Chapter 361: Don’t Let Anything Happen
The shadow of death fell over them in an instant.
"This is bad!"
The driver’s face paled. Utter terror flooded his eyes, and his heart leaped into his throat, threatening to burst from his chest.
He gripped the steering wheel with a death grip, veins popping on his arms as he wrenched the wheel with all his might.
The tires shrieked against the pavement as he tried to swerve away from the behemoth hurtling toward them.
But the truck was too fast and too close. The blinding high beams made it impossible to see. There was no time to dodge it, and nowhere to go.
CRASH—!!!
A deafening boom shattered the night. The shriek of twisting, crunching metal tore through the quiet of the Mid-Autumn Festival night.
The truck’s immense force slammed into the right side of the car, sending it skidding sideways.
The car’s body crashed heavily against the guardrail. The windows shattered, spraying countless shards of glass throughout the cabin.
At the moment of impact, all the airbags deployed. The massive inertia sent the cabin into a violent frenzy of shaking and jolting. The seats groaned under the strain as loose items were thrown everywhere.
In that perilous moment, Adrian Lancaster didn’t hesitate for a second. He instinctively threw his arms out, turning his body to shield the children and Wren Sutton between his chest and arms.
He arched his spine, taking the full force of the truck’s impact with his back. He pressed himself tightly against his wife and children, refusing to give an inch.
Even as the immense force made his bones crack, Adrian Lancaster never flinched.
After a few seconds of dizzying, chaotic noise, a dead silence fell.
All that remained was the unnatural groaning of bent metal, the tinkling of glass fragments hitting the floor, and the sound of the night wind carrying the scent of blood—a chilling, horrifying combination.
"WAAAH!"
The violent crash had woken the sleeping Owen and Nina.
The two children’s faces were pale with fright as they burst into tears. Their cries, filled with terror and helplessness, were heart-wrenching in the wrecked cabin.
Fortunately, their father had shielded them so completely that neither child had a single bump or scrape. They were entirely unharmed.
Wren Sutton had also been held tightly in Adrian Lancaster’s embrace. However, the inertia from the impact was so violent that her forehead hit the back of the front seat, leaving a red, swollen lump.
Flying glass shards had cut several long gashes on her arm. Blood slowly seeped out, staining her sleeve.
Other than that, she had no other injuries.
The sudden car crash, the earth-shattering noise, the blood and chaos filling the cabin—an immense panic seized Wren Sutton.
Her face was ashen, drained of all color. She trembled violently, her teeth chattering. Her mind went blank; she was completely stunned, unable to process what had just happened.
In the driver’s seat, the driver’s legs were pinned by the badly mangled car door. His leg bones were twisted at unnatural angles. Warm blood trickled from his forehead and the corner of his mouth, running down his cheek and staining his collar red.
His head lolled limply to one side, his eyes shut tight. He was deep in a coma, his fate hanging in the balance.
Adrian Lancaster’s condition was even more horrific.
He was still in the same position, shielding his wife and children. His upper body was hunched forward, his arms wrapped tightly around the children and Wren Sutton.
The truck’s impact had left his right shoulder deeply caved in; the bones beneath the fabric were clearly shattered.
A vicious gash on his temple, cut by sharp glass, gushed a steady stream of thick, warm blood. It flowed down past his brow, his jaw, and his neck, dripping drop by drop onto his shirt, soaking the fabric on his chest and spreading into a large, glaring patch of crimson.
His eyes were squeezed shut, his face as pale as a sheet. His lips were colorless, and his breathing was so faint it was nearly imperceptible. The rise and fall of his chest was too shallow to notice. He had fallen into a deep coma, and it was impossible to know if he would live or die.
Even unconscious, Adrian Lancaster had not loosened his protective grip on his family. He remained frozen in that position.
!!!
Wren Sutton stared at the motionless, blood-soaked Adrian Lancaster. She was completely frozen, as if in a trance. It felt like the blood had turned to ice in her veins.
Her heart hammered in her chest. Trembling, she reached out to touch his arm. Her fingers met warm, sticky blood, and the heat was so intense it felt like it burned her fingertips.
"Ad... Adrian Lancaster."
Wren Sutton’s throat tightened as if something were lodged in it. The faint taste of blood filled her mouth, and her voice was a choked sob.
Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, splashing onto the back of Adrian Lancaster’s bloodstained hand.
An agonizing pain stabbed at her heart, making it hard to breathe.
"Wake up..."
At that moment, a bone-deep terror, the likes of which she had never felt before, washed over her.
Wren Sutton had never been so scared in her life. She was terrified that the man before her would fall into a sleep from which he would never wake, terrified that she would lose him forever.
"Adrian Lancaster, please, don’t let anything happen to you. Please wake up..."
Wren Sutton cried out his name over and over, completely ignoring her own injuries.
"Wake up, Adrian Lancaster. Don’t scare me like this."
"Adrian Lancaster, wake up, I’m begging you..."
Her mournful cries echoed in the wrecked car.
After what felt like an eternity, the piercing wail of ambulance and police sirens grew closer, shattering the peace of the Mid-Autumn Festival night as flashing lights cut through the darkness.
Paramedics and traffic police arrived quickly. Taking in the horrific crash scene, they immediately began a race against time to rescue the victims.
They struggled to pry open the mangled car doors. One by one, they carefully moved the victims into the ambulances: Adrian Lancaster, gravely injured and unconscious with faint breathing; the comatose driver; and Wren Sutton, who was lightly injured but emotionally devastated, along with her two frightened children.
With sirens blaring, the ambulances sped toward the nearest hospital to begin emergency treatment.
Meanwhile, the traffic police began a thorough investigation of the accident scene, and the test results came back quickly.
The truck driver’s blood alcohol content was far over the legal limit. It was a case of drunk driving.
At the time of the incident, he had not only run a red light but was also speeding excessively. Due to multiple serious violations, he was determined to be fully responsible for the traffic accident.
However, no one expected that the truck driver had been killed on impact.
When his body was pulled from the wreckage, it reeked of pungent alcohol. His clothes were in disarray, and he showed no signs of life.
The police immediately ran a background check on him.
He was an ordinary long-haul truck driver with a simple social circle, no unusual connections, and no criminal record.
The accident scene bore no suspicious marks, no subtle clues suggesting it had been deliberately orchestrated.
The skid marks, the collision trajectory, the blood alcohol results—all the evidence clearly pointed to a sudden, accidental traffic incident.
「...」
In the shadows of a street corner a hundred meters from the crash site, an inconspicuous sedan was parked.
Its body was completely swallowed by the thick darkness of night. The headlights were off, the engine silent. It was like a silent black stone, fused with the night.
The car’s interior was dark and sealed. A few slivers of moonlight leaking through a crack in the window barely managed to outline a vague silhouette inside.
The faint light fell on the rearview mirror, faintly reflecting half of a woman’s face.
Her eyes and brow were hidden in deep shadow, her expression unreadable. Only the smooth line of her jaw and the slight curve of her lips were visible.
The curve was callous and cold, carrying a hint of secret delight and a chilling, sinister air.
Claire Bennett sat quietly in the car, motionless. Her gaze passed through the front windshield, fixed on the distant accident scene, which was now ablaze with lights and filled with the clamor of voices.
The red and blue lights of the police cars flashed alternately in the night. The sounds of frantic footsteps, cries, and shouts drifted over.
Like a detached spectator, she watched the meticulously planned "traffic accident" with cold indifference.
’You got lucky today, Wren Sutton.’
’But we have all the time in the world. I refuse to believe you can get away every single time.’
A moment later, the sedan’s engine gave a low hum, and the car pulled away without a sound.
Its wheels rolled over the pavement without disturbing anyone, gradually disappearing into the blackness of the night.