“No. He probably lives this way. Nobody in their right mind would want to follow a car with cranky toddlers.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. Tank was a good distance behind them, and the girls were dozing off.
“So did you play basketball at all?” Leah asked quietly.
“Yeah. We played for a bit. One of the guys brought his twin sister. She was cool.”
“Cool, as in you like her and I need to buy stock in condoms?” Leah asked as they drove over the river, watching a truck speeding in the other direction. She hugged the right side of the road.
“She was just cool, you know? Not a pain in the butt like some girls are…”
His voice was drowned out by panic as the truck crossed the center line. River hollered, “Leah!” as the truck slammed into the side of their car with a supersonic bang, sending them sailing through the dark night. Their terrified screams echoed as their car nose-dived into the water so hard, Leah’s head smacked something. She was momentarily disoriented, but panic took over.
“River! Get the girls! Get the girls! Get the girls!” Leah cried as she yanked off her seat belt and scrambled onto her knees. The girls were screaming and wailing. The back end of the car was up in the air, and they were slowly sinking. River’s head was bleeding, and his body was contorted from the mangled metal on the driver’s side of the car. Leah freed Rosie and pulled her wailing girl into the front, reaching over again to get Junie.
Tears streamed down River’s face as he tugged at the latch on Junie’s carseat. “It’s stuck! I can’t get it!”
“Huwwy, Wiver!” Junie shrieked, trying to climb out of her carseat straps.
The car jerked, and they all screamed as it tilted toward the passenger side. Thank God those windows were intact. Leah grabbed Rosie. “Unhook the seat belt! We’ll get her out in the carseat!”
“I’m trying! Get Rosie out!” River pleaded.
Leah reached over the seat to help. “I’m not leaving without you and Junie!” The car sank deeper and water rushed in the broken driver’s side window. She grabbed Rosie around her middle, yelling, “Everyone take a big breath and hold it!” River pushed Junie, free of her carseat, into the front of the car as water rushed over their heads, and they were consumed by darkness. Leah clung to Junie’s shirt, trying to propel them through the broken window. Someone grabbed her and yanked them out, hauling them toward the surface, and she realized her fisted hand was empty. She’d lost her grip on Junie.
The second they broke the surface, Rosie coughed and cried, and Leah screamed, “Junie!” and Tank’s face came into focus. He was holding Junie, who was also coughing and crying.
“Can you swim?” Tank asked urgently.
“Yes!”
He thrust her panicked little girl into her arms as she looked frantically for River. “River! Oh my God! Get River!” but Tank was already under the water.
TANK’S HEART SLAMMED against his ribs as he mentally worked through how to get the guy out. The driver’s side of the car was crushed. He had to go through the passenger side and maneuver around the carseats. He tugged at the rear passenger door with all his strength, wrenching it open against the force of the water. The guy was out cold. Tank tried to pull him out, but his legs were trapped between the mangled metal and the driver’s seat. Tank kicked and pulled at the metal and the driver’s seat with all his strength, trying to wrestle him free. He stayed under until his lungs burned before shooting to the surface again, gulping air. He heard…Baz? Where the fuck did he come from? Where the hell was the fire department? He’d called 911 the second he’d seen the truck hit the car. He dove deep again, fighting with the metal and the driver’s seat until they finally gave way, and he yanked the limp body free. He dragged him to the surface as fast as he could, all too aware of how much time had passed. He picked up the heavy, lifeless body and ran to shore, dropping to his knees in the grass, and tilted the guy’s head back. He wasn’t breathing. His eyes swept over the youthful face before him. Jesus, you’re just a kid.
He pinched the guy’s nose, administering five rescue breaths as Leah and the kids sobbed and pleaded for his life. Come on. Come on. He still wasn’t breathing. Tank tried CPR as sirens neared. Breathe, please breathe. The girls wailed and screamed as CPR failed, and Tank began chest compressions. One, two, three…Come on, damn it. Seven, eight, nine. Painful memories of the night he’d found Ashley crashed into him. Come on, motherfucker, breathe. Fifteen…twenty-one, twenty-two…Please, God…Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. He still wasn’t breathing. Tank gave him two rescue breaths and began another cycle of chest compressions and rescue breaths, praying for the guy’s life. He started a third round, vaguely aware of chaos erupting around him and people shouting, but he refused to give up—chest compressions, rescue breaths…
“Tank, he’s gone, man!” Baz grabbed his arm, trying to drag him away.
Tank threw him off and continued trying to revive the guy. Baz and someone else grabbed him by the arms, hauling him backward. “Get the fuck off me!” Tank twisted free and dropped to his knees, tears pouring from his eyes as he tried again. “Breathe, damn it, breathe!”
They dragged him away again, but Tank fought to get free. “I gotta save him!”
Baz got in his face. “Look at me, damn it! He’s gone, Tank. You did everything you could.”
Tank looked past his brother to Leah bent over the body, sobbing and shaking, and the girls, crying as the paramedics tried to check them out, and his heart shattered, knowing a piece of them died tonight, too. “I didn’t even know she had a family.”
“Nobody did.”
A fellow firefighter, Sean Zablonski, tried to coax Leah away from the body, but she clung to it, shouting, “Get away from me!”
Tank went to help, and she lifted her tear-streaked face, setting a venomous glare on him.
“You.” She pushed to her feet, sobbing, hands fisted as she choked out, “Why didn’t you save him first? That should be me!” She pounded Tank’s chest, hollering through her sobs, “You should have let me die! You should have saved him! I hate you!”
Sean stepped forward, but Tank gave him a back-off stare and wrapped his arms around Leah as she shouted accusations, calling him names and spewing her grief. He crushed her to him despite her flailing fists and anguished words. “I’m sorry, Leah. I’m so sorry.” He’d have given his own life for that kid.
“I hate you!” she seethed, throwing her whole body against him, despite his hold on her. “He should’ve lived.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Tank held her tighter, accepting every angry, sad word, because he knew what it was like to hold it all in, the way it gnawed at a person’s heart and charred their soul. He held her as her voice was swallowed by sobs, knowing her heart was breaking into a million painful pieces.
Chapter Two
LEAH LAY ON the emergency room bed with her arms around her sleeping girls, waiting to be discharged. At least that’s what she thought the doctor had said. They’d been there a long time. After the doctor had checked out her and the girls, the police had questioned her about the accident. They’d said something about the other driver texting when he’d hit her. She didn’t know what happened to him, and she didn’t care. His recklessness was the reason someone else had come in and talked with her about bereavement counseling. She felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest, and it took everything she had to hold herself together.