The indicator ticks as Eli signals to pull over and I’m opening the door before we’ve fully stopped.
I scramble round the hood of the car, my eyes darting desperately across the dark road.
“Freya!” I call.
Eli flicks the headlights on full and I catch a flash of golden hair further down the road.No.
I run towards the crumpled form, the tarmac digging through my jeans when I drop to my knees. “Freya.”
She doesn’t answer. She’s lying on her back, out cold. Her helmet is still on but the visor’s smashed and a trickle of blood runs down from a cut above her eye. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” I’m first aid trained but my mind is spiraling right now, and I can’t focus.
Oz appears at my side. He presses two fingers to her wrist and lowers his head to her chest. “She’s breathing fine.”
I catch my own breath and finally manage to get my brain working. We’re trained to shake someone to try and geta response, but motorcycle accidents are high risk for spinal injuries.
Oz pinches the tip of one of her fingers instead, but she doesn’t stir.
River joins us, his shadow falling across Freya’s still body. “Paramedics are on the way, Eli’s talking to them now. How is she?”
“Unconscious,” Oz says, “but she’s breathing, and her pulse is steady. She’s got abrasions on the left side of her torso where her jacket’s ridden up, a minor laceration above her eye and bruising to her right ankle. I can’t tell if there are any other external injuries without moving her which I don’t want to do until we can secure her neck and spine.”
“Why isn’t she waking up?” I ask.
Oz was pre-med at college and out of all of us he has the most medical training, but he just shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
I twine my fingers through Freya’s, careful not to jostle her. “Come on, Angel, come back to me.”
I hold her till the ambulance arrives, watching her closed eyes for any sign of movement. Oz uses his sweater to apply pressure to the wounds on her side. Eli keeps 911 updated and River paces back and forth.
I feel like there are threads connecting all of us to Freya, pulled so taut right now that if they snap, the rebound will cut us to pieces.
The world goes quiet as we wait and the sirens, when they come, are deafening. River pulls me away from Freya so the paramedics can work, and I tug at my hair.
Eli stares at Freya as they slide a board under her back. His eyes narrow on her ankle. “Stupid woman.”
I whirl on him. “What did you just say?”
Eli shakes his head, scorn dragging at his face.
“This wasn’t her fault,” I shout. “She got into an accident Eli, she wasn’t running away.”
He turns to face me. “Then why was she outside her boundary? Look at her ankle, it’s like someone took a bloody hammer to the tracking device.”
I put my hands to his chest and push him out of my personal space. “What? You think she did that to herself? Why would she run if she didn’t manage to get the tracker off?”
Eli shrugs and steps back towards me. “Like I said. Stupid. Woman.”
I clench my fist but River’s hand on my shoulder tugs me back. “Enough. Now is not the time. We need to figure out what happened, and Jude is right, she’s not stupid, she would have known we’d come after her.”
“Maybe that was the point,” Oz mutters.
My gaze snaps to him, jaw tight. I thought, of all people, he’d be on my side. On Freya’s side.
Oz stares at the road, back the way we came. “What would you do if you were being chased and you couldn’t call for help?”
I look where Oz is pointing, and the pieces click together. Tire marks bisect the road. A four wheeled vehicle, like someone pulled sideways and skidded to a stop.
“Someone else was here,” River says.
