Chapter 1 #3
She grinned up at me. She always grinned. That was the thing with the last ever photo of someone. They were forever frozen in that place. I’d gotten lucky, or unlucky, because my last ever photo of Celeste was my sister at her best. Laughing and happy.
Not the Celeste of the last six months of her life, defending him, fighting with me, telling me I didn’t understand, telling me he was the one. My little sister was eighteen and certain she was in love.
“I helped a woman get closure today, CeeCee.” As I traced my thumb over the edge of the photo, rubbing where I’d worn it soft and pale, I told her about Lauren and her father. “Took thirty-seven years to give her justice.”
Somewhere outside a curlew made its long unspooling cry, the saddest sound in the bush, a sound like a woman keening, and I almost smiled because Celeste used to do the impression, badly, to scare me when we were kids.
“I promise you I won’t take that long, Sis.”
I hated that I’d made that promise dozens of times already.
An engine roared up out of nowhere.
Close and wrong and far too fast. I snapped my head around as a pale shape burst out of the dusk. A white 4WD. Driver lost in shadow. No headlights.
It slammed into me.
The impact was a bomb. Metal shrieked and buckled. The Kombi shot forward like a toy kicked by a giant, wheels skittering off the gravel, and I smashed into the dash.
Celeste’s photo tore out of my hand. Some animal part of me lunged for her even as the world became screaming metal and shattering glass.
The Kombi skidded across the rest area and hit the barrier.
The guardrail blew apart in sparks and torn steel, and the Kombi punched through like paper, heading straight for the cliff.
“No!”
The front wheels went over.
The world tipped. Black sea surged up the windshield.
I flew from my seat. The windshield burst at me and I screamed, throwing my arms up. I smashed through the glass and a thousand needles sliced my forearms as I plunged into the cold air.
The steering wheel slid past and I lunged for it. Scrabbling, clawing, my fingers caught the rim.
I held on.
The Kombi kept sliding. Metal screamed down rock, dragging me with it. I dangled through the shattered windshield, legs kicking at nothing, clinging to the steering wheel now above my head as the van grated over the outcrop.
The van slammed to a halt, nose-down, with a crunch that snapped a cry out of me.
Everything flew out the windshield.
Clothes. Tins of salmon. My kettle cartwheeling. A book exploding into leaves. A Converse sneaker. A few firefly keyrings. My life, falling into the ocean below.
Celeste’s photo fluttered past.
“No! CeeCee.” I watched her sunlit grin turn once in the air, catch the last light and then vanish into the chaos below.
A scream ripped through me. “Help!”
My shoulders burned and my grip slid on the steering wheel. My feet found only air. Far below, waves hammered the rocks.
Something caught under the van—the twisted rail or fang of stone—and wedged us short of the drop. The Kombi hung there, nose-dived over the void, and I swung below it like a pendulum.
Inside, the fairy lights still glowed. Soft and golden and stupid. A little string of stars in a van about to throw me into the sea.
My fingers were burning. My arms were tearing free. I scraped my boots over the buckled front trying to get purchase. But it was too smooth and too steep, and I got nothing. The steering wheel twitched half an inch, and a shriek punched out of me.
The van groaned like a dying animal. Metal grated on rock. Another inch. The balance tipped.
Oh God. It’s going to fall. And take me with it.
Fuck. Fuck.
The thought sliced clean through my panic. No headlights. Dead straight. No brake. No swerve.
Someone rammed me on purpose.
Somebody wants me dead.
Above the pounding surf and the blood roaring in my ears, an engine revved.
I snapped my gaze toward the road and caught sight of the white 4WD tearing away. Still no headlights, plate obscured. I caught a flash of a purple sticker on the rear window as it vanished around the bend.
“Help!” I screamed up at the empty road. “Help! Somebody, please—”
My right hand slipped.
The steering wheel twisted in my bloody hands. I clawed harder with everything I had. My left hand cramped, locked in a grip I couldn’t keep. Fire ran through my shoulders. My strength frayed.
The van shifted again. Another inch.
Oh fuck. I’m going to die.
Alone. In the dark. And no one knows where I am.
“Please,” I whispered to whoever was listening. To Celeste. To the universe that had already taken her.
“Help!”
The wheel jerked and my right hand slid again.
Don't leave Angel hanging!