“Stop, stop.” I hold my hands up, as if that would convince him. “Find the buttonthenpull!”
He follows my instructions with no success. “It’s fucking broken.”
“The brake. You have to brake first.” Why am I even telling him?
“Break what?” he yells, landing both fists on the steering wheel and setting the horn off again.
“No, use your foot. The right pedal. No, left! Left pedal!” I yell, grabbing my head. I don’t even know how to drive.
He hits the brake and shoves the car into gear. When it doesn’t go anywhere, he swaps his feet. The car lurches forward with a roar of the engine. I block the door from shutting on me when he slams on the brakes.
“You’re crazy. Get out,” I beg.
He plays with the pedals a few more times, driving forward and stopping short repeatedly. I follow along beside the open door, trying not to get knocked to the street when he discovers reverse gear and flies backward after getting stuck in neutral.
I crouch down next to the passenger seat so I can see him better. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
He stares straight ahead. “Get in.”
“Wait! I brought teva,” Milo says, holding the door open. “Come on, Eli. Let’s go back.”
Even his calming drug of choice doesn’t sway him. “No. Get in the car, Never.”
I groan and jump inside, pulling the door from Milo’s clutch. “These things are lethal.”
“Good. Let’s find Kelter.” Eli hammers the pedal, learning to steer as he goes and accelerating with no regard for staying alive whatsoever. I suppose that’s not a concern forhim.
I cling to the car, one hand with a death grip on the armrest, the other clutching the door as if it might swing open. “You’re supposed to stop for the red lights!” I scream. He nearly collides with a gray truck, swerving at the last second and almost taking down a street sign. “Eli! Stop the car!”
“Tell me where he lives.” He grips the steering wheel. “He’s blocking me.”
“Blocking you? How? I doubt he went home. He hates that place. That’s why he was always with me.”
A spiteful laugh erupts from his chest. “Sure it was. Where?” He turns the wheel in fast motion, hand over hand as if he’d done it a million times before. We spin through the middle of an intersection.
“Back that way! Blue house. Slow down!”
“I can’t!” he yells, emotion slipping past his cold front.
“Car! Car!” I holler as he drifts out of his lane and speeds toward the oncoming traffic.
A vision replaces the scene around me.
He swerves, but it’s too late. We slide sideways into another car. The door crunches inward. Metal bends. The sound—it’s deafening. Glass rains over us. I don’t scream, not even as we roll. Once. Twice. And a half. Not even when I noticethe piece of steel frame through my stomach, the endless gush of red. Eli takes me in his arms as death cradles me close, and I’m not sure if his cries are from the pain I cause him… or because it’s the very last touch.
I return to his maniacal laugh and the sharp turn of the car, but the look on his face matches the anguish I felt. My senses are on fire. The scent of burning rubber stings my nose, now unreasonably strong, the streetlights overly bright. My head bangs against the window at my side from the momentum. “What are you doing? You’re going to kill us!”
He brakes hard, screeching to a halt in the middle of the road. I plant both hands on the dashboard, hysteric breaths clobbering my lungs.
He assesses me, the angles of his face knifelike. “I wouldneverrisk your life like that. My reaction time and control are beyond what you can imagine.”
“You’re insane.” The intensity catches up with me, tears spilling down my cheeks. “Move before we’re hit!”
He stomps the gas and swerves again in time to avoid being rear-ended.
“Pull over!”
“Don’t you want to find Kelter?”
