Page 2 of My Girl to Ruin

Everything reads clean. Steady pull, steady response, nothing sitting wrong. I take it up one increment, the way I always do, and hold it there. The car holds with me.

Tyler whoops beside me, loud and delighted, and I let him have it.

“Yeah!” he shouts.

I’m already easing off, bringing it back down.

That’s when the car stops answering me.

It’s subtle at first. A hesitation in the way the car responds. My grip tightens on the wheel.

“What?” Tyler asks immediately, picking up on it.

I don’t answer right away. I press the accelerator slightly. The response lags. Not much. But enough. My eyes narrow.

“That’s weird,” I mutter.

“What is?”

The car jerks. My focus sharpens instantly, every sense locking in.

“Something’s not right.” The steering pulls. Hard.

“Lachlan…”

I try to correct it, but the car doesn’t respond the way it should. The wheel feels loose in my hands. Disconnected.

“Shit,” I bite out, fighting it, trying to regain control.

The car veers. Fast. Too fast.

Tyler braces himself, one hand gripping the door, the other slamming against the dash. “What the hell, Lachlan!”

“I’ve got it,” I say, even though I don’t.

I haul at the wheel, refusing to believe it’s failed on me. Nothing. It’s weightless in my hands. I go straight to survival, standing on the brake and dragging the shifter into neutral. It bleeds off speed. Not enough. Something catches the front end, and the car leaves the road.

“Lachlan!”

The road tilts. Or maybe it’s us. Everything happens at once.

The tires screech. The car spins. Metal screams. And then, impact.

⁎⁎⁎

Pain.

That’s the first thing I register.

It hits me in fragments. Sharp, disjointed pulses that tear through my body before I can even make sense of where I am. My head throbs, heavy and disoriented, like I’ve been dragged under something and left there too long.

Voices bleed into the darkness. Muffled. Distant.

“…lucky to be alive…”

“…significant impact…”

“…other passenger didn’t…”