Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

buckle. I tried again to unfasten my seatbelt. It popped loose, flew up, and whacked me in the forehead. I fell, hit the steering wheel, and landed in a heap on the driver’s door, practically in Melody’s lap. I touched her face. Her skin felt cold, clammy. She coughed, a wet, rumbling sound. Dark foam trickled from her mouth.
Her breathing sounded... bubbly.
Sparks of panic exploded like firecrackers under my skin. “I have to call 911.” My cell phone still dangled from the USB cord. “Thank you, God.” I punched in the numbers.
“911 Dispatch,” a woman’s voice answered.
“Help.” My voice shook. I took a breath. “We need help.”
“What is your emergency?”
“Accident. C-C- Car...” I couldn’t get enough air to speak. “Car accident.”
“Calm down, ma’am. What is your location?”
“Highway 80.” I saw again the headlights’ flash on the glowing mile-marker. “We just passed marker twenty three on the way to Angel Falls.”
“Is your car on the road, or—?”
“No. We’ve gone down the embankment—on the river side.”
Mel’s breath in my face smelled like blood, like someone had just opened a package of raw, bloody meat. I realized then that her ribs weren’t just cracked, but broken. Maybe broken enough to puncture her lungs.
“My friend is really hurt. You’ve got to send someone.”
“I’m dispatching police and ambulance services right now.”
“Tell them to hurry.”
“They’re on the way. Stay on the line until they get there.”
The cell phone made a low-battery-hiccup, then died in my hand.
Melody coughed, spewing blood, making a choking, retching sound. Jesus, help us. She was drowning in her own blood. With my right hand, I pulled up the hem of her shirt and used it to clean her face. A thousand white-hot lightning bolts shot up my left arm with every movement, even though I held it close to my side.
“Casey.” She turned her head toward me. The moon had risen, and we could see each other clearly. “Am I dying?”
My teeth chattered. My hands shook. My skin erupted with goose bumps. “Of course not, Mel. You’re just scared.”
She made a sobbing sound, then choked. “I don’t want to die.”
“You’re not going to die. I won’t let you.” My voice sounded far away, muffled by the blood rushing in my ears, the pulse pounding in my head. “Help is coming. Just hang on.”
She sucked in air that seemed too thick for her to take in. “If I—” Her exhale made an awful, horrible gurgling sound. “If I die...” Her hand clutched mine. “Take care...” Her fingernails stabbed me like tiny knives. “...of my kids.”
Jesus, Christ. She couldn’t die! Not like this. “You’re gonna be okay.”
“I’m sorry...”
“Don’t apologize. You’re not going to die.”
“I stole Ben...”
My body flooded with heat, as if I’d just been caught in a lie. Had she known all along that I still loved Ben? That I still wanted him? But not like this. Never like this. She could keep him forever and I’d be happy for it, if she’d just keep on breathing. I wiped her face again.
“Take,” She choked, then managed a rattling inhale. “Take him back.” Her voice was a whisper, almost more thought than sound.
“Jeez, Mel. Would you please stop yacking and breathe?” She couldn’t get any air, and there was nothing I could do to help her.
Her lips moved. “Promise.”
“Okay, I promise.” I’d promise anything to make her shut up and breathe. “But you’ve got to...”
Her eyes rolled back in her head. Her body went limp.
“Dammit!” I tilted her head back, put my mouth over hers, and tried to force air into her lungs. Her cheeks puffed out. Her lungs didn’t expand. “Don’t you die!” I tried chest compressions, but with only one hand, it wasn’t enough. I tried breathing for her. None of it worked. “Dammit, Mel, please don’t die.”
After what seemed like forever, I stopped trying. Shivering in the night air, I held her limp body close, as if by holding tight I could keep her from leaving this world. “Please, God,” I whispered. “Don’t let her die.”
But she was already gone.

CHAPTER FOUR
Time stopped.
It could have been minutes, it could have been hours. It felt like a lifetime that I clung to Melody’s lifeless body and shivered so hard my teeth chattered. My ribs ached and my injured arm radiated a throbbing pain all the way up through the top of my head, all the way down to my knees. After an eternity, I heard voices yelling. “They’re down here! Down here! Hurry!” Lights arced through the night, enormous light-sabers flashing across the dark sky.
At first, I fought against the arms that pulled me away from her and lifted me out of the wreckage. I was vaguely aware of soft words and gentle hands, of being lifted from the car and strapped down to a flat surface. “Wait, no! Wait!” I flailed around, grabbed the metal sides of the basketlike contraption and struggled to sit up. “You’ve got to help my friend.” I knew Melody was dead, but some part of me hoped something more could be done to save her.
“Ma’am, you’ve got to be still.” Hands pushed me back down, straps pulled tight.
I struggled. I couldn’t let myself be taken away from her. Couldn’t leave her all alone in that crumpled mass of metal. “No! Wait. Please.”
“Hold up a minute.”
I recognized the Scottish accent before I saw him. Then my hand was in his, and I finally let myself relax. “Ian, don’t let them leave her here.”
Ian glanced at one of the medics, eyebrows raised in question. Then his lips tightened. He squeezed my hand. “Wilson is here. He helped me find you. He’ll stay with your friend, and I’ll go with you. Deal?”
Everything that happened after that was couched in a hazy blur of light and sound that never quite reached me. Carried up the hill, lifted into the ambulance, I felt wrapped in a protective layer of cotton batting, so nothing could really touch me.
Except him.
Even when the paramedics tried to push him away, he held onto my