Urine. They’ve managed to drench the seats in urine. I immediately think I should call for someone to come and pick me up, but then I realize one way or another my car will have to make it home for clean up and repairs. And the cost of a tow truck is the last thing any of us need right now. I have prom to save up for after all.
I reluctantly press my fingers to the seat, trying to determine if it’s still wet. There’s a lingering dampness that makes me want to puke, but I force myself to accept that I have to get in this thing and drive it home. I brace myself and pull my sweater over my head to lay it across any part of the seat that will have to touch my body. As I get in and start it up, I’m quickly close to vomiting again as my fingers clutch the gearshift and land in something wet and sticky.
“Chewing gum,” I groan as I pull my fingers back to look. “Disgusting…But I guess not the worst thing they could have stuck under there.”
The longer I sit in the car, the worse the smell gets, and I’m terrified to find out what other kinds of surprises are waiting for me in here. I have to talk myself out of calling someone all over again. Sticking to my guns, I flick away the chewed-up gum, using the passenger seat to wipe any lingering bits of it away. The interior is already fucked anyway. I check a few other spots where nasty things could be planted and finally put the car into reverse.
It’s disgusting, and maybe I’m being too stubborn, but driving this car home is almost like another act of defiance. Once again, they tried to stop me, but they won’t. I refuse to let them, even if it means driving home sitting in urine-soaked seats. Knowing them, they’re hiding somewhere nearby just to watch my mortified reaction. I can’t resist flipping my middle finger out the window as I speed off.
6
Chapter Six
I’m feeling pretty smug in my determination to drive my destroyed, urine-soaked car home. Nothing can stop me. I’ll show those Elites they can’t bring me down. I turn my stereo up full blast and speed off down the winding roads away from the school.
I get a little overzealous and hit a curvy hill too quickly, shrinking my feeling of invincibility. The car handles around it fine, but I decide to bring it down a notch and press my foot to the brakes to slow down a little before the next sharp turn.
I’m startled by the give of the pedal. It sinks straight to the floor with no reaction in the car. Without thinking I raise my foot and lower it again, but to my horror, it drops in empty motions over and over and my car doesn’t even slow down a little. My heart pounds as the realization sets in that I have no way of slowing down and I am flying downhill, quickly approaching a series of sharp turns that I’ll never make at this speed.
Panic brings tears to my eyes, blurring my vision, as my foot slams to the brake as hard as it can. Each time, there’s just an empty push of air. The breath in my lungs becomes just as empty as I fully accept that the brakes are useless, and I hit another abrupt bend in the road. I barely manage to navigate around it before there is another one. The car is going way too fast and starts to shake with a frightening rattle.
With a loud bang that vibrates through my entire body, it flies off the edge of the road, shredding against rocks and trees. It comes to such a sudden stop that my head slams into the steering wheel just before the airbags go off.
The airbag slams my body back against the seat with a stinging force that leaves me completely disoriented. I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest and my head is dizzy and aching. I blink through my blurry vision and try to look around, realizing that at least the car is stopped. But the hood is smoking and squealing, and I can hear the drips and pops coming from underneath, letting me know that it’s completely fucked.
I lean forward to try and get out, but the entire car creaks and moans, wobbling in the air with the shifting weight of my body. My vision quickly grows sharp as I look straight ahead with wide, terrified eyes. The car is wedged over the side of the cliff so far that the front two tires are hanging in the air. I try to move again, more slowly this time, and the whole thing see-saws, threatening to go flying off the edge.
My hands are shaking as I sob to myself for a second, still in shock. I have to get out of here. Being more careful this time, I try to sit
up enough to get a grip on my seat belt, but the car groans and shifts forward again, this time creaking forward even more. I barely hear my own scream as it lunges toward the cliffside with a steep drop down over giant rocks and trees.
There’s a loud crack as the car barely catches on something underneath, maybe a tree. Whatever it is, it momentarily stops it from rolling any further. But the car is at a full downward tilt now and wobbling more with every tiny movement I make. Even the faint weight of my labored breaths seem to be pushing it closer to the edge.
I slowly and carefully inch my hand toward the seat belt buckle, but like the brakes, nothing happens when I push down. The belt is still pulled tight across me from the crash, but the release button does nothing no matter how hard I frantically push it. My urgency causes me to get sloppy, not being careful enough about how much I’m moving, and the car screeches forward another few inches. I freeze in terror.
Now without me moving at all, the car continues giving into gravity an inch at a time, as I accept that the seat belt isn’t going to unbuckle. I take the risk of trying to wiggle out of it, but it’s too tight across my lap and I only make the car teeter even more. A loud snap echoes around me, causing me to take a deep breath as if I’m about to crash into water. But there’s no water below. There’s just a steep drop to certain death.
Still deaf to my own screams and cries, even though I feel them burning through my chest, I try to come to terms with the fact that I am about to die.
A gush of air from my left snaps me out of it just as a pair of hands fly into the car around me and make desperate attempts to loosen the belt enough to rip me out. With a sharp tug to my arms, I feel the seat leave the bottom of my thighs. I go flying through the air, tightly wrapped in someone’s arms, while the sound of whining, twisting metal cries out from a few feet away.
When we hit the ground, I shoot straight up, not fully aware of what’s just happened. The cracking leaves beneath me give the assurance that I’m back on solid ground again, but I look up just in time to see the car slide over the edge and crash down below with a terrible sound.
My chest heaves with adrenaline as my eyes shoot up, finding Coach Granger’s face towering above me.
“Are you okay!?” he huffs.
But I’m speechless. My eyes tear up again, and I am completely unable to wrap my head around anything that just happened enough to form words. It all happened so fast, but in eerie slow motion at the same time.
“I could have died,” I murmur breathlessly as I stare at the spot where my car was lodged just moments ago.
“What the hell were you doing going so fast!?” he scolds, his voice booming with anger.
In shock, I have to ask myself the same question at first. Then it all comes flooding back to me. The Elites. They did this. I thought they had just graffitied my car all to hell, but they obviously tampered with the brakes too. And possibly the seat belt.
“Malcolm,” I stammer out finally through sharp breaths. “And the others. They keyed and slashed my car. The brakes…they…”
Suddenly I’m overcome with the urge to bolt to the edge of the overlook to try and see my car. Coach Granger races behind me, holding my arms to keep me steady on the edge. It takes what feels like forever to finally spot it. It’s so far down it’s almost a spec, and what I can see of it is completely crushed and folded in on itself. Just as I feared when I was still trapped inside and dangling there, I would have never survived that fall.