Chapter 4
The traffic lights went dark at almost the same instant, and before Rachel could process it, the SUV died.
It didn’t fade out or give her any warning.
The dashboard went black, the engine cut off, and the power steering turned heavy in her hands the moment she tried to correct course.
They were moving at about thirty miles an hour.
Around them, other vehicles coasted into uneven slowdowns.
Some stopped too fast, others drifted too far, and drivers who had been moving normally were suddenly meeting each other at bad angles.
Rachel gripped the wheel with both hands and pressed the brake.
The mechanical system still responded, but without the engine, she had to push hard, forcing the SUV toward the right shoulder.
The vehicle fought her, heavy and slow, with every correction running through her palms. There wasn’t time to warn Sophie.
Rachel needed both hands on the wheel and every second for the shoulder.
If she spoke, she’d steal attention from the one thing that might keep them out of the wreckage.
Sophie had already gone silent beside her, and Rachel could only hope the seat belt stayed tight.
Behind them, a sedan reacted too late. Tires screamed, and then metal caught metal with a short, dense impact.
She checked the mirror long enough to see the sedan clip a pickup truck’s rear quarter panel and spin sideways across two lanes.
The pickup rocked, straightened, and kept rolling.
The sedan stopped in the middle of the road, its front end crumpled and steam rising from beneath.
Ahead, a traffic light hung dark over the intersection.
The box truck she’d seen earlier was still moving.
It wasn’t slowing, drifting, or showing brake lights.
It carried its momentum through the corridor in the lane to her left, slightly ahead and closing the distance.
The shoulder was fifteen feet away, maybe twelve, and it was the only clear space left.
Rachel measured it in quick flashes through the windshield, more by instinct than sight.
The ditch beyond it looked rough, but rough was better than the truck closing in beside them.
She tightened her grip and aimed for the narrow strip before the opening disappeared.
Rachel wrenched the wheel to the right and let the SUV drop off the road’s edge.
They hit the gravel strip hard, bounced, and the front right tire plunged into the grassy ditch.
The ditch pulled the vehicle down at an angle and threw them both against their seatbelts.
Rachel’s shoulder struck the window frame, but she kept her hands locked on the wheel until the last of their speed bled off and the SUV stopped.
The box truck passed close enough that its side mirror struck the SUV’s roof with a sharp crack.
Then it was gone, and two seconds later it hit the stopped vehicles ahead.
The impact stretched out in a long shear of tearing metal before ending in a heavier crash.
Glass burst across the roadway, metal folded, and people began shouting from every direction.
People started running in scattered directions, not away from one clear threat but toward any place that looked open.
The movement made the roadway feel even less steady, with drivers and passengers spilling out between stalled cars.
Rachel sat still long enough to breathe once and make sure the vehicle wasn’t moving.
She tried the ignition. There was no sound, no catch, and no attempt from the engine.
After two more tries, she stopped. Her phone sat in the cupholder.
She picked it up and pressed the power button, but the screen stayed black.
“Mine, too,” Sophie said.
Rachel turned toward her. Sophie stared at her own phone with the same flat expression she’d worn for most of the trip, though her fingers had tightened around the case.
The light from the blank screen showed nothing useful.
She pressed the button again, harder, as if force might make it respond.
When it didn’t, she lowered it slowly but didn’t put it away.
More sounds came from down the road. At least two more impacts followed, spaced far enough apart to mean drivers beyond the intersection were still reacting too late.
Then someone screamed, and voices rose over one another without forming anything useful.
A thin, sharp smell reached them through the vents.
Rachel recognized it immediately. Fuel had spilled somewhere in the wreckage ahead, not enough to see from where she sat, but enough to change what came next.
Rachel got out and moved to the back of the SUV.
She used the physical key to unlock the rear hatch and pulled it open.
The first-aid kit was wedged under a folded emergency blanket beside her overnight bag.
She grabbed it and looked back at Sophie.
“Stay in the car,” Rachel said. “I mean it.”
Sophie opened her door anyway. “I know.”
Rachel didn’t spend another second arguing.
With the kit tucked under her arm, she moved toward the wreck at a fast walk that turned into a run as the shape of the crash came into focus.
The box truck had folded a small sedan and climbed onto a minivan.
The sedan was beyond any immediate help, and Rachel registered that hard fact before forcing herself onward.
The minivan had been hit from the side. Its passenger compartment had collapsed inward on the right, the sliding door hung loose from its track, and the rear quarter panel bent over what used to be the second-row seats.
A child was screaming from inside the wreck, and the sound cut through the surrounding noise.