Andi’s laptop slid against her thigh, and her stomach dropped.
Something was definitely wrong.
Duke felt it immediately—the subtle wrongness in motion, the way the engine’s hum stayed steady while the road demanded otherwise.
He was on his feet before the second jolt, moving fast down the aisle as murmurs rippled behind him.
“Duke?” Andi’s voice sounded tight as she called to him.
He didn’t answer.
Jack’s hands were locked on the wheel, knuckles white, eyes flicking between the road and the dashboard. The coastline loomed through the windshield—cliffs, sky, ocean.
All too close.
“Brake failure,” Jack said, his jaw clenched. “I’m trying to downshift.”
The bus hit the curve harder than it should have.
Someone gasped.
Duke braced himself against the rail near the front, boots sliding slightly as the bus swayed. The guardrail flashed by outside—metal, narrow, unforgiving.
“How bad?” Duke asked.
Jack exhaled sharply. “I’ve got partial response. Not enough. If I can scrub speed before the next bend, we might?—”
The bus lurched again.
This time, the tilt was unmistakable.
A scream cut through the air, followed by a chorus of panicked breaths as bodies were thrown the opposite way.
Duke planted himself, one hand gripping the seatback, the other gripping the rail. His mind narrowed to angles and distance and momentum.
Too fast. Too close.
“Hold on!” Jack shouted.
The road curved sharply left.
The bus veered right.
For one suspended, breathless second, Duke saw nothing through the windshield but open sky and the violent drop beyond the guardrail.
And he didn’t know if they were going to make it back.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
Andi couldn’t breathe.
Her lungs locked, refusing to draw air as the bus tipped again. The weight shifted toward the cliff like a slow, inevitable surrender. The ocean filled the windows now—too wide, too close. Nothing but open space waited below.
She pressed her palm to the seat in front of her, fingers numb, her heart battering against her ribs so hard she was sure it would crack something.
This can’t be how it ends.
