Burn (12 page)

“I’m going to care, and you’re going to care when things go wrong.”

“Nothing is going to go wrong.” I place my hand over his and bat my lashes.

Gage pulls over, and we switch seats.

“Just straight home,” he says.
 

OK, so he’s not that enthused with the idea.

“Home—got it.” I drive to the intersection where we would usually make a right, and turn left instead.

“
Skyla
.”

“What? I’m taking the long way.” I stop abruptly as the light turns yellow.

“Geez,” he says, bracing himself against the dashboard. “Ease into it, will you?”

“You
wanna
go to Devil’s Peak?” It feels so freeing to be behind the wheel. I can go anywhere—do anything.

“No. You might accidently drive us over the edge.”

“Then let’s go to the beach.”

The light changes, and I pump the gas a few times, sputtering the truck forward in a series of staccato jerks. Then something loosens in the pedal, and it’s almost like the car is driving itself.

It takes about three good miles before Gage looks over with a mischievous half smile.

“I don’t know what happened,” he starts, “but you’ve improved drastically. I think I might actually start to breathe again.”

“Told you it’d be fine. I’m totally getting the hang of this.”

The pedal depresses beneath my foot, and the truck slides into the opposing lane. The truck speeds up unnaturally, and I pass up three minivans in a row and glide right in front of them and back into the proper lane.

“Holy shit!” Gage digs his fingers into the dashboard. “That was an incline,
Skyla
! There is no way you could have seen if there was a car coming.” He lays a hand over the wheel. “Pull over.”

My heart races feverishly as the gas pedal sinks beneath my foot again. The light at the intersection turns yellow and I try to pump the break, but the accelerator is sticking.

“Something is wrong.” I try to steady the wheel, but it twists and turns, rotating powerfully beneath my fingers as though
its
got a mind of its own. “Oh my, God!” I close my eyes as the car sails into the intersection just as cross traffic begins to speed into the street.

“
Skyla
!” Gage takes off his seatbelt and tries hopping over on top of me to gain control of the wheel.

I look up in time to see the whites of someone’s eyes just as a dark green Hummer slams into the corner of the hood and sends us spinning out of control. I grab a hold of Gage by the shirt and try to hang onto to him. Another car plows into us just behind the passenger side and stops all movement. Gage explodes through the windshield, through a million tiny fragments of pebble-sized glass, and rolls over to the hood of the Hummer. A trail of blood fills the interim.

“Gage!” I scream, as I snap off my seatbelt. I try to open the driver’s side door, but it’s jammed. Blue bits of glass litter the seat as I crawl over and get out of the passenger side. “Gage?” It comes out a startled cry as I try to reach his bloodied body.

I’m numb—the world feels as though it’s shaking. A light rain begins to pelt me, and I can’t feel a thing.

His face…oh God…his face!

 
Splinters of glass glitter off his forehead, his cheeks. Blood trickles from a thousand different places, covering his flesh completely, despite the rain’s best effort to wash it all away.

“Can you hear me?” I say it quieter than intended.

Gage lets out a soft moan and tries unsuccessfully to sit up, only to land back on the hood with a hard thump.

“Don’t move!” I hear somebody shout. A woman pulls me to the side.

Sirens cut through the air, as a steady pulse of red and yellow flickering lights blink through the night like a seizure.

I move towards Gage as the air around me turns an ashen shade of grey. I can feel myself falling. The asphalt comes in quick—then the world, and everything in it, disappears.
  

***

 
 
I struggle to open my lids, the shock of commotion around me is drowned out by a banging headache that pulsates through my ears—it all floods back to me.

“Gage?” I sit up fighting a wave of nausea.

“You OK?” A lady wearing purple-rimmed glasses and a worried expression tries to stop me from getting up.

Gage is being lifted onto a gurney. I can see his eyes moving around frantically.

“Gage!” I bolt over, filled with relief. His face is still covered with pink swirls of blood that dilute with the rain.

“I’m OK.” He groans as they load him into the ambulance. I don’t wait for anybody to ask if I want to come along, I just hop inside and take a seat near the back where they position his head.

“I’m so sorry. I swear I lost control.”

“Incoming!” shouts the EMT as he flexes another body on a gurney into the ambulance.

“I’m not hurt.” A boy around our age raises his hand. His face is cut, and there’s blood all over. “You driving that car?” His expression darkens as he bores into me with an accusing stare.

I don’t say anything, just sit
there
wondering how many ambulances are going to be filled and if I’ve managed to kill anybody in the process.

“This is my girlfriend,” Gage hitches his thumb at me. “She was just learning to drive.”

“Female drivers, no survivors.” He swipes the blood from his mouth. He looks back at me and runs his eyes up and down quickly. “Pierce
Kragger
.”

Gage and I exchange glances.

Oh my, God. I almost killed another one.

“My dad’s a lawyer. He’ll fix it so you’ll never want to sit behind the wheel again.” He gives a little laugh before lying back down. “He’s good at keeping idiots off the street.”

The fact that I killed his brother sails through my brain and I excuse his rude behavior.

Gage reaches back and touches my hand as the ambulance begins to wail down the street.

Did you say you lost control of the wheel?
He asks.

“And the gas and the brakes,” I say out loud. I don’t care how insane I look to
Pierce
or the EMT sitting at the far end.

I’m starting to think this wasn’t an accident
, Gage says.

I look over at Pierce lying there—Holden’s brother.

Just what are the odds?

Chapter Seventeen

Survivor

“Well, you’re a pair.” Dr. Oliver walks into the hospital room as Gage and me inspect
ourselves
in a hand held mirror. I quickly replace the scarf around my neck.

“Look at you.” The horror jumps off his face as he takes in his son’s intensely sliced up features. “The intern says it’s all superficial with the exception of your shoulder.”

“He has a concussion,” I add. Not that I should be adding anything. I should be running for the exit—subtracting myself from the equation. I wouldn’t blame Dr. Oliver for wanting to throw
me
out a window.

Emma and Logan come in winded. Her hands fly up to her mouth as she lets out a wild gasp.

“What happened?” Logan’s anger with Gage has clearly dissipated—although I wouldn’t be surprised if it reprised itself in my direction at any moment.

“I didn’t see him coming.” Gage groans as he attempts to sit up.

“Nice try, but the police report says it was a female driver.” Dr. Oliver tilts his head to the side expecting an explanation.

“I think the truck might be haunted,” I say. It’s true.
 

The three of them stare back at me as though I had just slapped them all in unison.

“Something was definitely off.” Gage scoots in and clasps my hand. “One minute she was stuttering down the road, and the next thing I knew she was ditching in and out of traffic at eighty miles an hour.”

God—was I doing eighty?

A great look of sadness comes over Emma as she collapses her hands up near temples. “It may not have been her,” she whispers, “but it was because of her.”

***

In a rare and dangerous moment, Logan offers to give me a ride back home.

“Your aunt hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. I thought she was going to cry when she apologized for like the hundredth time.”

“I know, but that’s because she’s too nice to say what she really means,” I pause. “I almost killed her son.”

“You didn’t.”
He smoothes his hand over my knee.
“If you want, I’ll teach you how to drive.”

“You will?”

“Yeah, I’ll take you to the Black Forest one day, there’s a nice clearing. The only thing you’ll be remotely capable of hitting is a tree.” He flexes a mock smile.

Nice—great time for humor. Then it occurs to me that plenty of people get killed each year by ramming their cars into trees, and I’m perfectly capable of including myself in that statistic.

“There’s a party at the bowling alley Saturday night,” Logan says, passing my house and pulling in alongside the evergreens that stand guard at the base of our street. The moon is covered in a heavy vale of storm clouds, and if it weren’t for the fact Logan’s truck is white, we’d blend perfectly into the shadows. Chloe chose a lousy color for his truck.

“Sort of like an after party to Ellis’ Halloween bash?” That was stupid. Ellis’ party is on Friday.

It feels awkward here with Logan. I haven’t been with him alone like this in so long, it feels unnatural.

“
Lexy
invited me to go on Halloween,” he says.

“And you’re going to do it?”

“I’ll just meet her there.” He shakes his head and looks despondent out the window.

A surge of relief pulses through me.

“That party at the bowling alley?” He picks up my hand and pulls me towards him. “It’s private.”

“Oh, another
Lexy
event?” Just add it to the list of growing horrors.

“Itights very private.” He gives the impression of a wicked grin.

“Oh, for me. Of course, I’ll be there.”

“If you want you can hang out after your shift while I close up. Then we can start the party.” The contours of his face are laced with shadows—they define him, make him look strong, hard as marble.

My heart picks up pace. I’m not sure what kind of party Logan has in mind, but I’ll definitely be hanging around to find out.