Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(21)

She stilled, her breath hitching, because…that was the first time anyone had ever described it to her that way. And it was so spot-on she wondered how she’d never thought of it before.

“Which is why music, why harmony soothes you,” he went on. “You probably don’t even realize the way your shoulders relax whenever someone turns on the radio, particularly if it’s a song you like. Your whole demeanor changes, becomes calmer.”

Amazing. He was absolutely amazing.

“Who…who taught you to do that?” she asked. “Who taught you how to see those things?”

“Truth of the matter is, I don’t know.”

“What?” she pushed up from his chest in order to look at him, which was completely silly since she couldn’t see a damned thing.

And suddenly the darkness was back, reaching inside her, squeezing her heart and lungs in a black fist.

Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Please, Lord, not again.

The fear made her weak and useless, and she absolutely hated that. But, try as she might, there was nothing she could do about it.

Rock must have sensed the change in her, because he pressed her head back to his chest and whispered, “Shhh. It’s okay. We’re all right.”

Uh-huh. Sure. He might be all right. But she was definitely not.

The chattering of her teeth must’ve clued him in to this fact, because the next words out of his mouth were, “You wanna tell me about it?”

“About what?” She fisted her hands together, trying to keep the memories as bay.

“About what happened to make you so afraid of the dark,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was only audible because her ear was a few inches from his mouth. “You want to tell me about that?”

No. She most certainly did not. She didn’t talk about the accident. Ever. With anyone. Which was why she was so surprised when the words, “I was with my parents when they died in a car wreck five years ago,” tumbled out of her mouth in one long, shaky breath.

Whoa. Had she really just said that? Out loud?

She waited for him to respond, to say the words she’d heard so many times, from so many people, especially in the days after the accident…I’m so sorry, Vanessa. How awful for you…Sorry? Awful? That didn’t come close to describing it. And because those words were all so ineffectual, because in the end they were meaningless since nothing could change what had happened, they had become a knife, slicing into her brain and slashing her composure to pieces any time someone offered them up.

But dreadful seconds ticked by and Rock didn’t say anything, just pulled her closer, anchoring her against his warm, reassuringly solid side as his thumb gently rubbed a circle in the fabric of her sleeve.

So, okay…

Maybe she could…maybe she could do this.

“We were…” she licked her suddenly dry lips, trying and failing to slow the rapid slideshow of images burning through her brain. “We were in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, visiting my aunt for Christmas. On the way back to the hotel, we…we hit a patch of ice on a bridge. My dad was driving.” And she remembered the sound of her mother screaming in the passenger seat as they blasted through the guardrail and catapulted over the edge, remembered the look of horror and soul-tearing regret on her father’s face as it was reflected in the rearview mirror. “We went over the side and into the river. I was in the backseat and that’s—” Her voice hitched and she had to swallow the lump of torment and grief that lodged in her throat. “That’s the only thing that saved me.”

Again, he said nothing, just held her close, rubbing that circle on her arm. The motion, and the accompanying soft rasp of the fabric of her sleeve, was soothing, almost hypnotic. It gave her the strength to go on despite the fact that the memories were so close to the surface her skin actually crawled, like she was covered with fire ants.

“The nose of the car buried itself into the riverbed and stuck there. The water was only about six feet deep, slow moving, and with a thick layer of ice covering the top. I slammed into the door and window on impact. It knocked me out.”

And, oh, the horror of coming to. Of knowing…

“When I regained consciousness, I was hanging from the seatbelt, my arm broken, the water only a foot from my face.”

She heard him exhale slowly in the darkness. And, yeah, he could probably guess what came next. “I knew my parents were under that water, but my seatbelt was jammed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it undone. And, with my arm so severely broken, I couldn’t slither out of the straps either. I struggled so hard for so l-long—” Her voice broke. The memories of the crushing ache in her arm—that hadn’t come close to the debilitating pain in her heart—washed over her in a tidal wave. Even though her rational mind had told her there was nothing she could do for her parents, some instinct inside her, some animalist drive had spurred her to fight with everything she had. She’d understood in those moments how wild animals chewed through their feet to free themselves from hunters’ traps. The urge to live was as intrinsic as it was intense. And the urge to save those she loved was stronger still. But, in the end, she’d been helpless. Infuriatingly, pathetically helpless…

“But I couldn’t get free,” she finally finished. “So I just…I just h-hung there, slowly freezing to death.”