Second frame: in the split second that the back tires skidded ever closer to the edge, the car began tilting backward and the bottom dropped out of her stomach, as if she were on a roller-coaster ride. Through the rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of the big pickup truck behind her and the man inside, and a surge of pain hit her so hard that her skittering heartbeat faltered under the impact. He hadn't wanted her. If only he had. If only he'd held out his hand to her when she begged "Take me with you." But he hadn't, and he never would.
Third frame: the back tires suddenly found traction, digging into the crumbling edge and sending great fans of dirt and gravel arcing outward. The steering wheel wrenched to the side, turning with a life of its own and tearing out of her white-knuckled grip. The car shot forward, and took her over the edge. Maybe she screamed; she might have screamed the whole time, but she was aware only of an all-encompassing silence.
Fourth frame: the car seemed to hang in midair for long, agonizing seconds. She looked across the gap to where the road curved in the second half of the S, thinking inanely that if this were a movie the car would make that jump and land on the pavement on the other side, jouncing wildly and maybe losing a bumper but otherwise miraculously unscathed. But this wasn't a movie and the moment ended. The weight of the engine pulled the front end down, and she saw the trees below rushing up at her like spears from a missile launcher.
Just split seconds, slices of time, yet her vision was crystal clear, her thoughts ordered and full. This was the end, then. She had thought about death; unlike most young people, she had met death when her placenta separated during her twenty-second week of pregnancy. She had almost died; her baby had died, died while still inside her body, then cut from her body still warm and motionless, taking all of her dreams and agonizingly intense love with him. He'd been so tiny, so frail and limp and turning blue even as she sobbed and begged God or whoever to let him live, to take her instead because he was innocent and she wasn't, because he had all the possibilities of the world lying before him while she was worthless, but that must not have seemed like a good trade because her baby hadn't lived.
She had, in a way. She'd gone through the motions. She'd survived, because at the core of things she was a survivor even though there would never be another baby for her. And she had never loved again, never felt anything for anyone until a little over a week ago, when he, the nameless he, had broken through her shell and touched her.
And now he'd killed her.
The first impact popped the windshield out like a false fingernail. If the car had had an air bag when it was new, it no longer did, because no big white pillow blew up to smack her in the face even though the force of impact was like a huge body blow that shut down all her senses except for a very small sense of awareness that lingered and held on because holding on was such a part of her.
Not having an air bag didn't matter, though, because it wasn't the first impact that killed her. It was the second.
"SHIT!" SIMON SAID violently as he slammed on the brakes and fought the truck to a tire-smoking halt, shoving the gearshift into the park position and leaping out while the truck was still rocking. "Fuck!"
He paused briefly on the crumbling road edge, judging the best path to take, then went sideways down the sharp slope at a breakneck pace, half kneeling here, grabbing a bush there, digging his heels in when he could. "Drea!" he yelled, though he didn't expect an answer. He paused briefly to listen, and heard nothing other than what was almost a vibration in the air, a sensation rather than a noise, as if the violence of the impact still reverberated.
The drop was too long, and there were too many trees. When a car took on a tree, the tree usually won. Still, maybe she wasn't dead; maybe she was unconscious. People survived car wrecks every day, even those that looked unsurvivable, while one that seemed not much worse than a fender bender would pop someone's spine and that was that. It was position, it was timing; hell, it was luck.
He couldn't explain why his heart was pounding and his stomach felt as if it were filled with ice. He'd seen death many times, up close and personal. And most of the time he was the cause. The transition was fast, the blink of an eye, the flight of a bullet, and that was it: lights out. No big deal.
But this didn't feel like no big deal. This felt like-God, he didn't know what this felt like. Panic, maybe. Or pain, though why he'd feel either of those was beyond him.
He pushed through scrub brush, lost his footing, and slid the last twenty feet on his ass. The car was to his right, half-hidden in broken tree limbs and bushes, a heap of tangled metal from which dust still floated. Broken glass from the headlights and taillights was everywhere, shards in red and white and amber, glittering in the sun. One wheel had come completely off, the tire exploded by the force of the impact. Other pieces of twisted, sheared metal lay here and there.
He reached the rear end of the car first. He could see the top of her head, just above the headrest; she was still in the seat. The driver's door was completely gone, and he could see her left arm dangling limply, blood slowly dripping from her fingertips.
"Drea," he said, more softly.
No response. He shoved through the brush and wreckage until he reached her side, then momentarily froze.
God. A pine sapling had come through the windshield-or rather, where the windshield used to be-and impaled her chest. She was sitting upright only because she was pinned to the seat, which was already soaked black with her blood. He reached out his hand, then let it fall. There was nothing he could do.
A breeze fluttered the trees around them, and a few birds sang their evening songs. The heat of the setting sun burned his back and shoulders, and bathed everything in a clear golden light. Details were crystal clear, but oddly detached. Time was moving on around them, but he felt as if they were enclosed in a bubble where everything stood still. He had to make certain, for himself. He leaned half into the car, reaching out to feel for the pulse in her neck.