“Can’t you take it easy on him? He is my oldest friend.”
“He’s breathing, isn’t he? How much easier do you want me to take it?”
“Easier than that,” I whine.
“Then stop touching him,” he snaps.
I roll my eyes and give up.He’s impossible.
I stare out the windscreen as Mason drives down the countryside road, holding my hand hostage, at ninety miles an hour. Bushes whip past on both sides, scraping the black metal sides of the car like ghostly fingers clawing at us. My pulse races. I try to count my breaths, inhaling through my nose and exhaling out of my mouth while my eyes sting—frozen on the dark road ahead.
My nails dig into my palm until it hurts. Until they break the skin and something warm and wet coats them.
My heartbeat thunders, ringing in my ears, getting louder and louder.
“Dad, just let me drive already.” Daniel’s voice breaks through my consciousness.
“Mum…” I croak, my head sliding from the window where I’d been drifting off. I stomp on Dan’s foot.
“Dan, let Eva sleep, please,” Mum scolds.
“She’d be sleeping at home if Dad wasn’t taking us on anotherscenicdetour through England,” Daniel mutters, retaliating with a kick to my shin.
“I know where I'm going,” Dad insists.
“Yeah? Do you? Because we're twenty miles off the A1.”
“What?” I shoot upright, blinking the fog of sleep away. “Dad, please tell me you're using the sat nav?”
“Of course he fucking isn’t,” Daniel huffs.
“Language.” Mum and Dad look over their shoulders.
“Richard.” Mum’s voice drops as she leans toward Dad. “Maybe it's time to turn back. It clearly isn't here.”
“What isn’t here?” Dan and I echo.
“Please tell me we are not looking for another fucking broken abbey.”
“Hell no.” I shake my head. “I am not going on another history tour, Dad. You’ll never find anything in the dark anyway.”
“Both of you,enough!” Dad barks, then peers through his window, slowing down.
My vision’s still bleary, but I catch him leaning toward some dark path on the roadside. A tall farmstead stands at a distance.
Then out of nowhere?—
Headlights burst near us, tearing at my pupils, like looking at the eclipse with naked eyes. A scream rips from me, the sound muffled against the screeching tires, colliding metal, and shattering glass.
18
MASON
I don’t knowwhat changed. Nothing, as far as I can tell.
The earth didn’t tear open. The sky didn’t fall. A meteorite didn’t fucking hit us.
Then what the fuck changed so drastically in the last thirty seconds that has her pulse racing? Why are her eyes glistened? And why does she look like she’s not even here?
