I slammed the door of my SUV, and my breath stuttered in my lungs. Memories hit me one after the other. Laughing with Vi and Bell as I drove. Bell yelling out. Me trying to swerve. The sickening crunch. The nothingness that followed.

My SUV, the one from the accident… It was sitting before me. Same license plate. Same…everything. Except the side was completely smashed in. The damage that must’ve been done in the collision. My gut twisted and roiled.

A scream jerked me out of my daze. I didn’t think, I just ran towards the terrified sounds coming from the woman I loved more than life itself. That familiar vise tightened painfully around my ribs again, each step seeming to twist it tighter. Footsteps behind me told me that Crosby and Hunter were close.

I yelled, but it was drowned out by the ocean winds and the sound of the waves below. I pushed my muscles harder as the cliff’s edge came into view. Time slowed, seemed almost to stop, as if someone had pressed the Universe’s pause button. Bell was being held over a cliff by only a fistful of her shirt, flailing, searching for purchase, for anything that might save her. I was close, but not close enough. She was alone. I’d left her when she needed me most and now…Ethan released his hold.

A guttural cry tore from my chest as Bell slid over the side of the rocky incline. Gone. She was gone. This wasn’t happening. The pain tearing through me was like nothing I’d ever experienced before, fire and ice licking through muscle and sinew, ripping me apart.

“Go, Ford! We’ve got Ethan.”

It was Hunter’s order that snapped me out of it. Maybe… Maybe the fall hadn’t killed her. Maybe Bell was in the water below. I ran towards the edge of the cliff, skidding to a stop just a breath away from going over. Black water swirled below. I strained to see any movement.

“Ford?”

The single word, shaky and uncertain, was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. My gaze snapped down. “Bell.” I sank to the ground and lay on my stomach so I could lean over the side. The cliffside was made up of a series of steep inclines, and Bell was teetering on one of them, hands bound but hooked around a bunch of roots and rocks. My heart slammed against my ribs as rocks gave way under her feet.

“Ford!”

The panic in Bell’s eyes nearly broke something in me. I didn’t think, just reached, trying to ground myself with one hand and grab hold of Bell with the other. “I’ve got you.”

Terror flashed in her eyes. “I’m going to fall.”