There are certain events that serve no purpose other than to separate us from the balance of normality. Gone was the melodic hum of distant traffic or any familiar sound.

The next few minutes were confusing. One moment, I was sitting with my parents around our oak dining table, dressed in a royal blue graduation cap and gown. In the next moment, their smiles slipped as something descended in a stream down my face. I touched my temple, my palm now slicked with blood. My parents morphed into corpses ripped straight from my nightmares.

My eyelids fluttered. I moaned as an ache tore through my limb; every muscle around it was interconnected with the site of my pain.

I cranked one eye open; the windows appeared buried by trees butted up against the doors with pine needles pressed against the glass. Leather slid under my fingertips as I found the door handle. I clasped it firmly and pushed outward, but it refused to budge more than a fraction. I fiddled with the belt with the other hand, but the lock wasn't releasing. I panted as my heart rate spiked. What if I was left here to die? After all, no one knows where in hell I am. There was no longer enough oxygen to inhale, and my breathing became frantic.

More silence followed. My imagination and sense of time continued to play games. The sudden images set everything out of chronological order, and I struggled to remember what came first.

In the distance, a wolf howled. A flurry of flashes blipped around the interior of the car. I blinked, adjusting to the darkness. I was facing south, suspended by the seat belt, while a continuous drip spattered on the plastic.

"Somebody help!" I croaked. I rattled the belt lock again. The flashes of light ceased. My face felt as if it had exploded. An acrid smell burned my nostrils. My fingers and toes were growing numb, and I didn't know if I had nausea, vertigo, or both. Never in my life had I been panicked to the point that I could barely move.

"Dana?"

I gasped; Paul's strained voice was a relief. I uttered a soft curse word and thanked God. How had he found me? More importantly, right now, I didn't give a damn. "Paul, the seatbelt won't open!" I rattled the belt again in demonstration.

"Stay put. The car is in a nosedive, and I don't wanna flip it. Only the bushes of the embankment are keeping it secure. Are you hurt?"

My trembling hands roamed down my legs. My thigh flinched. I touched my forehead and grimaced, finding a second source of pain. In the dark, my blood-slicked palm looked black. "I'm bleeding. Have you called someone?"

Paul's answer never came. Glass crunched underfoot as he walked the perimeter and peeped through the open windshield on his hands and knees. His shoulders sank, but he smiled. He used the tip of his boot to dislodge the remains of jagged shards.

"How did you know where I was? I thought you let me run?"

"You think I wouldn't try to follow you?" He scooted further under the windshield.

Even though I watched the darkness intently, when the outline of his face came into focus, it still made me jump. The swell of emotion that stirred inside my chest following Paul's omission was like a tidal wave.

"I want you to climb out through the windshield. You'll need to crawl."

I hoped he was joking. There was no way I could. There was also no way I was prepared to flip the car with one wrong move. I pressed the belt release again and again. A tear rolled down the bridge of my nose before the full wave of them hit, and I broke down. His cell light hit me head-on, forcing me to squint.

"Don't cry, Dana." His voice dropped by an octave, and I lost all strength as my tears morphed into heaving cries. "I'm not leaving you."

"The seatbelts aren't unlocking. Have you called someone? My head is pounding. My nose recoiled. "What's that god-awful stench?"

"There's no signal. The smell is from your airbag. It deployed. I climbed down the embankment when you went over. I had to get under the windshield to find you."

The cell light skimmed the interior of the car as a plan appeared to take form in his head. "I need you to take your weight off the strap, let it go lax, then try to unbuckle."

"I'll fall."

"I'll catch you."

I positioned one limb, followed by the other. A deep burn ripped its way up my thigh. The belt loosened, but my sneaker lost traction and slipped. I cried out in agony, hung by the belt restraint again. As I caught a flash of sudden panic in his eyes, all I could think about was how hard I could have fallen for a boy like him, with caramel-hazel eyes, in any normal situation. But this would never be a normal situation; drama would always proceed drama. I had to start letting go of the notion that Paul was a regular guy.

"That's what you're thinking about? How badly did you hit your head? Listen, stop seeing all the obstacles to getting out at once. It's a one-step-at-a-time deal, okay?"

This nightmare was not going to be over until I listened to him. I repositioned myself to try again. My muscles burned, but each finger shook at the sense of urgency in Paul's eyes. With my palm fanned out on the roof, it left the other to grapple with the belt restraint.

"You're doing great," Paul said. "Keep rigid, and you'll be able to drop down."

That was easy for him to say.

There was a click. The blood pumped in my ears, sending my pulse skyrocketing. I held firm. A surge of pain ripped through my thigh. Resisting the urge to scream, I scanned the windshield. Paul was on his back; his outstretched arms encouraged me to let go. I steadied my breath and, on the count of three, I let go in two. Paul's arms secured around my waist. The tears came as my chest heaved against his. For a moment, I didn't dare let go. My fingers balled into the fabric of his t-shirt as I sobbed relentlessly into his chest.

Paul anchored me at the moment, and he wouldn't have been able to prize my hands away if he'd tried. There were at least three difficult conversations that needed to take place; about Carlyle and Luke, Lucille, and one day Antoine, but first, I needed to get out.

We climbed under and out. He guided me over to a rock away from the wreck. Gone was the absolute darkness, dense fog, and my inability to breathe. It was the first time I looked back. The car was in a nosedive, as Paul had described. The rear wheel was not only blown, but it resembled an unrecognizable disfigured mesh of metal. I traced the route I had fallen. Foliage, hardy pines, and rock formations littered the steep valley wall. They slowed my descent.

Impossible.

He kneeled in front of me, eyes glassy, twinkling in a shaft of moonlight that extended outwards. Our gazes synchronized for a second. The emotion in them was cavernous and deep but with the warmth of a sunlit surface.

"I'm so fucking glad you're okay." He beamed. "But the bad news—you have a small but nasty piece of glass in your upper thigh." He tilted my chin up when I tried to look. In my peripheral vision, the steely glimmer of the protruding shard bulged through a snag in my jeans.

"It hurts." Now the pain was acute rather than a symptom of everything else happening.

"I'm not saying it won't. Do you know what I meant when I said to tell me if you ever got bored in the file room? Do you know what I wanted to do to you?" He offered me a weak smile.

I couldn't help but take offense at his timing. "What? What an insensitive thing—"

While I was distracted, Paul tugged on the embedded foreign object. I let go of the air in my lungs. In seconds, his palm applied pressure on the wound. He shrugged off his jacket and tied the arms tight around my thigh.

The look on his face said he was sorry. "Hold this in place. I'm going to get you back home, fix you up." He surveyed my head for contusions before plucking a loose shard from within my hair.

His arm looped and hauled me upright. "You good? Not too dizzy?"

With my mind still reeling, I nodded, getting my bearings by taking my weight and flexing my toes, testing where I felt the pain most. He panned around with the flashlight from his cell.

"Do you want me to carry you?"

He was halfway to picking me up before I shook my head. "I'm good, I think." The moon emerged larger now, embracing every angle I turned. The ground bobbled under our feet as we moved with slow, planned steps.

"That was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I thought that was it," I said.

Paul's arm tightened. "Dana, I felt how terrified you were. Even from a three-car braking distance, when you swerved, my mind went to the worst-case scenario. I should never have let you leave in that state, but you left so fucking fast I lost you before I'd made it out of the shop. This is my fault."

My eyes refused to be drawn elsewhere. Paul's vulnerability had never been this close to the surface, and he was right in a way. I never had cause to wonder what he was thinking. He let me read him in so many other ways.

"What happened at the shop? I want answers."

He sighed, his gaze hitting the ground as if searching for something to say. Paul continued to support my weight. There was a beat of silence until Paul's face softened a touch. "Luke thinks you're not ready for those answers."

My eyes bore back, unable to comprehend how now, after everything, I still wasn't worth telling. This repeated fight was futile, and it wound a coil inside that was primed to spring. "I am ready."

"I know you are! My truck is up there. Let me get you home, and then anything you want to know is yours. Fuck, Luke." He pointed to a route where the ground rose less steeply towards the guardrail of the road. We climbed the hill, resting every few steps. When I got used to the burn in my thigh, Paul scouted the route ahead of us. "Almost there."

"There's something else," I said. The words were on the tip of my tongue. How do I even explain what had happened in my car moments before I crashed? It was the sole reason I'd lost control of the vehicle. Lucille had come. As a wolf. My brain grappled with the hows and why but drew a blank.

He said nothing.

The disregard for the story I had to tell was pissing me off. The last thing I wanted was to argue out here. Everything felt broken, from the tightness in my neck and the pounding in my head to the aching throb of my thigh. He finally turned.

There was a movement to his expression, staring into a space I couldn't see. He was thinking something that he did not want to verbalize. Like always, I was going to have to tear the answers from him.

"Something else happened tonight..." I tugged on his arm, bringing him to a stop. "Look at me. If you do not give me my answers, you can watch me walk back to Georgia."

Paul turned and gripped both sides of my face as he stepped impossibly close. "It's because I already know what you're going to say. You need answers; I'm ready to give them. I have to ensure you are safe first—in more ways than one. But promise me you won't try to leave again. Dead or not, Lucille won't let that happen. That's what Luke tried to tell you!"

"Lucille is dead, Paul," I screamed.

"Yes and No," was all he said. I wasn't sure if it was his confession or the trickle of blood that descended down my head that made it further pound until every thought stopped altogether. A blackness creeped into my vision before everything clouded.