I rubbed at the fogged-up windshield in front of me. “Maybe I should pull over. It’s getting hard to see.”
“Nope. Don’t pull over,” Rusty said. “Best way to cause an accident. Or end up in a ditch. Just slow down and keep going. Here.” He climbed over the front seat, got himself settled, and slid the defrost knob to full blast. “That should help.” Hot air rushed in. “Crack your window too, so we don’t bake in here.”
I did, then concentrated on the road and let out the breath I must’ve been holding. For the first time since we’d left, I was actually relieved he was there. The fogginess on the windshield disappeared in splotches above the vents at first, while the wipers squeaked a busy rhythm back and forth. Mildly cool air flowed in from the windows, and I breathed in the smell of wet asphalt and dirt that came along with it. I smiled over at Rusty. “Thanks. I don’t know why that freaked me out so much. I—”
Brilliant light ripped through the sky above us a split second before the crack of thunder that drowned out every other sound in the world. Rain hammered down even harder, in streams of water the wipers didn’t stand a chance against. Through them, all I could see was a blur of jagged lightning and streaky gray.
“Crap!” I lifted my foot from the gas and strained forward against the steering wheel for the lines on the road. “This is crazy. I can’t see anything.” But as I said it, I did see. Two red taillights right in front of us.
I slammed the brakes, and the Pala fishtailed across the highway. The steering wheel jerked wildly in my hands until I couldn’t tell if we were sliding or spinning. I froze. Braced myself. Rusty yelled something. Time slowed down, and I got that feeling again like none of it was real. Like there was no way we could be screeching through the rain in Finn’s car. Like I wasn’t just about to finish off the last of my family, and Rusty too. I braced myself for the end. And then I felt Rusty’s weight leaned over on me, his hands on the wheel with mine. He was yelling something I couldn’t understand at first, and then I did and yanked my hands from the wheel. Rusty turned it hard once, twice, three times. And then we plowed smack into something big. The force of it threw my chest right into the steering wheel and knocked the wind out of me. I heard another thud that must’ve been Rusty hitting the dash, and then everything went eerie-quiet, except for the rain that beat down angry against the roof.
11
I brought a trembling hand to my chest. Reached the other one across the seat for Rusty. Lightning flashed above us, and his hand wrapped around mine. “H—you all right?” The smack of the thunder drowned out my attempt at an answer. I took a breath, and pain rippled across my chest. Rusty’s hands felt their way up my arm until they found my cheeks, and then he was right there, looking me in the face with clear, worried eyes. “You okay? Say something. You hurt?”
A thin trickle of blood made a line down his temple from somewhere up in his hair, and I watched it, barely able to breathe.
“Honor.”
His voice, firmer this time, brought my eyes back to his, and I nodded.
“You okay?”
I nodded again, trying to answer, but my eyes went back to the blood on his cheek, and what little composure I had crumbled. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed. For all of it. For almost killing us, for the blood on Rusty’s forehead, for taking off in Finn’s car on a stupid trip . . . for the Pala being the only thing I had left of anything, because my parents were dead and my brother was dead and—
Rusty scooted closer and turned the car off. I hadn’t even realized it was still running. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. We’re all right.” I heard him suck in a deep breath, and he wrapped a solid arm around my shoulder.
I rested my head back on his arm and looked up at the tiny dots in the upholstery on the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have slammed the brakes. You said two seconds before that not to slam the brakes.” I looked over at him and brought a shaky hand to the blood moving down his temple. “I almost killed us.”
He grabbed my hands and squeezed. “That car came outta nowhere. Anybody would’ve done that. We’re fine, okay?”
I felt my shoulders relax a bit.
He sat back up and looked through the windshield. “Can’t say the same for Pala, though. I think we knocked something loose in there.”
I sat up and saw a faint but steady stream of something white rising from beneath the hood, up through the rain. “Is that smoke? Oh my god, should we get out and check it?” Lightning flickered, followed by a loud rumble.
“No.” He rolled down the passenger window and leaned out, stretching toward the hood for a second. When he ducked back in, he was soaked through, the blood washed clean from his face. “Doesn’t smell like smoke. I think it’s steam.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means we’re not goin’ anywhere for now. Not till it clears up and I can get a look in there.” He rolled his window back up, leaving it open just a crack. “We’re off the road, from what I can tell, and whatever we hit wasn’t that car, but I can’t see anything out there. Better sit tight.”
I looked out into the gray for some point of reference but couldn’t make out anything except the steady sheet of rain that now fell around us. We weren’t exactly flush with choices.
Rusty wrapped an arm around my shoulders again, pulling me in a little. “That got a little wild there, but we’re fine. All right?”