LITMIR.BIZ

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turned to look. Even though she couldn’t see anything but headlights, all of a sudden she knew.

      “That’s Stewart!” she cried, and grabbed Mack’s arm. “I swear to God, that’s Stewart.”

      “Damn,” Mack said. “Couldn’t we have this one last night without drama?”

      “Maybe he’ll go around,” Haley said.

      No sooner had the words come out of her mouth than Stewart began flicking his lights from dim to bright and back again, signaling for them to pull over.

      Haley grabbed her cell phone and dialed Stewart’s phone. He answered on the second ring.

      “What the hell are you doing?” she screamed. “You’re going to cause a wreck!”

      “Tell that bastard to stop the car. Mom sent me after you, and I’m not going home without you.”

      “I’m not going home with you, and I don’t care what Mom wants,” Haley said, and hung up.

      Mack frowned. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”

      Before she could answer, Stewart rammed Mack’s bumper.

      “Son of a bitch!” Mack yelled, and fought to keep the car on the road. “He’s crazy. He’s going to get us all killed.”

      Mack started to slow down when Stewart hit them again.

      Haley felt their car starting to skid, and then suddenly Stewart broadsided them. The shocked look on his face told her that he hadn’t meant to do it, but when their car suddenly went sideways, he couldn’t stop.

      The sound was like an explosion, and then they were rolling and rolling and everything went black.

      It was the hissing sound and the smell of burning rubber that woke Haley. Her head was hurting. She was upside-down, and couldn’t remember where she was or how she’d gotten there. Then she heard a groan, turned her head to the left and saw Mack. Blood was dripping from his head and his arm and his leg, and she remembered.

      Stewart! He’d hit them.

      “Mack. Mack. You’ve got to wake up!” she cried, then realized his leg was pinned beneath the steering wheel and a mass of crumpled metal.

      “Mack!” she screamed again, but he still didn’t answer.

      Her hands were shaking as she reached for the seat belt, and as she released herself, she dropped down with a thump, hitting her head and shoulder against the roof. After maneuvering herself around inside the confines of the crumpled car, she tried to release Mack’s seat belt, but it wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t answering her, and she was starting to panic. His leg was still caught, and the hiss of steam and smoke was getting worse.

      The phone. She needed to find her phone to call for help. She’d dropped it back into her purse. But where was her purse?

      “God, oh, God, oh, God, help me,” Haley whispered, but it was nowhere in sight. It was then that she thought of her brother again. He’d hit them! He’d caused the wreck. Surely he wouldn’t have driven away and left them. He would help.

      She crawled out through a broken window and then dragged herself up to a standing position. Within seconds everything started spinning, and she dropped back to her knees, then rocked back on her heels and started screaming.

      “Help! Help! Somebody help!”

      But the night was silent and the road was dark, and there was no one coming to the rescue. Once more she pulled herself upright, and this time she steadied herself against a wheel until the world stopped spinning. When she finally walked out from behind the wreck, the first thing she saw was Stewart’s car, smashed headfirst into a tree on the other side of the road.

      “No, God, no,” she moaned, and started running, stumbling, trying to get to her brother.

      The windows of his car were all broken, and the passenger’s side door had popped open. Haley crawled into the front seat and then fell onto her knees beside her brother. Blood was bubbling from the corner of his mouth, and coming out of his nose and ears.

      “Stewart? Stewart! Can you hear me? Why in God’s name did you do this?” she asked.

      But like Mack, Stewart wasn’t talking. In a panic, she backed out of the car, and as she did, she felt something beneath the palm of her hand.

      Stewart’s cell!

      “Thank God,” she said, and hit 9-1-1.

      “Stars Crossing Police Department. How may I help you?”

      “God … oh, God … I need help. We had a wreck. My brother and my boyfriend crashed their cars. They’re hurt bad.”

      Suddenly the dispatcher was all business.

      “Who is this?” she asked.

      “Haley Shore. My brother, Stewart, and my boyfriend, Mack Brolin … they’re both trapped in their cars. I can’t get them out, and they’re both bleeding. We’re about two miles west of town on North Hollow Road.”

      “Stay on the line with me, Haley,” the dispatcher said. “I’m going to send ambulances and the police. Don’t hang up while I do that, okay?”

      “Okay,” Haley said, and then started to cry as she ran back across the road to Mack.

      A few seconds later, the dispatcher was back on the line.

      “Are you hurt, Haley?”

      “I don’t know…. I don’t think so. I got out of the car on my own, and I’m walking.”

      “I want you to sit down,” the dispatcher said. “You could have internal injuries. Just sit still and stay on the line with me. Help is on the way.”

      Haley sank to the ground right beside Mack’s door, reached in the window and wrapped her hand around his wrist, then drew her knees up and lowered her head to keep from passing out.

      “I’m here, Mack, I’m here,” she mumbled. “Stay with me. Help is coming.”

      She was starting to crash from the adrenaline surge that had gotten her out of the wreck and across the road, and she could feel herself coming undone. Her voice began to shake, and when she started to talk, it came out in sobs.

      “Haley … talk to me,” the dispatcher said.

      “You need to call my mom and dad,” Haley said. “And Tom and Chloe Brolin. You need to tell them Mack and Stewart are hurt.”

      “We will, honey. Just sit tight. You’ll hear the sirens any minute now. Can you hear them yet?”

      In the distance, Haley could just make out the thin, high-pitched wail.

      “Yes. I can hear them,” she said.

      “You’re doing fine, Haley. You’re doing fine. Help is on the way.”

       Chapter 2

      When word of the wreck began spreading through Stars Crossing, it abruptly brought post-graduation parties to an end. The emergency room quickly became packed with Haley’s classmates, who had come to be with her.

      Judd and Lena Shore arrived within minutes of Tom and Chloe Brolin and their daughters, and the two couples sat on opposite sides of the waiting room, glaring at one another in stoic silence. Neither couple had spoken to Haley or bothered to ask after her welfare. The fact that she was mobile and alert was enough for them, even her own parents. They didn’t seem to care that she was pale and shaking and covered in blood, or that she had three stitches in her hairline, bruises rising on the side of her face and kept breaking into sobs every time another friend called her name.

      Her best friend, Retta, a short, perky blonde, was sitting with her, running interference every time someone asked too many questions for which Haley

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