How had she got here?
Vaguely, she remembered being at a party, but not much else. She couldn’t even remember leaving it. Bloody hell, how much had she had to drink?
She carefully got to her feet and brushed down her trousers – although they didn’t seem to be at all dirty, surprisingly. Something caught her eye and her gaze shifted from the hem of her trousers to something lying on the ground beside her. She leapt back, giving a gasp of horror when she realised it was a body.
Before she’d had the chance to fully register that fact, a voice murmuring her name in her ear frightened her so much that she let out a piercing scream, before slumping against Danny in relief.
‘It’s you! Thank God. What happened? Have you seen…’
Her voice trailed off. Danny’s eyes were wide with shock and he was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Danny?’
He couldn’t speak. Instead, he turned and pointed, his face looking suddenly eerie in the feeble light of what she now realised was one remaining headlight.
There wasn’t much left of the car to be honest. It was a crumpled wreck, having obviously smashed into a tree on the driver’s side. She couldn’t imagine anyone would survive that sort of impact, and peering closer she could see the vague, dark shape of what might well be airbags, and possibly someone in the driving seat.
‘Are they—?’ She broke off, not wanting to think about it. But then again, they might be alive and need help. ‘We need to get an ambulance. Where’s your phone? Oh!’
She remembered suddenly about his phone and why she’d left the party, and remembering that seemed to open the floodgates as a whole bunch of other memories started to return.
‘Lee! That’s Lee!’ she gasped, stumbling forward. ‘He might be alive!’
Danny grabbed her wrist. ‘Don’t.’
His voice was hoarse and his grip was tight.
Brooke trembled. ‘He’s… He’s dead?’
Danny nodded. ‘You’re not seeing.’
She thought he meant that he didn’t want her to see Lee’s body and had to admit she wasn’t keen to see it herself.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t look. We need to ring an ambulance.’
‘Brooke, you’re notseeing.’ He stared at her, his eyes filled with something she couldn’t quite understand. She guessed he must be in shock. Not surprising. She was feeling pretty shocked herself, but that didn’t alter the fact that they needed to get help.
‘Where’s my phone?’ she muttered. She’d thrown his back at him as they’d been arguing, she remembered suddenly. A vague image of her turning round and yelling something at him, then chucking the phone onto the back seat beside him. Thank God he hadn’t opened it.
She’d had her own phone in her bag, so where was that? In the car, she supposed. Funny, she had no memory of getting out of the car at all, but she must have done. How had she ended up on the ground? Must have fainted. That meant she might have bumped her head when they crashed. She should get checked out.
Danny’s arm went around her shoulders and she started in surprise. He’d never done that before! At any other time she’d have been thrilled. After all, how long had she waited for him to show her some sign of affection? But this… This didn’t feel like affection. This was something different.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he whispered.
Brooke put her arm around his waist, trying to reassure him. ‘We’ll be okay. We just have to get help. We need to get to a hospital, and someone needs to see to Lee…’
She turned back to the car and finally registered how much damage had been done to the windscreen. In fact, there was a large, gaping hole on the passenger side, and cracks spidered across the rest of the glass.
She bobbed down, peering through the side passenger window and felt suddenly sick.
‘Danny! There’s someone else in there! Look!’
A body, sort of twisted and tangled, and hanging over the passenger seat as if they’d been hurled forward from the rear. But there hadn’t been any other passengers, had there? Lee had been driving. She’d been in the passenger seat, and Danny had been behind her…
‘Now do you see?’ Danny asked gently.
Brooke staggered backwards, shaking her head in terror.
