do that, her steering wheel went mushy. Now she couldn’t steer, and she couldn’t stop. All she could do was brace herself for the jarring impact as her car slammed into the guardrail.
Impossibly, her car sped up at the impact rather than slowed down. The damned thing was possessed.
“What the hell?” She struggled with all her might to turn the wheel back toward the center of the road, but it wouldn’t budge.
The car slid along the guardrail. One glance at the steep incline, and she panicked, her breath sawing in and out in jagged bursts.
She saw what was coming but couldn’t do anything about it. Her car was still picking up speed as the end of the guardrail rapidly approached. She yanked on the steering wheel one last time, but that did nothing.
The rail, the only thing keeping her car on the road, ended. Her tires edged onto the softer shoulder before her car flew over the side and down the embankment.
The embankment wasn’t steep enough to flip the car, but car was still going way too fast as she slid down the hill and into the large tree.
Her head smashed against the driver’s side window as her car finally came to a stop.
She sat there in silence for a few moments trying to get her bearings. What the hell had just happened? She must have hit some sort of oil patch right as her brakes and steering seized.
She reached up with her fingers to catch whatever was dripping down her face, somehow surprised when she saw blood.
The red on her fingers jolted the world back into working order. She could hear the hiss of her engine, still running as it was stuck up against the tree. She could see the steam and smoke from the crash, the broken glass from the window glimmering in the light.
And everything hurt.
She could still move her arms and legs, that was good. She needed to get out of this car. She turned off the engine. Her door was jammed against the tree, so she unbuckled her seatbelt and crawled gingerly to the other door.
Her car didn’t seem to be totaled, but there was no way of driving it out of here. She’d have to see about getting it towed.
Yet another expense she didn’t have any money saved for. She was barely getting by on what she made with her two part-time jobs.
She stumbled back up the hill, pretty unsteady on her feet. Once she got to the road, she turned left to head back toward town. There wasn’t much point in sitting here. It could be hours before anyone drove by on this deserted road.
A mile later, her head throbbed, and her left eye had swollen shut. Every step made her feel worse.
And then, it started to rain.
“Of course.” Of course, it would rain. That was perfect for today. She kept walking.
She was soaked by the time the first car passed her. She half expected it to drive on by—that was what any Bostonian would have done if they’d seen someone bloody and wet limping along the side of the road.
But the car stopped. “Quinn?”
“Lexi?” She didn’t know what her boss was doing way out here, but thank God she was.
“You’re bleeding. Are you okay? What happened?” Before Quinn could spin around so she could see out of her good eye, Lexi was out of the car and standing in front of her.
Quinn tried to get the words out—she really did—about the brakes, the steering, about sliding down the hill and into the tree. About having to walk two miles in the rain with a throbbing head, aching body, and swollen eye.
But somehow her pathetic brain had other plans. Quinn looked at her boss, tiny with big blue eyes and blurted out the most pathetic thing in the history of pathetic things.
“Baby stood me up for our non-date.”
Chapter Nine
Just because Baby liked to talk didn’t mean he didn’t know how to be silent. And he had been silent all night, combing the acres of property surrounding the Linear Tactical facilities.
He’d never been a part of the military like the Linear guys, but he still had wilderness and tactical skills. He was as trained in weapons and fighting as Finn, Zac, and the rest of them.
The guys had created Linear Tactical to teach the skills they possessed. Train civilians in tactical awareness and survival methods. Baby may not have the Special Forces pedigree, but he knew what he was doing.