No. Can Sarah spend the night?
No. Take her ass home.
But she’s been drinking! And you know how her mom is...
For fuck’s sake, Freya.
Fine. Sarah can spend the night. But I swear to God, you and I are gonna have a serious fucking talk when you get home.
She could feel her brother’s frustration through the phone, and guilt swamped her. Along with a slightly warm and hazy feeling from that stupid whiskey shot.
I’m sorry. On our way back now.
Huffing out a breath, she tossed her phone into the cup holder. She had to get them home.
She glanced at her friend. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” Sarah replied with a sigh, sinking into her seat. “My mom’s gonna kill me.”
She pulled her car into the street. “Axel said you could spend the night. I hopeyoudon’t killme, but I told him you’ve been drinking.”
“What?” Sarah shot up in her seat.
Freya held up a hand as she turned onto the two-lane highway that would lead them back to Blanchard Bay. Her eyes narrowed. The rain made the lines on the road hard to see. “I asked him if you could spend the night, and he said no. So I told him you’ve been drinking and that he knows how your mom is, and so he said yes. Wouldn’t you rather have my brother know than your mother?”
Sarah flopped her head back into the seat. “Ugh, God. My mom threatened to ground me until— Look out!”
A deer stood in the middle of the road, frozen in her headlights.
With a panicked scream, she yanked the steering wheel to the right. The car jerked and dipped as they hit gravel and then grass.
Trees filled her windshield.
Crying out, Freya pulled the steering wheel to the left. With her heart threatening to beat out of her chest, the road came into view. She tried to readjust but lost control. The car crossed to the other side of the road. Lights blinded her, and someone screamed. Her? Sarah? She wasn’t sure.
There was a deafening crash.
A tight pressure against her chest had her breath seizing. Glass shattered. Metal crunched. An awful burning scent overwhelmed her.
Her ears rang, and she blinked.
Silence.
Sarah came into focus. She was still in the passenger seat, but her head lay at an odd angle against the dash. A trickle of bloodran down her friend’s forehead. Sarah’s green eyes stared off in front of her.
“Sarah?” she whispered, her throat burning.
Nothing.
Why isn’t she blinking? Why isn’t Sarah blinking?!
Freya’s racing pulse hit panic mode, and she screamed her friend’s name again, begging her to blink.
Another deafening crash exploded, and her body was painfully in motion.
Then everything went black.
“I’d swerved to the right to miss the deer, and we went off the road. I swerved back to the road to avoid the trees but overcorrected. An oncoming pickup truck slammed into my passenger side. Everything was hazy and everything hurt. I remember seeing Sarah in the passenger seat. There was metal all around her, and her eyes were open. She looked shocked, but all the light was gone from her eyes.” Freya’s chest squeezed painfully tight, like someone was ripping out her heart, like she was back there trapped in her car. “The last thing I remember thinking was ‘Blink. Please blink.’ But there was nothing. Then another car hit us, and everything went dark.” She sniffed and swallowed past the rock lodged in her throat. “I killed her. I killed my best friend.”
