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“How long?” I demanded. “How long have you been lost?”
“About six hours,” he admitted. “You were so tired, and I didn’t want to wake you. You haven’t slept properly since you left Half-Moon Hollow.”
“Six hours?”
“Miranda, I know you’ve just received some upsetting … news, but there’s no reason to get overemotional.”
“Overemotional!” I yelled, shoving the door open and stomping down the slight incline to the mouth of the bridge. Wind whipped my hair around my head in a crazed crown as the rain misted over my cheeks. The headlights were warm against my legs as I stood in front of the car, throwing my arms wide. “Overemotional!”
The sky was pitch black above our heads, the moon hazy and soft through the rainclouds. I gave the rocks at my feet a vicious kick, listening as they skittered over the edge and plummeted at least five stories to the shallow water below.
“You get us lost, in the middle of God knows where, when we were only a few hours’ drive from home, and you don’t want me to get overemotional?” I yelled as Collin climbed out of the car. I flew at him, slapping my hands against his chest. I shoved at him, forcing him off the crumbling asphalt shoulder into the grass. “We could be anywhere!”
“Why are you getting so upset? It’s my deadline, not yours. Look, I’ll call Iris and Ophelia. I’ll explain that it was my fault we got off track.”
“You’re not even supposed to be driving the car, Collin!” I exclaimed. “It’s my responsibility to get us from point A to point B. If you tell Iris you got us lost because you were driving, I will be fired.”
“Miranda,” he said, his voice hoarse as he wrapped his arms around me. I struggled against him, shoving my hands against his chest to break free. “Please, stop.”
“You suck,” I hissed.
“Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t be so angry about this,” he said. “If your idiot fiancé had not just broadcast his sexual hijinks through your phone, you would probably think this was rather funny.”
“No, you getting me fired from a job, after finally finding one that I enjoy, is not funny under any circumstances!”
“It’s a little funny,” he insisted against my forehead, with a level of mirth that was completely inappropriate given our current circumstances.
Before I could respond, I heard the crackle of gravel underneath the tires. The car was rolling forward! Collin hadn’t set the parking brake, and the natural gravity of the slope was pulling it toward the ravine.
“Collin!” I shrieked.
He rounded the car, pulling the bumper and slowing the car’s progress toward certain plunge-y demise. I leaned in through the open driver’s-side window to grab for the emergency brake. Collin’s strength slowed the car’s movement, but it was still rolling. I yanked on the parking brake, only to have the lever snap loose and come off in my hand.
“Shit!”
My feet slipped on the pavement, and I slid forward through the window, smacking my face against the upholstery of the driver’s seat, just as the front tires rolled off the edge. I pushed back, hoping to balance on my arm, to find that my belt buckle was caught on the window track. I was stuck. I couldn’t pull back from the car.
Great, now I was making progress toward certain plunge-y demise.
Well, I always knew it was probably going to end like this. Though I did think that a falling piano was going to be involved somehow.
“Collin!” I screamed.
My legs dangled helplessly out the window, while I wriggled my hips to loosen the buckle. I felt a rush of air behind me. Cool hands jerked twice at my jeans, gripping at my waist. I spotted my photo journal, wedged between the passenger seat and the console, and yanked it free. Just as the car tipped forward, Collin pulled me through the window and set me on my feet. I watched helplessly as the brake lights disappeared over the edge of the bridge.
I stood, horrified and slack-jawed, as the cartoonish mushroom cloud marking the car’s descent and destruction plumed up toward us. Any moment, I expected Wile E. Coyote to walk out with a little sign that read, “Uh-oh.”
“The parking brake?” I whimpered, holding the plastic lever up without looking away from the ravine. The photo journal hung loose from my other hand.
“I may have gotten a bit bored while I was driving. And I’m not used to modern automobiles. Everything’s made of plastic now and, really, very flimsy. I may have been fiddling with the brake lever during the drive and … bent it a bit.”
“Fiddling?”
“I was trying to help!” he shouted back. “I thought that if I could take a shortcut and get us home faster, it would help you impress your employer.”
“And you didn’t see this happening?” I yelled, gesturing wildly at the ravine.
“I told you, my gift is hardly any use around you. All I saw was the possibility of us running off the road because you dropped one of those Slushee drinks in my lap, which I prevented by buying you a bottle of water. Who could possibly guess this would be an outcome?”
