Brock hated it too. It was steep as fuck and had a hairpin turn at the worst part of the slope. It’d frozen hard yesterday and was now a sheet of ice where the plow had missed.
He pressed his foot to the brake, but nothing happened.
They weren’t slowing down.
They weren’t stopping.
Holy fuck! They had no brakes.
The car began to rattle on the front right side.
Shit. The tire.
They hit a bump and suddenly the car dipped on Krista’s side, only slowing down slightly.
“W-what’s wrong?” Krista asked, her eyes going wide and her knuckles turning white on the door handle.
Brock slammed his foot down. “Brakes. We don’t have any brakes.”
“Don’t kid!”
“I’m not fucking kidding, Krista. We have no fucking brakes, and the tire is fucking loose.”
They were gaining speed now. The tread on her tires was shit, and they were slipping down the ice and at an alarming speed.
“What are we going to do?” Both hands fell to her stomach now.
Brock pulled the emergency brake, and the car hitched and made a disturbingclunkand grind sound but didn’t slow down much.
He gripped the steering wheel to keep them on the road. “Fuck!”
Panic flooded Krista’s face in the dark cab of the car. “What now?”
“Now? Now we crash.”
Brock knew that if they didn’t stop before the hairpin turn, the car might notmake the turn at the speed they were going, and they’d go over the embankment. They needed to turn into the rock bluff and hope to God it slowed them down and stopped them without crushing them.
He geared down, steered into the wall and prayed.
The sound of metal on stone filled the silent winter night, only competing with the thunderous pounding of Brock’s heart as the car ripped down the hill, grating against the bluff. But it was slowing down.
Sparks and green paint chips flew from the front of Krista’s Tercel as it continued on down the hill, scraping against the bluff. There was a pile of snow bigger than her car coming up, and if they kept going, they were going to hit it. Brock only hoped the snowbank would be strong enough to sustain the impact of her vehicle and would stop them rather than just breaking apart and letting them keep going down the hill.
It was coming up. Forty feet, then thirty, then twenty. Brock held his breath. Ten feet …
Crunch.
Crash.
Smash.
Followed by what could only be described as a vehicle goingoof,the airbags goingwhoosh,a hard punch to the chest. And then everything was still. Everything was quiet.
Brock felt the airbag slowly begin to deflate. “Krista?” He took inventory of his body. Nothing hurt too badly, his limbs all seemed to work and his neck didn’t ache … that much.
A groan next to him had him turning his head and unbuckling his seatbelt. “Brock?”
His driver’s side door had taken the majority of the impact—thankfully—but now he wasn’t sure he’d be able to open it.
