The sight of a flame triggered Nox’s Sight, and the vision hit him all at once.
The fire …
Ridley’s screams …
The fear.
This time he heard the impact.
Metal crushing.
Brakes squealing.
It was the last sound that hit him like a kick in the gut. A song—“Stairway to Heaven.”
Nox had seen hints of this before in his visions, but the details had never been clear enough. It had always been a vague future. But it had become a reality.
This was the outcome he’d been desperate to avoid. If only he’d put the pieces together sooner.
So he hadn’t saved Ridley from dying in a fire. He’d saved her from dying in one particular fire—the one at Sirene—only to let her die in another, the one at the car wreck. He’d done everything he could to keep her from meeting the fate he’d seen laid out for her in his dreams, and he had still failed.
I gave up too easily. I shouldn’t have let her leave with that idiot hybrid. I should’ve asked her to choose me.
He’d sacrificed everything to protect Ridley—his club, his safety, even his heart. And it had been pointless. He hadn’t protected her from anything.
Then I pushed her right into another guy’s arms.
I thought he could protect her. I thought he was better for her. Safer.
Who’s the idiot now?
“What’s wrong, Nox?” Sampson asked.
“Everything.” Nox could barely move his jaw, but he forced the words out somehow. “She’s in trouble, Sam. We’ve gotta go. Now.”
Finding the location of the crash was the easy part; in Nox’s vision, the flames were already melting the road signs, which meant he’d gotten a good look at them in the process. “Hurry, Sam. We don’t have much time.”
What if we’re already too late? Nox thought.
Nox stared out the window in a daze, trying to blot out the images of the fire and the sound of Ridley’s screams. He pressed against his stitches, trying to feel the pain. At least his pain distracted him from hers.
She’s not dead. I’d know. I would’ve felt it.
Right?
He pressed harder.
Sampson didn’t say a word, but the speedometer inched up past ninety, and he covered a hundred miles in less than an hour.
By the time Nox spotted the cloud of black smoke, he was practically jumping out of his skin. The wind blew the dirty air through the SUV’s broken window as they approached the flashing lights—two police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance on the shoulder of the highway—behind a perimeter of orange cones and flares. One of the cops stood in the road, waving cars past the crash site. Traffic slowed as drivers rubbernecked while passing the wreckage.
Nox scanned the area for any sign of Ridley or a blue and white medical examiner’s van.
It’s not here. Not yet.
Sampson shook his head. “It looks bad.”
Up close, it looked even worse. What was left of Link’s piece-of-crap car was crushed like a tin can, and firefighters were hosing down the half-melted body of the Beater.