know that she deserved more than this hand she’d been dealt, and she hoped that, when this was all over, she’d seek it out.
The front end of the Jeep bit into the truck’s rear tire, sending it skidding into the dirt. He corrected and spun back onto the road. There was a long scrape on the left side of the truck, but it looked superficial. She hadn’t gone in hard enough.
She caught his face in the mirror, a smirk playing on his lips. The truck began to pull away. She sank the pedal to the floor.
They thundered up the road together, her bumper just a few inches away from his but unable to connect. The Jeep was struggling to keep pace. The road worsened again, not much more than loose dirt and rubble. The shock absorbers weren’t up for the challenge, and her body rattled in the seat like a Tic Tac.
She didn’t have much time.
There was a steep bank up ahead, ringed in thick fencing. If she could squeeze him onto it, the truck might just be unstable enough for her to flip it. She needed him to be distracted enough to drop his pace, even for a split second.
Cait had gripped the edges of the seat and readied herself for impact as the Jeep approached, but when it came, she barely felt it. The truck was solid, and Adam was a surprisingly good driver, leaning into the skid without flinching before steering them back on the road. There was a steely calm in his eyes she’d never seen before, and it scared her.
Now the Jeep seemed to be fading. The engine sounded sick, like maybe the transmission was shot, and there was a high-pitched whine that she’d never heard before. Rebecca didn’t have much time to give it another try. Neither did Cait.
She glanced over at Adam. His eyes were fixed on the road, his mouth hard. Her jaw still stung from where he’d backhanded her, but pain was irrelevant now, when death felt so certain. She had to help Rebecca.
Her eyes searched the cab of the truck, looking for something she could use. Her eyes lit on a pen shoved into the cupholder between them. Her fingers twitched. Could she get to it quickly enough? If he caught her, things would only get worse for her.
Fuck it. She had nothing to lose.
She snatched the pen and plunged it as hard as she could into the top of his thigh.
The truck swerved sharply. Its pace dropped quickly so that Rebecca nearly plowed square into the back of it, but she managed to jerk the wheel at the last second to avoid the collision. She pulled level with the truck, sandwiching it between the Jeep and the steep bank. It was now or never. She caught Cait’s eyes through the window and nodded at her, once. She saw the shadow of a smile play across Cait’s lips right before she turned the wheel sharply and slammed into the side of the truck.
The shriek of metal filled the air. Rebecca watched as the truck tilted up the side of the bank and over, cutting down several fence posts, back end fishtailing wildly as he tried to correct. She saw Cait’s head snap back against the seat, her good hand braces against the dash, the dark swing of her hair as the truck began to spin.
Rebecca thought the truck might tip, but it held steady, and soon he had the wheels steering straight. But he didn’t manage in time to avoid the tree.
The piñon pine knifed the front end of the truck, metal buckling around it, the back wheels spinning momentarily in the air before crashing down to earth with a sickening bang.
Rebecca stayed frozen. She’d braked hard as soon as the truck started skidding, and now she was fifty feet behind, stopped short in the middle of the dirt track.
She cut the engine and climbed out onto the road.
The quiet was what hit her first. After the rage of the engines and the blood rushing to her ears, the sudden silence felt deafening. She could hear the soft hiss of the truck’s engine, the soft rustle of the breeze through the pines, the distant call of a circling hawk. The sharp tang of gasoline hit the back of her throat, followed by the acrid smell of smoke.
Cait’s side of the truck was scraped raw; the window had blown out in the impact, leaving behind an angry, gaping maw. Inside the