Chapter 71 - 0071: Someone Wanted Me Dead

Chapter 71: Chapter 0071: Someone Wanted Me Dead

Elena’s Point Of View

The car veered violently off the asphalt, mounted the muddy embankment, and flipped sideways as it plowed through the wooden guardrails.

CRASH!

The front bumper slammed head-on into a massive, ancient oak tree with an apocalyptic crunch. Metal folded like paper. Glass exploded inward in a lethal shower of sparkling shards. The steering column collapsed, and the airbag detonated into my chest with the force of a cannon shot, knocking every drop of air from my lungs.

For one suspended, terrible moment, I felt nothing at all... just weightlessness, as if the world had forgotten how to hold me. Somewhere in that void, a single thought flashed through my mind, absurd in its clarity: this isn’t how tonight was supposed to end.

Then came the roll. The car flipped onto its roof, sliding upside down down the muddy ravine, metal tearing against rock until it finally slammed to a violent, crushing halt against a boulder.

Silence slammed down.

Thick, suffocating, absolute silence, broken only by the hiss of smoke pouring from the crushed hood and the steady pitter-patter of rain hitting the shattered underside of the car. My ears rang with a high, thin whine, as though the crash had left its echo lodged permanently inside my skull. Somewhere beneath the ringing, my own heartbeat pounded a frantic rhythm, the only proof I still clung to life.

I hung upside down in the crushed frame, trapped by the tension of the seatbelt. Dark blood dripped warm and fast from my hairline, pooling onto the inverted roof beneath my head. My left arm was pinned at an unnatural angle, white-hot agony radiating through my shoulder.

Somewhere distant, absurdly, I registered the smell of my own perfume mixing with gasoline and rain. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. My lungs could only drag in shallow, wet, agonizing breaths of smoke-filled air.

Through my blurring, fading vision, I stared out of the shattered driver’s window at the dark rain falling onto the muddy ground. Everything beyond the glass looked like a memory already... soft-edged, slipping away, as though the night itself were trying to erase me from it.

My phone, lying shattered a few feet away on the dirt, suddenly lit up in the darkness. The screen was cracked, but through the blood in my eyes, I could make out the incoming caller ID flashing illuminated in the dark rain:

UNKNOWN CALLER

I tried to reach for it, but my fingers twitched uselessly before my arm collapsed onto the cold mud. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, heavy and absolute, pulling me down into the deep, quiet void.

Some small, stubborn part of me refused to let go completely, clawing at consciousness the way a drowning woman claws at the surface. That same stubborn spark whispered a name I couldn’t yet place, a face I couldn’t yet see, urging me not to surrender.

The collision had inverted my entire world, leaving my body suspended and trembling, the horrific force of the impact reverberating through every shattered bone and bleeding nerve. My breath came in shallow, wheezing gasps, my heart hammering like a wild, frantic drumbeat against my ribs.

The silence inside the cabin afterward pressed down heavy and suffocating, pierced only by the relentless, angry patter of rain against the crushed undercarriage, the hiss of smoke, and the ticking of hot, dying metal.

I was hanging upside down.

The heavy seatbelt cut violently into my hips and waist, holding me suspended over the inverted roof. Dark, metallic-tasting blood dripped down my forehead, ran across the bridge of my nose, and pooled hot against the rain-soaked ceiling beneath me.

My left shoulder screamed in agony, but through the blinding haze of pain, a fierce, feral instinct ignited deep in my chest... something older than fear, something that refused to be extinguished. It felt ancestral, almost, as if every woman who had ever fought to survive before me had reached forward through time to steady my shaking hands.

"No."

I swallowed the scream clawing at my throat. I fought the heavy, tempting darkness creeping into the corners of my vision. Images flickered unbidden behind my eyes... faces, unfinished promises, all the things I hadn’t said yet. My mother’s laugh. My sister’s unanswered text from that morning. A future I hadn’t lived yet, waiting patiently just out of reach.

I won’t die here. Not in the mud. Not in the dark. Not for them.

"Move, Elena... move!" I rasped, my voice a ragged, desperate whisper echoing in the cramped, overturned space.

My hands, slick with sweat and fresh blood, scrambled frantically for the seatbelt latch. My fingers trembled so violently it took three excruciating attempts before my thumb finally slammed against the release button.

CLICK.

Gravity reclaimed me instantly. My body collapsed hard onto the upside-down roof, my head cracking against the cold, metal interior with a sickening thud. Pain exploded behind my eyes... bright white and blinding. For three terrifying seconds, my vision went completely black. Darkness reached out to swallow me whole, whispering promises of relief if I just gave up and closed my eyes.

No! Wake up! Fight!

I bit the inside of my lip so hard I tasted copper, using the sharp spike of pain to drag myself back to consciousness. I sucked in a ragged lungful of smoke and rain, my body wracked with violent, agonizing shivers.

I needed to get out. Now. Before the crushed engine caught fire.

I twisted my broken, aching body on the inverted ceiling, my knees scraping violently against shattered plastic and jagged glass. I reached out with my good arm, my fingers desperately searching for the door handle.

I found it. I yanked. Locked. Stuck.

The heavy door had warped into the frame during the roll, completely sealing me inside my own metal coffin. Panic prickled at the edges of my mind, sharp, raw, and insistent, threatening to unravel whatever fragile control I still had over my own body.

"No, no, no... come on!" I sobbed, slamming my palm against the door panel and throwing my shoulder against the jammed metal once, twice, three times. Every impact sent blinding jolts of white-hot agony roaring through my body. The door groaned under my weight, but it held firm, refusing to yield.

I was trapped.

Sweat and rain slicked my palms, making it nearly impossible to grip anything properly. Cold rain flooded in through the shattered driver-side window, turning the crushed ceiling into a puddle of mud and glass. My deep navy dress hung torn, soaked, and clinging uncomfortably to my skin, my high heels long lost somewhere in the wreckage.

I almost laughed at the absurdity of it... hours ago I had been worried about a scuffed heel, and now I was fighting for my life in the wreckage of what should have been an ordinary drive home. The distance between that world and this one felt impossibly vast, as though I’d fallen through some invisible seam in the night.

Desperation turned into raw, primal fury.

I turned my back to the jammed door, pulling my legs up to my chest despite the agonizing pain in my side. I planted both barefoot feet flat against the cracked, compromised frame of the shattered window.

"Open, damn you!" I shrieked, putting every last ounce of strength left in my dying body into a frantic, violent kick.

CRACK!

The warped metal frame gave way under my desperate assault, bending outward into the mud. Shards of safety glass sprayed into the storm, slicing lightly across my bare ankles and arms. I didn’t care. I didn’t feel it. Adrenaline had become the only language my body understood.

Dragging my body forward inch by agonizing inch, I pulled myself toward the narrow gap. The sharp jagged edges of the metal cut through my silk dress, biting deep into my hips and stomach as I squeezed through the crushed window frame.

With one final, shuddering heave, I hauled myself out of the upside-down death trap.

My upper body hit the slick, saturated earth hard, the breath whooshing entirely out of my lungs as I rolled face-first into the freezing mud. I lay there in the pouring rain, gasping like a drowning woman, my chest heaving against the cold ground.

The storm roared around me... sheets of heavy rain pouring down in thick, unrelenting waves, soaking me through to the bone, lashing wild branches against the pitch-black sky. The bitter cold seeped deep into my bones, chilling me to the marrow, but I was out. I was alive.

I survived.

For a moment, all I could do was breathe... ragged, disbelieving breaths, each one a small, private miracle. Tears mixed freely with the rain on my face, and for a fleeting second, relief nearly undid me more thoroughly than the crash itself had.

"Phone..." I wheezed into the mud, my head spinning wildly. "My purse..."

I turned my head back toward the smoking wreckage. The passenger door frame was crushed, but through the broken glass, my leather purse lay upside down near the floorboards.

Refusing to yield to the agony threatening to claim me, I began to crawl.

I dragged my body through the thick, freezing mud, using my good arm to pull my dead weight along the ground. Mud caked under my fingernails; dirt smeared across my bloody face. Every inch was a war. My muscles screamed, my forehead burned fiercely, but I kept dragging myself forward until my trembling fingers reached inside the wrecked cabin and snagged the strap of my purse.

I hauled it into the rain, my shaking, mud-covered hands frantically unzipping the leather compartment. I grabbed my phone from where it lay in the dirt. The screen was badly spider-webbed, but it lit up in my palm. Blood dripped from my hairline onto the glass, smearing across the display as I tried to swipe.

NO SERVICE.

A bitter, hysterical laugh escaped my lips... shaking, hollow, and raw.

"Please," I whispered into the howling wind, tears streaming down my cheeks, mingling with the rain and blood. "Please... just one bar... one bar..."

The storm offered no mercy. Just howling wind and blinding darkness.

I forced myself up, hands shaking violently, using the crushed rear bumper of my car to stumble to my feet. My sight blurred, dark spots dancing across my vision as I circled the shattered rear of the vehicle, trying to reach higher ground.

That was when my eyes caught the rear tires. I froze, the blood in my veins turning to solid ice. The rubber wasn’t just blown out from the impact. The sidewalls bore clean, deep, strategic incisions.

Slashed.

Deliberately cut before I had even left the venue.

A terrifying, suffocating cold settled over me, far worse than the freezing storm. This wasn’t an unfortunate accident on a rain-slicked road. Someone had sent me out here to die. Someone wanted me buried in the dark. My mind raced through faces, voices, motives... and found no comfort in any of them. Every smiling face suddenly seemed capable of hiding a knife behind its teeth.

Before the thought could even fully form, the roaring storm was sliced open by a pair of blinding, high-beam headlights appearing around the dark curve of the ridge. They cut through the rain-soaked darkness like a ghostly, predatory beacon, illuminating the falling rain into blinding silver needles.

I gasped, stumbling forward toward the road, clutching my bleeding shoulder. "Help!" I screamed, my voice cracking against the wind. "Help me!"

The sleek, low-profile black car accelerated toward me, its high beams blinding, engine roaring loudly against the storm as it drove straight to my side at a terrifying, unnatural speed. It didn’t slow until the very last second, tires screeching violently against the wet asphalt as it glided to a smooth, silent stop right beside where I stood shivering in the mud.

My heart hammered in my throat. Hope and primal fear clashed inside my chest, tangled together so tightly I couldn’t tell which one was winning.

The heavily tinted driver’s side window rolled down with a soft, mechanical whisper, revealing the dark, sharp silhouette of the man sitting behind the wheel.

My breath hitched in my throat. The rain poured down over my trembling body as I stared into the dark, familiar eyes looking back at me through the storm.

"Jaxx?"