Chapter 202: Chapter two hundred and two

Sebestian's POV

The sirens of the police convoy were swallowed by the roar of the mountain storm. I sat in the back of Detective Miller’s tactical SUV, my hands locked tightly around the leather edge of the seat, my knuckles stark white. Rain hammered against the glass in heavy, chaotic sheets, blurring the dark pine forest outside into streaks of black and gray.

"GPS ping on Wes's vehicle just stabilized!" the officer in the front passenger seat called out over the blare of the radio. "He pulled a U-turn three miles down the ridge. He’s stopped at the turnout near Mile Marker 14 on the State Highway!"

"Put your foot down," Miller ordered the driver, his voice rigid.

Beside me, Avery grabbed my forearm, her grip tight, cold, and trembling. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to. The terror radiating off her mirrored the suffocating dread suffocating my own chest.

Just hold on, Lena, I repeated over and over in my head like a desperate, broken prayer. Please God, just let her be alive. Take everything else. Take the company, take the money, take my life... just let her be alive.

The police cruiser rounded a wide, sweeping curve on the rain-slicked mountain asphalt, its emergency lights painting the dark trees in frantic flashes of red and blue.

And then, the world stopped.

Fifty yards ahead, at the sharp bend near Mile Marker 14, two long, black skid marks scarred the double yellow lines, leading directly toward the steel guardrail.

Wes’s dark SUV was wrapped violently into the metal barrier, its front end crumpled like tin foil, steam and smoke billowing from under the twisted hood into the pouring rain.

The driver’s side headlight was completely shattered, but the remaining high beam sliced through the darkness, illuminating the muddy embankment on the right side of the shoulder.

"Oh God..." Avery gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

"Pull over! Stop the vehicle!" I screamed, my voice cracking violently as a wave of sheer, unadulterated terror tore through my chest.

Before the SUV had even come to a complete stop, I threw the door open.

The freezing rain slammed into my face, but I didn't feel the cold. I didn't hear Miller shouting for me to wait for backup. I threw myself out into the downpour, my heavy leather shoes slipping on the wet asphalt as I sprinted blindly toward the shattered guardrail.

"Lena!" I roared into the storm. "LENA!"

I rounded the rear bumper of the smoking Mercedes. The driver's door was jammed open, the air bags deployed, but the cabin was empty. Wes was gone.

My eyes frantically swept the muddy slope beneath the shattered headlight beam.

Ten feet down the embankment, tossed into the high, wet grass like a discarded ragdoll, lay a slender figure in a torn, mud-soaked green dress.

My knees gave out on the edge of the asphalt. I scrambled down the slick, muddy slope on my hands and knees, tearing through the jagged rocks and pine needles, completely oblivious to the pain slicing into my palms.

"Lena... baby, please... please..."

I reached her body and collapsed into the mud beside her.

She was lying on her side, completely motionless. Her pale face was streaked with dark mud and blood flowing from a deep cut at her hairline. Her dark hair was plastered against her forehead, her skin ice-cold beneath the relentless deluge of rain.

"Lena!" I sobbed, my voice a guttural, shattered wreckage of a scream.

I gathered her small, fragile frame into my arms, pulling her torso up against my chest. Her head rolled back against my shoulder, limp, unresponsive, unmoving.

"No, no, no, no... God, please no!" I wept hysterically, burying my face into the wet crook of her neck, my body trembling so violently I could barely hold her. "Lena, open your eyes! Open your eyes, please! Look at me!"

I pressed my trembling fingers against the side of her cold neck, searching wildly for a pulse through the chaotic pounding of my own hyperventilating lungs.

Nothing.

"She's not breathing!" I screamed toward the road, my voice raw and bleeding into the wind as tear after tear washed down my face, mixing with the cold rain and the blood on her forehead. "She isn't breathing! Help her! Somebody help her!"

My mind shattered into a million sharp, agonizing pieces.

Wes had done this. My son had chased her down. He had taken the woman who held my heart, the woman carrying my unborn child, and he had struck her down on a dark mountain road.

"I'm sorry..." I sobbed uncontrollably, rocking her lifeless body back and forth in the mud, pressing my forehead against hers, cradling her head with blood-stained hands.

"I'm so sorry, Lena... I should have protected you... I should have stopped him... please don't leave me... don't take them from me..."

Heavy, rapid footsteps skidded down the muddy embankment behind me.

"Sebastian!" Avery’s voice screamed over the thunderous roar of the rain.

She dropped to her knees in the mud right beside us, her face ghastly pale, her eyes wide with overwhelming horror. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks, washing away the rain as she looked down at Lena’s unmoving face.

"Oh God... Lena... no, no..." Avery choked out, her hands flying to her head in absolute, terrified shock. She forced herself forward, pressing her trembling fingers against the base of Lena’s wrist, frantically feeling for a sign of life.

"Is she... is she—" Avery couldn't bring herself to say the word. She looked up at me, her face unraveled in pure, devastating grief.

"She's not breathing!" I shrieked, my chest heaving in violent, agonizing gasps as I held Lena tighter against my chest, trying desperately to pour my own warmth into her freezing skin.

"Miller! We need paramedics down here NOW!" Avery screamed up toward the highway, her voice cracking with a fierce, frantic desperation as she turned back to me, grabbing my soaked lapels with both hands. "Sebastian! Look at me! Keep her head still! Don't move her neck!"

Avery leaned down, placing her ear directly against Lena’s cold lips, holding her breath while the rain beat down on them.

Five agonizing seconds passed. Ten.

Suddenly, Avery’s eyes snapped open.

"She has a pulse!" Avery screamed, tears bursting from her eyes as a ragged, desperate sob tore from her throat. "Sebastian, she has a pulse! It’s faint, but it's there! She’s breathing!"

My heart slammed against my ribs so hard the world went white at the edges.

I looked down at Lena’s face. A tiny, shallow gasp of air fluttered past her bloodied lips, so faint it was almost invisible beneath the storm.

"Paramedics are moving in!" Detective Miller’s voice bellowed from the top of the embankment as two tactical officers and two EMTs scrambled down the slick slope carrying a backboard and trauma kits. "Clear the area!"

I refused to let go of her until the paramedics gently pried my trembling hands from her body. I stayed on my knees in the mud, clutching Avery’s hand so tightly our knuckles clicked, watching through a blur of uncontrollable tears as they strapped a neck brace onto Lena and lifted her toward the waiting ambulance.

As the emergency lights flashed red across her pale, motionless face, Miller stepped down beside me, his hand resting heavily on my trembling shoulder.

"Mr. Lancaster," Miller said, his voice grim, cold, and dead serious. "Wes isn't in the car. He fled foot into the forest down toward the dockside district."

I slowly pulled myself up from the mud, looking from the back of the ambulance to the dark, wild woods stretching out into the night.

The grief inside my chest didn't vanish. But as the ambulance doors slammed shut and the sirens began to wail, it hardened into something dark, lethal, and unshakeable.

"Find him, Miller," I whispered, my voice cold as ice. "Find Wes!"