now—without even glancing in the rearview mirror, accelerating enough for me to feel glued to my seat. Blood pulses even louder in my ears and I turn to Tyler for help, but he’s oblivious. I can see enough that the needle is well clear of seventy. It feels like eighty. Ninety. Oh, God.
This wouldn’t even technically be an accident. He’s doing this on purpose. Chills explode all over me, at war with the heat of terror that’s making me sweat.
“Josh …” My voice cracks. What the hell was I thinking getting in this car? I wasn’t thinking—not at all. I should have thought about the possibility of an accident. Me, of all people. I just forgot.
I breathe slowly and look out the window at a rush of browns and red autumn oaks, surely the fastest I’ve ever witnessed scenery passing when not in an airplane.
Everything blurs with the first sting of tears, and I curl my toes hard to fight the fear bubbling up inside me.
Dystychiphobia. Maybe I have it as badly as my mother.
We’re flying now, but the car’s so smooth it’s impossible to gauge our speed. I look anyway, leaning to the side to make it obvious I want to know how fast we’re going.
“Just passed three digits, babe,” Josh says with a broad grin, weaving around much, much slower cars.
“Hell yeah!” Tyler hollers, slamming his hand on the back of Josh’s seat. “Stomp that thing, dude!”
I manage a ragged breath. “Please, please, slow down.”
He just laughs. “You can trust this car.”
But can I trust the driver? Panic wends through me, wrapping my chest in bands of pain, a wholly different kind of suffocation from what I feel with my mother.
“Dubya-V-A!” Tyler calls out over the loud music. “We have crossed into beerland, my good man.”
“Screw beer,” Josh says. “My girl drinks the good stuff, right, Kenz?”
I can barely talk. My knuckles are white on the seat and I’m staring straight ahead.
“Hey, come on.” He taps my arm, making me gasp.
“Watch what you’re doing,” I warn.
“It’s cool.” But he doesn’t slow down. “This is fun, Kenzie.”
Fun. Fun? I feel something snap in my head when I turn to him. “How is this fun? Two girls have died in the last forty-eight hours from accidents—two girls I’m on a list with—and you’re driving a hundred?”
“And ten!” He leans over. “Kiss me.”
“Watch the road!”
He glances at it for a split second, then back at me. “Kiss me!” he hollers over the deafening music.
Anything to make him look back at the road. I lean over and give him a peck, and instantly his hand curls around my head, pulling me harder into his mouth. Our teeth crack and I can barely hold in my scream as I feel the car accelerate and veer to the left, then the right, the wheel being controlled by a man paying absolutely no attention to the road.
“Give ’er tongue!” Tyler hoots, clapping his hands.
Nausea and horror collide in my chest, but Josh has a death grip on my head, smashing our mouths together. We’re careening all over the highway and all I hear is one long, endless wail of a truck’s horn as Josh jerks away. We both whip around to face front, inches—no, a centimeter—from sideswiping an eighteen-wheeler in the next lane.
Josh flings the wheel, jerking the whole car to the left, inches from an SUV. I let out the scream I’ve been holding in, automatically covering my face and eyes and bracing for certain death.
“Son of a bitch!” he cries, then rights the car and gives the truck driver the finger.
Tyler whoops and slaps the back of Josh’s seat. “Hell yeah, man! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”
My pulse is hammering so hard I can barely hear over the rush of blood in my head. “What are you doing?” I shriek at him. “Trying to kill us?”
Josh throws his head back and howls. “I’m invincible, baby!”
I glare at him, stunned by his stupidity and the thought that I ever imagined this idiot was attractive. “No one is invincible,” I say softly.
He doesn’t hear me. He and Tyler are reliving the thrill of their brush with death. But he’s slowed down to a relatively reasonable eighty miles an hour while I will this joyride to be over.
My heart finally starts to settle as he glides onto an exit ramp, still going way too fast, but I do believe a car this well made can handle the turn. Holding on to that hope for dear life,