Hadley spun as JJ accelerated. He stood frozen, staring as if he couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Emma scrambled back away from him. At the last second he tried to throw himself out of the path of the car, but it clipped his hip. Not enough to do real damage at that speed, but it sent him sprawling, right against the hood of his own car. There was a crack as his head connected, and he fell to his hands and knees. He grabbed the side of his head, dazed.
“Juliette, what—” Emma started.
“Just get in!” JJ screamed at her, leaning over to throw open the door, and Emma leaped inside. JJ rammed the car into drive and floored the gas pedal, her blood roaring in her ears.
“What are you doing?” Emma demanded, finishing her thought. She turned in her seat. JJ looked in the rearview mirror to see Hadley getting up slowly, one hand braced on the hood of his car. Then the road bent, and he was out of sight.
“Hadley had the gun. Hadley had the fucking gun,” JJ said. Yellow wallpaper. White grip. Red hand. But Rick Hadley had the gun, and she’d been wrong. She hadn’t done it. It wasn’t her, and relief and fear knotted together inside her.
She barely braked as she threw them around a hard turn, tires skidding along the dirt at the edge of the road. Emma was thrown against the door. She fumbled for her seat belt. JJ yanked the wheel, taking the final turn before the bridge.
“JJ, we’re going too—” Emma said at the same moment that JJ realized where they were, how stupidly fast they were going. But it was too late.
They careened around the corner. The road kinked to the right. They kept going straight. JJ slammed on the brakes. The car jolted over the edge of the road, slammed into the already-broken guardrail with a sound of protesting metal, and then they were shooting over the edge of the drop-off, into the water below.
* * *
They were in the water. JJ must have blacked out for a moment when they hit because she woke with a mouthful of river water and Emma shouting her name.
The car had careened over the bank and jammed against a rock, with the passenger side sticking up out of the water. Emma was bracing herself in her seat, her seat belt wrapped around one arm, or she would have fallen. Water flowed over JJ’s mouth and nose, choking her. She arched wildly, trying to get above it to take a breath—
“JJ! Your seat belt. Get your seat belt off,” Emma said, sounding strangely calm. JJ scrabbled for the release. Then she was free, and shoving herself up above the water level, gasping. Emma crouched on her seat, eyes bright but steady.
“You okay?” JJ managed, coughing.
“For now. But the current’s strong, and if it shifts us, we could go deeper,” Emma said. “We’re only a few feet from shore. I can’t get my door open, the current’s holding it shut. We’re going to have to go out your window.” The driver’s-side window was still open. Through it, JJ could see the course of the river winding away from them, the water rushing past, the dark bulk of the bridge. JJ searched for headlights, sirens, any sign that someone had seen them. There was nothing.
“You still a good swimmer?” JJ asked. It wasn’t far to shore. The current was swift, but it slowed past the bridge.
“We’ll find out,” Emma said. She shifted, and a look of pain flashed across her face, her hand going to the arm that had been wrapped in the seat belt.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Let’s get out of here,” Emma said, but she said it through gritted teeth. “You first. I’ll follow you out.”
JJ hoisted herself up and out of the window, sitting on the sill a moment before swinging her legs over. There was no point trying to get her feet under her. She clung to the car to keep from being swept away and held on as Emma clambered across the seats, following her lead. Emma got her head and shoulders out, then one leg, the other foot braced against the sill.
Her weight shifted, and she let out a sharp cry. Her grip slipped, and in the next instant the current snatched her, tearing her away from the car. JJ cried out, flinging out a hand, and caught her wrist, her other hand holding tight to the car frame. JJ’s hand was numb. Her grip on the car was slipping. She couldn’t hold both of them.
JJ let go of the car in the same instant that Emma let go of her.
50
JULIETTE
Then
She is in the water. She is under it. It is rushing around her and she can’t breathe—
She is on the bridge. The night is warm but she is cold. The blood makes her palms night-dark. It pools in the creases, cracks on her knuckles when she bends her fingers. She wipes her hands against her shirt, smearing the blood across it, but her hands won’t come clean.