Chapter 9
Tom
Even as Tom raced outside, he wondered if this could be a hallucination, his mind flashing back to another damp, foggy day, seventeen years ago.
The squeal of tires, and one smashing crunch after another.
The feeling in his veins was the same—that the blood had seized, even while his heart pumped hard enough to burst.
After a moment’s hesitation, he took off on foot. The crash had to be on the same bend as last time. It’d be quicker to speed-run the shortcut through the trees than take the car.
He yelled Amelia’s name, but the thick air seemed to swallow his voice. There had only been one crunch this time. She’d hit something, but she hadn’t rolled off the cliff.
He slalomed through the beech trees in the glade, with the prickly sensation of his fifteen-year-old self racing beside him.
He’d been slower off the mark back then, had wasted time trying to find his grandfather after hearing the crash, only minutes after he’d heard Connor’s car leave.
He could feel the same hollow guilt from having bitten his tongue when he should have begged Eddie and Connor not to drive to the village—he’d seen them nicking bottles from the cellar earlier that day—but he hadn’t wanted to be the uncool little brother.
He should have listened to his instinct.
Just as he should have listened to his instinct to stop Amelia from driving in the fog.
Back then, he arrived at the crash site to find his grandfather and Duncan already there.
A neighbor had gone for the police and ambulance.
Deep in the gully across the lane, Connor’s little Vauxhall Corsa was hardly recognizable as a car, like a giant had crushed it into tin foil.
But by some miracle, the boys were alive.
Connor sat on the stony ground, head in hands, rocking, confused about where he was and what had happened, blood from a cut on his cheek coating his face and neck.
Eddie, dazed and smeared with blood from a head wound, rambled about a ghost. Duncan wrapped his scarf around Eddie’s wound, Eddie fighting him off.
This time, when Tom burst through the tree line onto the gravel road, the tire marks didn’t head straight off the cliff, not quite.
They led to a young oak overhanging the chasm, in which Amelia’s white hatchback was neatly caught, just its rear wheels touching the ground.
Beyond, the gully was filled with fog. A sickening groan rose—from the tree or the car, Tom couldn’t tell. The car lurched forward.
“Amelia!”
He sprinted across the road, his body fueled with heat and cold at once.
As if it had heard his warning, the car halted, teetering.
The air was eerily quiet but for a rhythmic groan and scrape as the car swung slightly in the tree.
Either the engine had stopped of its own accord or Amelia had turned it off.
As Tom reached the back of the car, it shunted forward again.
Several branches gave, in a rapid-fire of snaps.
Tom had helped Duncan plant a row of oaks after the first crash, to save a repeat, but they were still little more than saplings. It wouldn’t hold for long.
“Amelia!”
What if she was unconscious? Knocked out by the steering wheel? He’d have to crawl in and pull her out, while not unbalancing the car and sending them down the cliff.
He heard a muffled cry. Amelia, calling his name.
He inhaled with relief, getting a hit of burnt rubber and fresh dirt.
He could make out her shape in the front seat.
She was pushing against the driver’s door—pointlessly, seeing as a large branch was flush against that side of the car.
But if she opened the passenger door, she’d go straight down the cliff.
“Amelia, don’t move! The door isn’t going to open, and the other side’s not an option. We need to get you out the back.” He tried the boot, but it was either locked or jammed shut. Adrenaline crawled over his skin, but he forced his voice to remain steady. “Is the handbrake on?”
He heard a ratcheting sound as she yanked it up. It wouldn’t help much, but if locking the rear wheels gave even a little traction…
“Can you open the boot?” he called.
“The what?”
“The trunk. Open the trunk.” He heard a click as the mechanism tried to engage, but the boot wouldn’t budge. “It’s not working. I’ll have to smash the back window, get you out that way. Can you start making your way back here?”
“I don’t want to unclip the seat belt! What if the car falls?”
She had a point. If the car dropped, it would likely go nose-first. Eddie and Connor hadn’t been wearing seat belts and had been thrown clear, but only after Eddie broke the windscreen with his head.
The boys had been lucky the car had bounced right over them.
Relatively lucky. The chances of even that small mercy happening twice had to be slim.
The tree groaned.
“Tom?”
“If we can get you to the back, it’ll help shift the center of balance. Leave the seat belt on for now and slowly start reclining the seat. That’s it,” he called, as he saw it move. “Nice and slow.”
“Okay, it’s all the way back.”
“Now, unclip the seat belt and scoot super-slowly back onto the rear seat.”
He scanned the ground for something that would smash the rear window, settling on a hefty rock.
“Tom? I’m in the back seat!”
The car keened and tipped forward. Amelia screamed. Tom caught the terrified expression on her face for a second before the back of the car flipped into the air, putting the hatch out of his reach. Shit. The car was facing almost directly downwards.
“Tom?” He had to focus to hear her over the blood pulsing through his ears. “I could probably fit through the side window, but the electrics aren’t working. I can’t lower it.”
Even the side window was a little out of his reach, but she was right, it was their best chance.
“I’ll tr—” He shut his mouth. She didn’t need to hear the word “try.” People in life-or-death situations needed certainty, even if there was none.
“I’ll break it,” he yelled. “Cover your face. Cover as much of your skin as you can.” He lined up the rock.
If he calculated this wrong, the force of his blow would be enough to send the car plummeting. “Amelia?”
“Yeah?” she answered thinly.
“Clip the seat belt on, just for a few seconds, while I do this. The middle one, if you can get to it.” That would allow her the most protection, should this not work. “If the car starts falling, ball up as much as you can.” He gave her a couple of seconds. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
The car scraped against the tree and tipped up again—only a few inches, but enough to lift the side window out of Tom’s reach.
He’d have to climb the tree to get near enough.
He tore off his coat and tossed it onto the road, pulled on a branch, testing it, then hauled himself up.
It swung under his weight. Now that he too was hanging over the cliff edge, he could see just how little held up the tree—a few spindly branches and a couple of tautly stretched roots that hadn’t yet torn away.
The drop was shrouded in milky fog, but he knew only too well how far it was to the bottom.
“Tom?”
“Just getting into a better position.” If this didn’t work, he’d never forgive himself, if he even lived to regret it. “Cover yourself. Here goes!”
He plunged the rock into the middle of the passenger window.
Only a tiny crack appeared. The car creaked, swaying, while the branch below him heaved like a seesaw.
He slammed the rock again, the impact reverberating up his arm.
The glass splintered. Another hack and he had a hole, but the car was starting to swing like a pendulum.
He smashed away the jagged edges, then pulled off his jumper with one hand and used it as a glove to brush away the rest.
“Amelia? Unclip, and ease over, slowly.” As much as he wanted to whip her out, a quick movement could unhinge the little stability they had.
A gunshot-like crack sounded, blanking his hearing, and the car dropped a meter.
Tom slipped sideways off the branch. Amelia gave a muffled yelp.
He grabbed for the nearest handhold—little more than a bunch of twigs—and hauled himself back up, his abs at full strain.
Amelia’s forearms were out of the window. She was trying to haul herself out.
“I’ve got you,” he said, gripping her arms. He locked his thighs around the branch and pulled.
She slid towards him. Another crack, and with a muffled groan, everything fell—him, Amelia, the car, the tree.
His stomach lurched. Branches and leaves and dirt flew up all around, like gravity had glitched. A stick scraped his side.
His back slammed onto a hard surface, pain radiating down his spine. His head smacked backwards, triggering an instant headache. Amelia thumped down on top of him.
But holy shit, they were on the ground and clear—and not the ground at the bottom of the gully. He went to speak but Amelia skidded off him, careening towards the drop.
“My foot,” she yelled, juddering along on her front. “It’s caught.”
Tom jumped up. Her ankle was wrapped up in leafy branches that were fast sliding off the cliff.
The car and the tree looked like they were defying gravity, frozen in mid-air above the chasm like a Roadrunner cartoon.
Tom dived at the foliage, tearing it away, as Amelia twisted around, clawing at it.
Tom yanked at the last branch and it gave, releasing her, before it whipped and hissed over the cliff.
Stumbling, he managed to grab her waist, and they rolled away from the edge.
Unable to tear his gaze from the tree and the car, Tom flailed for Amelia and held her tight. The car angled up in slow motion, grunting like it was in pain, until it was face down, impossibly suspended, waiting for the starting flag of some vertical car race.