The adrenaline seems to leave me all at once. I start to cry harder, thunking my forehead against the wheel. My hands hurt from the death grip on the wheel. My heart beats so hard and fast that I’m actually a little worried I might be going into cardiac arrest.
I should call Mom and ask. She’d know as a nurse. But then I’d have to find my voice and I don’t think that’s happening any time soon. Sobs scratch my throat raw.
It takes a few minutes for me to get most of it out of my system, the explosion of emotion a combination of everything that happened in the last twenty minutes. Once I’ve calmed down a little, I swipe at my eyes and peer through the dull roar of rain.
There’s a deluge of muddy water and debris sloshing across the road on either side of the tree. Fuck. A mudslide must have uprooted the tree.
The road is completely blocked. This is the only road out from Lucas’ lake house.
That means everyone else is stranded, too.
On shaky legs, I get out and stumble like a newborn deer toward the tree that could’ve taken my life. The icy rain soaks my clothes in seconds, pelting me in big droplets. I blink through it, my lashes clumping. My hair plasters to my face when I try to shake the rain from my eyes.
At the edge of the stream, I stop, nervous about getting too close. It looks like the worst of the mudslide has already torn through the slope and across the road, but I don’t want to chance it.
As I turn back to my car, I’m blinded by headlights whipping around the bend up the road. Fear grips me once more, the irrational thought that someone’s come to hunt me down and finish what started back at the party paralyzes me.
The headlights are those bright blue halogen fuckers that feel like knives in your eyes when they hit you. I hold my hands up and squint as the car slows to a stop.
“Are you okay?”
The driver that shouts at me as he gets out is Lucas.
“I—yeah.”
The rest of my words catch in my throat, impeded by the lump of emotion lodged there. I’m thankful Lucas is still a few feet away when I emit a whimper, trying to hold back more emotion bubbling over.
“Jesus, Gemma. What the hell made you drive off in the rain like that?” He closes the distance between us, holding a raincoat over his head like he rushed out of the party too fast to put it on. He tries to cover both of us with it and touches my face. “God, you scared the shit out of everyone. Don’t you know how dangerous these roads can be?”
Lucas drove out in this torrential rain storm. For me.
My heart swells in my chest and it’s hard to breathe for an entirely different reason.
He brushes the droplets and wet hair from my face. My lip gives a tremulous wobble, the impending threat that I might break apart again at any second looming over my head.
“Are you okay?”
I shrug, then nod mechanically, but my shuddery breath is what he focuses on. Lucas peers over my shoulder at the downed tree.
“Looks like you’re not going anywhere tonight.”
“I want to go home.” My voice is cringe-worthy, all petulant. I can’t help it. I was just put through a traumatic experience and faced with a double whammy of unwanted sense memories followed by a near-miss car crash. “I wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“Come on.” Lucas tugs at me. “You’re going to catch a nasty cold. Let’s go.”
I stand my ground, my body locking up.
“No. I want to go home.”
Logically, I can see I have no wa
y to return to my house short of going all Bear Grylls and hiking down the mountain to the valley. Going back to Lucas’ place means being warm and dry.
Yet I fight him as he tries to guide me to his car.
“No!”
Lucas stops and exhales. “Gemma. Get in the goddamn car.”