“What are you doing?” A familiar voice came from behind me and I turned. Archer had come up the aisle, one hand gripping the back of a bus seat and the other extended toward me.
Like he was trying to help me.
Or he was trying to hold me back.
There was no way to tell, not right now.
But I had to trust someone.
“Listen,” I said. The wind nearly swallowed my words; I had to half shout them. “I’m going to try and reroute the bus from the driver’s cabin. If I don’t make it or if I can’t, you have to get the kids off this bus before it hits the water. Break the back door open, jump if you have to.”
Archer’s eyes widened. “We’re headed for…”
“Yes,” I said. “In less than ten minutes.”
For a moment, he seemed frozen. Then his expression smoothed out, his shoulders straightening. He nodded sharply. “I’ll do what I have to.”
“Thanks.” I gave him a tight-lipped smile.
“Good luck,” he said simply.
I inhaled, once, twice, bracing myself.
“Prefect,” I said through gritted teeth, “that coffee maker better be worth it.”
And then I stepped outside.
The hot wind hit me like a physical thing. The air smelled like burned pine and dry sun. It whipped at my hair, dragged at my clothes, roared in my ears. You don’t really understand how fast a vehicle is moving until you’re clinging to the side of one. My fingers clutched so hard to the doorframe that my knuckles ached.
I forced myself to look up from the blur of concrete beneath me. I could see the shape of the forest all around: the skeletons of dead trees, a flicker of deer as they bolted from the road, and the shimmering surface of the distant river.
I reached for the side-view mirror as I edged forward. The bus’s front was mostly flat, with a bumper that wrapped around beneath the side mirror.
I managed to put my foot on the bumper, trying to dig my toes into the small seam between metal and metal. I imagined what it would feel like to be run over by a bus and tried to quash that thought.
It’d be a faster death than drowning, at least.
Still clinging to the side-view mirror, I reached around to the front windshield. Silently hoping that I wouldn’t drop it, I jammed the window breaker against the glass. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pressed harder. For a long heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then I felt the windshield shatter. Glass tinkled all around me; something sharp grazed my cheek.
The bus hit a pothole and the world jerked. I dug my fingers into the seam of the hood. The bus jounced over another rough patch of pavement.
I held on.
There was nothing else I could do.
Finally, the road smoothed out. I used my forearm to push more of the glass away and then I hauled myself upward.
I heaved myself onto the dashboard, using my legs to propel me forward. I half dropped, half fell into the driver’s cabin. Glass crunched beneath me, biting into my palms as I caught myself.
For a few heartbeats, I couldn’t move.
Relief flooded my body, making me unsteady. I leaned over the driver, ready to examine him, and then jerked back. The stench of whiskey rolled off his warm breath.
Drunk.
He was drunk off his ass. He hadn’t been drugged. Which meant—
