—EXCERPT FROM REECE DAVIES’ SOCIAL MEDIA
Reece tore pastanother warehouse and made a sharp right to cut across a parking lot with a concrete mixer and three eighteen-wheelers. A Smart car had about seventy horsepower to a Hellcat’s seven hundred; he was never going to win a head-to-head race. His only hope was to lose his pursuer.
His phone was ringing in the center console. He ignored it, his tires squealing as he wove around a sandbag pile and took another corner at a frankly unsafe speed, popping out on a four-lane road lined with strip malls. His stomach swooped as he had to pump the brake pedal twice—which, what the hell, he checked all his fluids and wires weekly at minimum—but then they caught as they were supposed to. Thank God for small mercies; he drove on.
His phone was ringing again. He again ignored it, as up ahead, the industrial area was giving way to shops and traffic lights. He had to make a choice: suburban streets that would grow more crowded with shops and residents, or the feeder highways that eventually led to I-5. He winced, and then chose the ramp, skidding under an overpass for a sharp left and then up onto the highway.
He cut across the lanes to drift behind an eighteen-wheeler, keeping pace to hide his tiny car in between SUVs in the lanes on either side of him. He glanced in his rearview mirror to see if he could spot the Hellcat’s headlights.
Nothing but midrange imports, so far as he could tell.
The ringing of his phone yetagainwas very loud as he let out a small breath. He took the ramp for I-5 north toward downtown; as the interstate spread out, he slowed to match the semi in front of him as they crested a hill.
And that was when his brakes gave out completely.
Reece’s eyes went wide.
He jammed his foot down on the brake, which went to the floor without slowing the car in the slightest.
“Shit.” He pumped it again, the brake moving uselessly through the air. “Shit,shit.”
The road was turning downhill and he was trapped between the SUVs, rolling too fast toward the back of the eighteen-wheeler. Sucking in a breath, he jammed his foot down on the accelerator and jerked his car through the tiny opening in front of the SUV on his left.
The SUV honked but Reece ignored it. At least he was out from behind the semi, but now he was going even faster, cruising downhill at seventy miles per hour with no brakes.
He ran through his options in a panicked list. Nothing but concrete blocks on the left; if he hit them, he risked careening over them and into oncoming traffic and could end up killing someone else in a head-on collision. If he pulled his e-brake, it would slow the car but possibly lock his tires and send him spiraling out of control, again risking a crash and hurting someone else.
There had to be a way off the highway without hitting anyone else.
Red taillights were lighting up around him as cars slowed. More honks split the air as he swerved around a Prius going only sixty in front of him and cut off a BMW in the middle lane. Fuck. The shoulder on his right was also full of concrete blocks—was there a goddamn stretch of I-5 thatwasn’tunder construction? He could steer into the concrete and scrape his car along the side, slowing himself with friction, but still too much potential for causing an accident if someone rear-ended him. Maybe he’d get an opening in the blocks and could hit grass, roll his car, no risk to anyone but himself—
There was a new horn, loud and long, and then a souped-up engine opened up somewhere behind him, even louder than the Hellcat had been.
Reece’s eyes widened as a black truck flew past on the left and then cut sharply in front of him, filling his vision with the lights and tailgate of an F-150.
His voice came out as a strangled whisper. “Evan?”
Then Reece’s phone rang again, and this time, he grabbed it, glanced for a split second at the Caller ID he knew he’d see, and hit speakerphone.
“Evan.”
“Don’t. Hang. Up.” The F-150 stayed directly in front of him, matching his pace and leaning on the horn so that cars moved out of the way. “Status of your brakes?”
“Gone.” How the hell did Grayson know that? Where the hell had he come from?
“Stay behind me.” Grayson’s drawl was as calm and flat as ever, as if they were chatting on Reece’s couch, not flying toward downtown Seattle with no way to stop. “When do we get a good exit?”
“No exits,”Reece said immediately. Too many curves and stoplights, too many chances to hit other cars, other people. He wracked his memory of airport drop-offs. “We might get a grass shoulder at some point, but no telling for how long before the construction starts up again. And we’re heading toward downtown, there’ll be even more cars, more construction, and I could hurt someone—”
“You’re not going to,” Grayson said, steady and still calm. “I know your empathy is sending you into a panic attack at the thought of other people in danger, but you’re too good a driver and I’m between you and everyone else. We’re gonna get you stopped. It’s gonna be okay.”
Grayson’s voice filling his car was the North Star Reece hadn’t realized he needed. His panic was easing enough for him to concentrate on Grayson’s words. He was right; if traffic came to a sudden stop, Reece would crash into the bed of the truck, and no, he didn’t want to hit Grayson’s truck at seventy miles per hour, but there would be a whole bed between them. No one else would get hurt.
They worked a path over to the far-right lane, cars moving out of Grayson’s way or the two of them finding pockets to weave around slower cars. Reece’s knuckles were probably white in his gloves, his hands fused to the steering wheel.
Finally, the concrete blocks gave way to a guardrail. The hillside was steep on the right; once the guardrail ended, he could get his right-side tires on the grass and the friction would help, as long as he was careful not to go up the hill and flip his car. “Here. We don’t have much space.”
He put on his turn signal, and Grayson did too, and together they moved into the shoulder. The guardrail ended, and Reece put his right tires into the grass, but the road was sloping downhill and he wasn’t slowing. Still too fast for the e-brake; he might lock his tires and completely lose control.
