Starr came to consciousness with a start. She was confused for only seconds, she sound of her daughter crying rushing everything into place. The car teetered and rocked as she carefully maneuvered herself around and examined what exactly she needed to do to save her child. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins as she carefully moved into the backseat of the car. The balance of the vehicle shifted and she held her breath and prayed.
"Cole!" she shouted as she unbuckled the belts and clips restraining Hope's crying form. "Cole!"
Cole woke more slowly, but with a more immediate understanding of the situation. He turned and tried to look at her and their daughter, but couldn't. "Starr. Starr is Hope okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, she's okay." Starr answered as she held and soothed her child. The car was unstable and she wasn't sure any of them would survive, but in that instant she was relieved.
That feeling didn't last as Cole screamed in pain in the driver's seat. "Starr. I'm stuck. My leg is pinned and I think it's broken. Can you get Hope out of here?"
Starr's breathing hitched at the implication of that statement, but began looking around desperately. She had planned to put something through the window and toss hope out into the snow if she really had to. Hope was more important than her own life. But there was nothing she could do it with except her own body, and she was reluctant to release Hope to do it.
There was no other choice however, and Cole was already losing consciousness again. "Starr, save Hope."
Her heart beat fast as she whispered reassurances to Hope and placed her in her car seat. "Don't move baby." she said as she wrapped a blanket around her arm and started pounding on the glass. The glass didn't budge and the pain radiated through her entire torso, but she kept pounding. After a few desperate minutes she saw a light on the road and began praying once again. "Please, find us, please, god, let them find us."
Tears were stinging her eyes and she pounded all the harder on the glass, now hoping to grab attention. She screamed for help and her desperate cries mingled with the hysterical ones of her daughter.
A face appeared outside the window and the muffled voice told her to cover the baby. Starr hurriedly grabbed the jacket on the other side of the backseat and covered Hope's head, burying her face in It as well as she heard the glass begin to give, finally.
Michael yelled for Dante to hurry up and get off the phone. He dropped the rock he was wielding with both hands and began clearing broken glass out of the way. His hands were bleeding by the time he made enough of a hole to get someone out of. Dante hurried over and tried to pull him back from the crumbling earth of the cliff, but he brushed him aside. "Just help me."
Starr didn't even think as she shoved first the jacket and then the blanket her arm was wrapped in out of the window. She grabbed Hope and began putting her face up and feet first out of the window, yelling for one of the men to take her.
Michael yanked his arm out of Dante's grasp and helped pull the little girl, maybe 4 years old, out of the car. She was crying as he shoved her into his brother's arms and told him to grab the blanket and jacket and get her back to the road.
Dante obeyed his little brother reluctantly. While he was glad to help save these people, he was concerned for Michael. He only wished the younger man would trade places with him. He knew that wouldn't happen though, Michael was determined.
Starr looked at Cole and then the hole in the window. If she got out of the car, it would go over and Cole would most likely not survive, but she didn't know if they could get him out before the ground finally gave way and they both went over.
She reached forward and slapped Cole's face until he woke up. "Cole, please, wake up!"
Cole was groggy, but he knew what was happening the moment he heard Hope's distant cries and the creaking of the metal of the car. The vehicle swayed a bit as Starr shifted back against the backseat.
"Starr, get out."
"I can't Cole, you'll die." Time seemed to stop as her words filtered though. The tears were evident in her voice.
"It's ok Starr. This is why I survived the shooting. I needed to be the one driving so you could live." It was corny, and bullshit, but he took comfort from the words. He had gotten extra time, and he could save her.
"That's stupid." She said, and he almost laughed.
"It doesn't matter. You need to get out of the car. We're slipping again, and I'm not getting out of this."
Michael was trying to wedge something, anything he could grab, under the nearest back tire to slow the slide, but the whole cliff edge was going quickly. He jumped back up and heard this last part. "I'm sorry, but he's right, you need to get out if you can. Your little girl needs you."
It's a fog after that. She remembers the glass ripping into her lower back and legs as she is pulled out. The pain of her elbow as she is yanked forcefully back. She sees the car slip away and the glow of the explosion, but her own screams drown out anything else and then there's nothing but black.