As well as Clint’s motorcycle crunched against the railing.
“Michael, stop!” I shrieked in his car. My voice filled the space around us as he came to a grinding halt. I ripped my seatbelt off and slammed out of the car, rushing toward the edge of the bridge. My heart leapt into my throat. Tears burned the backs of my eyes. I stumbled over to his bike, taking in the broken rearview mirror and the bent handlebar.
But, all things considered, it looked intact.
“Clint!”
My voice echoed off the trees and into the darkness of the water below. The metal barrier was bent. Fractured. Bowed, in some places. Then I saw the tire tracks right in front of the bike.
“They were here, Michael! They were here!”
Michael jogged up to me. “I’m checking the woods. Call the police.”
“Michael, what if he’s—”
“Just do as I’m telling you to do, Rae!”
I swallowed hard as I watched Michael rush for the woods. He darted into the trees before I turned my eyes back down toward the water. I didn’t want to approach the edge. Flashes of the nightmare I always had before school came rushing back to me. My arms flailing as I fell over the edge. Darkness overcoming me just before I woke up. The smell of smoke. Of burnt rubber, singeing my nostril hairs.
Only this time, I wasn’t sure if the smell was phantom, or real.
“Clint!”
My voice cracked before it gave out. I threw myself over the railing, gazing down into the darkened expanse below. I looked up at the sky, the starry sky that always permeated my worst nightmare. And as my eyes fell back down to the water, my stomach flipped over on itself.
A nightmare come true.
“Clint! Are you down there?”
My pathetic voice did nothing but hiss as I cupped my hands over my mouth. I heard Michael running around in the woods, calling out for Clint in the distance. Tears rushed down my cheeks. My hands shook. They gripped the edge with all their might, and I didn’t know what to do. I knew he was down there. Had he been washed away by the current? His dead, lifeless body, floating down river until his jacket snagged onto something?
I heard Michael trotting up to me. “He’s not in the woods. And if he is, he’s not in a position to call out for me. I don’t hear a car anywhere, either. Those guys must’ve buzzed off.”
Yeah. After they ran him off the road.
“Did you call the police?”
Holy shit. My phone. The light on my phone.
I ripped my phone out of my pocket and turned on the flashlight. I heard Michael scoff as he shook his head, but his eyes fell over the railing, too. Down into the deep, dark abyss of the raging river. I turned the flashlight on my phone up as bright as I could get it, then shined it down onto the water.
Michael sighed. “It’s at least a twenty-foot drop.”
“You think that’s enough to kill him?”
He paused. “I don’t really know, Rae.”
I flashed my light against the water as Michael stepped off to the side. I heard him talking into his phone. Saying something about ‘a prior call’ and ‘needing an ambulance.’ His voice faded away after that, though. Because the second my light fell onto Clint’s body on the side of the river, my voice reached another fucking planet with the octave it leapt into.
“He’s down there!”
I took off running, only for an arm to wrap around my waist. I felt Michael pulling me into him as he continued talking on his phone, trying to give directions to whoever the fuck was on the other end of the line. I heard him talking about tire tracks, and a car of guys. A bike on the bridge and a body in the river. I cried out for Clint, raking my nails against Michael’s bare skin. But, despite the pain I knew he was in, he didn’t release his grip.
“Rae, you can’t go down there. It isn’t—Rae!”
I growled. “Let me go.”
“Not on your fucking life. I’m not losing you, too.”