Hiraeth

Chapter 23: The Attack

"Are you sure?"

I nod. "Yeah, I need to clear my head."

Bryan was insistent at first but I finally convinced him. I want to drive back to Kaius's mansion alone. I need alone time to think over what I just discovered.

Most importantly, how I'm going to face him. How do I tell him how I found out? Do I have to tell him about my plan to try and break the bond?

As I get into my car, I don't even look around me. I am too focused on my mind to care about the world.

Mindlessly, I pull into the road and start heading in the direction I need to go.

If I tell him, will he be mad? He did tell me that I have a way out but breaking a bond is so much bigger than just leaving.

I pull onto a road without even looking to see if Bryan and Mr. Harper are still following in the other car.

What will he think of me? I went behind his back. No, wait. What else was I supposed to do? He wouldn't tell me anything. How will this change us from how much we have already changed?

Biting my lip I glance into the mirror and watch for Mr. Harper's car.

"Shit."

I lost them and I don't know for how long.

I feel the phone in my pocket begin to buzz. It must be Bryan trying to see where I went.

I lean forward in my seat with one hand on the steering wheel. From my new position, something catches my eye in the mirror.

The glint of something silver in the back seat. In the split second that I notice it, I see that the silver blade is connected to an arm.

An arm of someone hiding in the back seat. I was too preoccupied to notice them.

Before I can react, the blade slips under my seat belt by the buckle and slices through the belt with ease.

It all happens so fast. I act on instinct and gab my elbow into the face of the masked stranger. They yell out in pain and I feel my lose seat belt slide across my chest as I notice what is happening on the road.

Without thinking, I wrap my hand and wrist with the seat belt and slam on the breaks, hoping to lessen the impact.

A large black van is hurtling towards my car from the left. It crashes into me and I feel my body jerk towards the windshield.

The assailant must have cut my seat belt, hoping to make me fly out the windshield upon the planned impact.

My body flies forward but the seat belt wrapped around my wrist stops my body from going through the windshield. I feel and hear a loud we crack as my wrist twists at an odd angle.

My scream is muffled by the sound of the car sliding to a halt.

I open my eyes and look around me. I am laying on the dash, pressed against the barley intact windshield, my wrist in a twisted mess with the cut seat belt.

I scream out a moan as I unwrap the seatbelt that has cut into my broken hand.

Sliding off the dash, I look into the back seat to see that the stranger is still there but limp. I'm not sure if he is dead or unconscious.

One thing is clear, whoever planned this attack didn't plan it well. They wanted it to seem like a car accident but didn't account for the evidence of fowl play, aka the cut seat belt and the stranger in the back.

Who would want me dead so badly but not plan it out very well?

I push open the passenger side door, the side that was not hit and being blocked by the now still black van.