound of metal slamming into earth as the front end of my truck drops out of sight off the rightend of the road into the ditch and the whole back frame bucks hard. The rear wheels kick up mud like it’s trying to claw its way back out.

“Lennon!” I scream, still running as the crash finishes happening.

My boots skid on the shoulder gravel, one knee nearly going out from under me, but I catch myself and keep going because no way in hell am I stopping until I know she’s still breathing.

The gas station alarm is still going off behind me. Someone is shouting from the store doorway. The clerk maybe. A customer. I don’t know. The whole world has become the stretch of mud between me and the driver’s side window.

My truck is canted forward into the ditch, nose buried in the embankment, back end sitting high enough that one rear tire still spins uselessly. Mud sprays in a dirty arc. The engine revs, catches, then revs again.

Jake’s still trying to drive away.

The bastard is still trying to take her.

I slam into the driver’s side door hard enough to bruise my own shoulder, grabbing for the handle. It’s locked, dammit.

I see Jake’s panicked face through the glass, blood dripping from his nose even though the airbags clearly deployed. I can’t see Lennon past the still-puffed-out bag on her side.