Chapter 119

Zoe POV

“Did you grab the paint thinners?” I asked Ava as we lined up at the hardware store. She rummaged through her basket, holding up the tin, and I nodded. We were revamping some of the outdoor furniture and had stopped on our way to do the school run to grab a few things before picking up the kids. “You think it will get it off?” Ava asked, reading the instructions on the back of the tin.

“Yeah, it’ll work. Just don’t get it on your skin, it burns like a b!t*h,” I tell her while we go through the self serve. I take the tins from her and quickly scan them. We pay for our items before walking back out to my little car.

We were loading everything into the trunk when I heard the screech of tires on the road. We both look over our shoulders to see a red van speed past at alarming speeds. Both of us watched the commotion on the main street before the car left our sight. “Geez! Bloody twit. It’s a school time,” Ava says, shaking her head. I sighed, quickly closing the trunk before climbing into the driver’s side. I had just started the car and Ava was climbing into the passenger seat when my phone rang. It was Marcus checking if I was still right to grab the kids, I told him we were on our way to the school before quickly hanging up, and he promised to meet me at home.

We clip our seatbelts in and pull onto the road. We were driving past the reserve toward Valen’s pack where the school is when the roar of an engine was heard coming up fast behind us. Ava looks behind us and groans.

“It’s the dd from the hardware store,” she says, turning back to the front. Must be the day for idiot drivers. Going around the slight bend, I am jolted forward in my seat. My head hits the steering wheel and I vaguely remember hearing Ava scream and the sound of creaking metal when everything went black.

My head pounded when my vision returned, and pain slithered up my spine. The smell of oil and rubber reached my nose as I dazedly blinked to find I was upside down, my eyes blurred throbbed to the same beat as my head, smoke and dust filling the inside of the car from the smashed windows.