Masters blows the car horn in warning — a long, angry note that pierces the rainy night.
Heedless, they keep coming, so close the entire SUV is filled with light from their zig-zagging high-beams. Relentless in their pursuit. Pushing us —faster, faster, faster —until we’re careening around the bends at breakneck speed.
With wide eyes, I watch the fat water droplets on my window slither away like translucent snakes. I hardly hear Masters yell over the pounding of my own pulse between my ears.
I can’t pinpoint the exact moment we switch over from driving to hydroplaning, our momentum too great to rein in. I can’t determine the specific sliver of time the SUV slips out of Masters’ control and sails toward the guard rail, instead of turning round the next bend. I can’t calculate the precise instant our tires leave the slippery road and spin uselessly against air instead of earth.
I just know that it happens.
There’s a horrible wrenching sound, metal against metal, as we tear through the highway divider like it’s made of foil. And then there’s nothing — no sound, no light. Nothing but the sheer, paralyzing terror of free-fall as we plummet down an embankment, into utter darkness.
* * *
When I come to, the first thing I feel is the rain, which I think must be a mistake.
How can I feel the rain if I’m still inside the car?
My eyes flicker open and I see the whole world has gone sideways. It takes me a minute to realize that’s because the SUV is lying on its left flank, wheels spinning uselessly in the air, sides crunched in like a beer can in the hands of a fraternity brother.
I blink at the back of the passenger seat headrest in front of me, feeling dazed. I’m suspended in the air, limbs dangling, my body held in place by the seatbelt against my chest. I feel another raindrop hit my cheek and turn my head to the right, up to the sky. I see the window above me shattered on impact. Rain falls freely through the open panel.
Something trickles down my temple. I reach up to wipe it, expecting water, but my fingers come away covered in bright red blood.
It matches my dress, I think ludicrously.
A distant part of my brain suggests I might be in shock, but it’s hard to focus on much of anything with the dense cloud of panic obscuring my thoughts.
A moan of pain snaps me back into reality.
Masters.
I lift my head to look for him, but there’s no one in the front seat. All I see are the deployed airbags, already half-deflated, and a gaping hole in the windshield, the remaining glass splintered and stained with red.
The moan pierces the air again. I realize it’s not coming from inside the car. My head empties of all thoughts except one.
I have to get to him.
My hands shake as they move to my seatbelt buckle. If my head wasn’t so dazed, perhaps I would’ve thought through the logistics of my extraction a bit better; as it is, I simply press the release button and drop like a stone, without even throwing out my arms to catch myself. I hit the ground with a painful thud, landing in a pile of shattered glass and twisted metal.
I push aside the agony that wrenches through my jarred wrist and ankle bones. There is no time to dwell on useless things like pain right now. I start to crawl, dragging my body over the center console, lowering myself into the ripped remains of the driver’s seat.
I am graceless, gasping; I gulp for air and grasp for purchase against the leather dashboard as I haul my frame over the steering wheel, through the jagged hole in the windshield. I spare no time trying to avoid the sharp glass shards as I worm my way out. They tear at my bare arms, catch on the long train of my dress, gouge deeply into my skin as I crawl from the wreckage on my knees and elbows.
My dress snags on a twisted bit of metal. I tug and kick and tug still harder, until it gives with a sudden rip that sends me sprawling out onto the earth in a final aching jolt. My hands hit the damp earth, steady rivulets of my blood mixing with mud as I pull a breath into my screaming lungs.
The moan comes again, fainter despite the fact that I’m closer to him.
I lift my head, searching the night, and spot him ten feet away, lying on the ground, illuminated by the headlights. I don’t think I can stand, so I drag myself to him. My own pain pales into a distant ache as I look down at my friend, lying broken in the dirt.
The first thing I ever noticed about Masters was his size. He’s a big man. A strong man. All muscle and brawn and brute strength. And yet, he seems so incredibly small as I look into his face, wiping blood and dirt and rain from his skin as best I can. His eyes are pale blue slivers, watching me.
“Kent,Kent, oh my god,” I whisper in a voice I don’t even recognize as my own. “Don’t worry, I’m here. I’m here. You’re going to be okay. Tell me where — tell me what to do. Tell me how to help.”
I look for the source of the bleeding, but he’s bleedingeverywhere— from his nose, from his ears, from his mouth. His head, his abdomen, his legs. He tries to speak and I see his white teeth are stained red.
“No use,” he gasps out, chest shuddering with the effort. Like there’s a boulder pressing down on him, growing heavier with each breath.
“What?No. No, don’t you dare say that,” I snap, crying as my hands move over his stomach, trying to staunch the flow of blood with my fingertips — a river of blood, an ocean of blood, an unstoppable tide my ineffectual hands can do nothing to yield. “You’re fine. You’re going to be just fine.”