I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes. The adrenaline seeped away, leaving me profoundly sleepy. I pulled my coat more tightly around me and winced as my fingers grazed my sore shoulder.
There was a whining sound in my ears. An after effect of the accident, I supposed. I couldn’t see anything out of the windows. The snow covered them completely.
I was getting buried.
I squirmed. My breath came faster as the claustrophobia started taking hold. How was he going to find me? I was in a white car, under white snow. In a few more minutes, I’d look like just another snowbank.
And if a plow went by… I didn’t want to think about that.
But of course… I did and my breath came so fast the windows started icing over from inside.
If he didn’t hurry, I’d be trapped here forever.
I closed my eyes again as the whining in my ears grew louder.
“Jesus,” I whispered. I wondered if I needed to go to the hospital. Was this what concussions were like? Did they make your ears whine louder and louder and then…
I screamed as something thumped against the window. The whining cut off. Then the thump came again. A bright light crossed the window…
And then the door flew open.
I screamed at the misshapen figure that loomed over me. A demon, hooded, with a mask pulled down so that only his goggled eyes were showing.
His dark, nearly black eyes.
“Derek?”
He pulled down his muffler. “Aria,” he exhaled sharply. Wreaths of frozen breath circled his head. He reached out and gently helped me to my feet. “Are you okay?”
“I thought you were a monster. Why do you look like that? How did you get here? Where is your Jeep? Why do you look like a marshmallow?” I must have been delirious, because I was babbling like an idiot.
I couldn’t see his smile under the muffler but I could see the crinkling at the corner of his eyes. “I told you,” he said. “I wasn’t driving the Jeep.”
He took my arm and gently led me around the back of my crumpled car.
“A snowmobile?” I gasped.
“Seemed like the fastest way to get to you.”
“You want me to ride that with you?”
He shrugged. “Unless you’d prefer to stay here.”
“No thank you.”
“Let me grab your stuff.” He glanced back. “You’re off the road and on the shoulder enough that I think we can wait to call a tow truck until after the storm is over.”
“Okay,” I breathed.
“Hop on.”
I hesitated. I called him and he’d rescued me just like I’d asked him to. Just like I knew he would.
He’d invaded my privacy and manipulated me into breaking it off with my boyfriend. That was a terrible thing to do.
But he’d asked me to trust him and I had.
I apparently still did.
I swallowed. “I’ve never ridden one before.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” he said, as he handed me goggles with a grin. “Except hold on tight.”