Her Silent Revenge novel Chapter 55

Maybe he's screaming.

Maybe I should be screaming because I can't do anything else. But I never get the chance before time unpauses.

The world swirls with color and my heart feels like it's trapped in a vise. Now, I really am screaming, clutching the wheel helplessly.

I know the tires have lost their grip and I'm praying and begging and it's all happening too flipping fast as we swerve toward the car on solid ice, just as out of control as he is.

My eyes pinch shut. There's a sickening crunch!

The car clips our side mirror clean off, sending us spinning onto the sidewalk. I open my eyes in time to see a snow-plastered stop sign turn red again as we ram into it.

The hood crumples. The seat belt cuts my chest. Something rips at my neck like rope burn.

Then silence.

For two painful seconds, I regain my bearings, remembering how to breathe.

The thick snow falling over everything dampens any sound but my own breathing.

"Arlo!" I scream his name so fast my voice rips. I fumble with the belt, unclasping it so I can turn around. "Arlo, are you okay? Are you hurt?"

He's sitting exactly where I left him, his face unnaturally pale, his eyes wide.

He's in one piece, I'm sure, but shocked out of his little skin. "M-m-mommy?" he whimpers.

"Oh, honey. Sweetheart." I'm breathing like mad but I don't know how to stop. "Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere?"

He shakes his head slowly. "N-no. Dunno."

God, I should get him to a hospital anyway. But with this accident, we're not moving, and an ambulance—I can't afford an ambulance, can I? Not unless the kid's missing an arm.

I have no idea how the Higher Ends insurance plan even works; I haven't had time to look. And the car's definitely out of commission. Something hisses miserably under the hood.

"Can you move your hands?" I ask gently. "Your head? Be careful."

He holds his hands out and looks at them before he rotates his wrists.

Then he moves his head from side to side.

"I'm okay." He looks out of the window. "The car hit us."

"Yes. Yes, it did." We could have died if we were going just a little faster. "Stay where you are, big guy. I'm just going to check to see if our car's hurt."

Though if that grating, steady noise is anything to go by, it doesn't sound healthy.

Outside, it's as cold as I thought and the damage looks worse.

The stop sign is bent, and the front of the car looks buckled like crumpled paper. Black liquid drips against the greyish snow slurry under my car.

"Mommy?" Arlo asks cautiously as I rest my forehead on the steering wheel. "Can't we go home? I'm cold. Is the car broke?"

"The car's a little broke, honey, yeah." "I'm still hungry, too."

Oh my God.

Don't cry. You're a strong woman.

You're alive and well and so is your son. Don't scare him.

"I know," I say roughly, swallowing the rock in my throat.

We need to get home before it gets much later, but that ship has sailed. It's already dark and freezing. Neither of us came prepared for weather like this, and I'm afraid if I grab the spare blanket from the trunk, we'll lose what little heat the car has left.

But it is cooling off in here way too fast.

We can't sit here for hours hoping help shows up. I'm going to be sick.

Kayla could help us in a pinch, if she's sober tonight. Even if she's not, all she'd have to do is snap her fingers and someone would send a tow truck over, probably faster considering who her daddy is.

Landing me in moral debt for life.

But I never bothered replying to her latest message earlier, hounding me about when she can drop by for an intro to the magnificent Patton Rory.