As I stared down those headlights, I felt death surround me once more. But this version of it was different—a comfort, not a curse. It didn't blanket me from within; it came for me from without.

And I waited.

The lights loomed closer, an otherworldly glow at the end of my tunnel. Briefly, I wondered who would miss me. Clarissa, purely for my help in her case. Mark, maybe, as a passing thought about that woman he'd once known. But no one's life would change dramatically when that car hit.

At the last second, something woke in me. Some piece of me that I hadn't known existed, a piece that didn't want to die. My muscles coiled, launching me over the hood of the Golf, and as I skidded across the metal, I wondered who I was. Who I'd become.

I didn't recognize the instinct that had me rolling when I hit the ground, covering my head as I waited for an impact.

The crunch of metal split the night. Something hit me hard between the shoulder blades, and all the air rushed from my lungs as I toppled forward. I curled myself around my camera, protecting the fragile lens as gravel dug into my elbows.

Tires screamed. I couldn't make sense of anything except the blood on my arms, and I laid still as I came to rest just off the shoulder, in the grass.

I listened, expecting the rev of an engine or a crunch to indicate my impending doom. But I only heard the receding rumble as the car pulled away.

The silence that followed muffled everything, just like the darkness that blanketed me in the absence of the bright headlights. I clung to the idea of life as I felt its flame dwindle, the desire to live seeping away once more.

I hadn't felt that in at least a decade.

But as I sat up, my hands stopped shaking. My breaths evened, and my heart settled back into a steady rhythm. I felt myself sink back into numbness with speed that would have alarmed me if I was still capable of alarm.

I scrambled to my feet, scattering gravel as I clutched my camera. Squinting at the road ahead, I couldn't even see taillights anymore. Beside me, my blinkers still flashed, giving the scene an eerie orange glow.

"Everything okay here?"

With a gasp, I whirled around. My fingers tightened around the camera, and my index finger accidentally pressed the button. In the blast of bright white that illuminated the darkness, Ciar Cosgrave winced, only inches from the camera's flash as it went off.

"Shit." He threw his hand up, far too late. "Aren't you supposed to turn that off at night?"

I hoped he was blind. Either way, I thanked the darkness for hiding my flush. He probably thought I was a complete amateur, when in reality I'd been playing absentmindedly with the flash before I'd almost become roadkill.

"What the hell is going on out here?" Ciar asked. As my eyes adjusted to the dim streetlights, I saw his outline as it prowled around my car, inspecting the damage.

"Weren't you wearing a seat belt?"

"What?" I blinked as he rounded the hood, scanning the skid marks I'd left in the gravel. "I mean—no, not exactly...."

"You're bleeding."

I followed his gaze to my forearms. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Are you okay?"

I nodded.

"What happened?"

"Somebody tried to hit me."

He took in the damage to the Golf, frowning. "Well obviously, they succeeded."

"No. Kind of. They hit the car, not me." I tried to wipe my forearms on my jeans, leaving muddy streaks across my thighs.

His gaze flicked from me to the car and back again, sweeping once more across the displaced gravel as he put it all together. "You weren't in the car," he said. "You're saying someone tried to run you over?"

I nodded again, swiping hair out of my face. I saw his internal debate in the angle of his eyebrows. Believe me, or not? He stared off up the road ahead, as if looking for evidence to back me up.

I folded my arms and glared up at him. Was the dent in my car not enough?

Finally, he shifted his weight and turned back to me. "And you're just...okay?"

"Yeah, I told you I'm fine."

"I don't believe you."

"I don't care," I snapped. "I know what I saw. I'm not crazy."

"Whoa, whoa." Ciar threw his hands up, backing away. "Calm down, Flash Gordon. I don't believe you're just fine."

I scowled, refusing to comment on the stupid nickname and wishing the damn camera flash had caused him a little more pain. My blinkers flipped on and off like a metronome in the quiet, illuminating the side of his face and then throwing it back into shadow, over and over.

"Well lucky for you, I don't need you to." I yanked my keys out of my pocket and made for the driver's side. I paused as the dent came into view, taking up the front half of the door and a good chunk of the fender. The blinker on this side was shattered, chunks sprawled along the road, and it remained dark.

I hadn't gone more than two steps before the keys were suddenly ripped from my hand. I whirled to face Ciar with a snarl. "Give me that, asshole!"

I grabbed for them, but he just held them higher over his head.

"Would you cool it, I'm trying to make sure you don't die!"

I jumped for the keys, landed hard on his foot, and froze as his words washed over me.

Why does he care?

"You don't know what kind of damage is under that dent," he said quietly. "I'm not gonna give you your keys just so you can risk blowing yourself up if they hit something important."

"What do you care?" I finally voiced the thought out loud, shoving my face closer to his as if I could intimidate a guy half a foot taller than me.

"I care," he said, completely unaffected, "because you don't seem to."

It was a simple statement, but it felt like a paralyzing tingle radiating down my spine. A sudden urge to curl up on the ground struck me like that speeding car should have. I wanted to fall to my knees and throw my head back and scream, Finally! Someone noticed!

But it was Ciar, so I glued my mouth firmly shut.

He closed his fist around my keys and finally lowered his arm. "You're coming with—"

He stopped abruptly, his eyes on the set of assorted keychains in his hand. My heart stopped, and I was pretty sure his had done the same. I didn't have to wonder if he recognized them. The answer was in the coiled tension of his shoulders and the popping muscle in his jaw as he clenched it.

After what felt like hours, he let out a soft snort and pocketed the keys. "Just get in the damn car," he muttered.

"You have my keys."

He brushed past me, knocking me slightly as he took long, rapid strides back to his car. He yanked the passenger's door open and stalked around to the other side, refusing to look at me. "Get in."

"No." I folded my arms and eyed him, recognizing the McLaren. It was a sexy car, I'd give him that, but it didn't mean I was about to lock myself in there alone with him.

He sighed. "I don't have time for this, Maisye."

I crossed my arms, smudging blood on my white t-shirt. "Then go. I'll just call the garage you made me go to the other night."

"Okay." He folded his arms on top of the open driver's door, leaning forward as he watched me expectantly. "Do it. I'll wait."

I fumbled in my pockets for a solid thirty seconds before I remembered my phone was sitting uselessly on my kitchen counter.

Ciar jerked his eyebrows skyward, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips.

"I left my phone at home," I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

He nodded once, like he hadn't really expected anything else of me, and folded himself into the driver's seat. I listened as the engine purred to life, headlights blazing as the blinkers on my Golf flashed like a sad SOS signal. The McLaren's passenger door dangled open, taunting me.

Ciar leaned all the way across the seats, peering through the gap between the open door and the car's frame. "No one else is going to stop for you on this godforsaken road," he called.

I shuffled closer, hugging myself as I passed out of the headlights' beam. "I don't want to leave my car here," I began.

He cut me off by chucking a leather jacket at me. "Nobody's gonna steal that piece of crap."

He wasn't doing a very good job of making me want to ride with him.

"Put on the jacket."

"Why?" I demanded.

"So you don't get blood all over my seats when you get in the car."

He glared at me as I weighed my options. He was right about the other cars flying by; this was Boston, it was pitch dark out, and no one cared enough to stop. Except maybe people looking to murder the helpless lady on the side of the road.

I stared at Ciar. "Shouldn't we at least turn off the blinkers?"

With a dramatic sigh, he heaved himself out of the McLaren and stomped over to my car. I heard the locks click, and a second later, the blinkers stopped.

"Do you have a plastic bag or something in here?" he asked, looking for something white to hang out the window so passersby would know I'd been helped.

I shrugged. "I don't think so." I kept the car pretty clean; it was the only thing it really had going for it.

"We could always use your shirt."

I didn't even think about it, I just turned away and started walking. Past the back of the McLaren, back the way I'd come. I had no idea where I was and no phone to look it up, but being lost late at night in Boston was better than being stuck with this douchebag.

"Aw, come on, Flash," he called after me. "It was just a joke!"

I flipped him off over my shoulder.

I heard his aggravated sigh. "Fine, it was a bad joke. I'm sorry. Come back."

I spun around, my hair pinwheeling around my shoulders. "You know, you don't really seem like the joking type," I spat, daring him to deny it.

"Maybe you're right," he said, and for a second, his blue eyes seemed to match the night, just like his hair. "But you are gonna die if you walk along this road at night, and I still have your keys."

I hoped he felt the daggers shooting from my eyes.

"Look, you can have a death wish some other night." He strode back to his car and popped the door back open, fixing me in his gaze over the roof. "But for now, please just put on the jacket and get in the car."

I stared at him, waiting for some gut instinct to tell me to run. But maybe he was right about the death wish, because I felt nothing. Not until I slipped an arm through one of his leather sleeves and replayed his words in my head.

We could always use your shirt.

A tiny thrill pulsed from the bottom of my stomach all the way up my spine.

Nope. I shut that down as soon as it started and threw myself into the passenger's seat. Just because it had been ages since I'd experienced human companionship didn't mean I was desperate enough to settle for Ciar Cosgrave.

"Put your seat belt on," he commanded.

I did, not because he wanted me to, but because if he was going to murder me, it only seemed courteous to try not to die before he got the chance.

As the belt clicked into place, he locked the doors, pulled back into the road, and threw me a glance. Then he punched the gas, gluing me to the back of my seat. As the road ahead telescoped in with alarming speed and the mix of trees and buildings zoomed by like a vortex out the window, I felt that little tickle again.

The old me would have been afraid of crashing and burning to bits as we raced down the two-lane road, weaving in and out of traffic. But this me completely understood the appeal of the McLaren.

This was what I'd once felt when I thought about my future: excitement, adrenaline, fearlessness. A laugh escaped my throat as I tried to lean forward and the car's acceleration immediately slammed me back.

This was what it felt to be alive.

Beside me, Ciar shifted, and the engine's whine crescendoed as the car shot forward with yet another burst of speed.

If he was trying to kill us both, I was okay with it.