Page 265 of The Fall
And there it is, Hayes’s Escalade, black and patient under the lot lights.
I unlock the doors with a chirp; doors thump open. Hawks whistles, twirling an imaginary lasso as he leaps up onto the running board. “Take us away, Kicks!”
The team piles in, a tangle of elbows and chirps and laughter. I take the driver’s seat, set the belt across my chest, and for the first time since Hayes said the word limo, the ground under me steadies. Blair slides into the passenger seat with the easy athletic certainty of a man who belongs wherever he lands. His hand drops to the console and finds mine, palm-to-palm, fingers lacing. He’s always been able to read the fault lines inside me. “Let’s go,” he says.
The engine turns over smoothly, and our headlights wash the night. My hands grip the wheel, knuckles white before we’ve even left the garage.
Their futures stretch before us, mine to protect.
We ease out into the night, a car full of hockey players moving away from the bright blaze of the arena. The city streams past in ribbons of neon and shadow, filling up with fans in Mutineers jerseys celebrating our playoff berth. My reflection merges with Blair’s in the windshield.
I run every possible route in my head, reading the grid of the city the way I read angles on a power play. The path we took last time was straight downtown and then left, crossing the bridge as the bay held its secrets underneath.
I turn right, slide my thumb across the wheel. One, two, three conscious choices, every detail a coin flipping through the jaws of fate.
Hayes plays DJ. Hollow sings along. Hawks starts telling a story about a playoff celebration in major-junior, something about a mechanical bull and too much tequila.
Red lights stack up. At each one, I tense, bottling the urge to punch the gas and sprint off into the dark.Don’t look crazy; don’t let anyone take the wheel from you.I want to turn into the night and drive until the road ends, run us all to the edge of the country. Would that work?
“Okay, seriously.” Hayes leans forward between the seats. “Did you get replaced by someone’s grandmother? What’s with the driving?”
“Shut up.” I bat him back and accelerate up to the speed limit.
Ahead is a tangle of orange cones, construction crews getting started with the night’s work. Fuck.
The universe has walls and I feel them closing in. I search the side streets, hunting for an escape, a route that keeps us from the bridge. Instead, I hit a one-way street, a dead end, another one-way. This night is relentless, correcting every change I make.I am funneled onto a path, and every way forward filters us toward the bridge.
This cannot be the only way. Let there be a breach; give me one, damn it. I would crash this Escalade myself to save Blair and the rest of them. I would cut my own life in half. All that matters is getting to tomorrow.
But there is only forward.
So I take it. If the universe wants to herd me, fine; I’ll set the pace. I line us up with the on-ramp that spits us out toward the span and ease us into the climb, eyes flicking from asphalt to mirrors to the slice of horizon ahead, refusing to blink long enough for fate to slip a hand in.
The bay waits, flat and unreadable. Hayes keeps humming off-key. Hawks taps his knee like he’s timing a shift change.
My pulse syncs to the seams in the road. I pull us into the middle of the lane, dead-center like a defenseman sitting in the slot, stick out, angles right. I picture the far shore, the line of lights, the dry land where the night will break. I picture Blair’s hand in mine, the locker room tomorrow, us going to the playoffs. I grind those images into anchors and lash myself to them, and then I drive.
What do I owe fate? Only this: to hold the line, to keep my promise, to steal one second more.
The bridge climbs in a clean curve, a vertebra of concrete and cable lifting us over water gone black, the surface broken by knife-bright slashes from the city. Tampa Bay sprawls beneath us. Boat lights scatter across it, little fallen fires that refuse to sink.
I know this view, the pattern of shadow and gleam, the way the reflections beat in time with the lane markers. This is the edge of the map. I’ve been here in shattered glass, upside down with blood in my mouth. I’ve been here rushing toward the dark.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.The road hums. My thoughts thicken, stretch, tear off in strips. I lock on the far shore, a thin, hard line where black water kisses city light. Sodium lamps throw jaundiced bands across the hood, three heartbeats apart.
I’ve got the wheel. That’s the difference. That’s the only difference.
We crest the spine. Halfway. The far bank glitters, solid ground promised in beads of white and orange. We are going to make it. We have to. This time I’m?—
“Almost there,” Hayes calls, leaning forward. “Erin says they’ve got the roof deck all set up for us.”
The limo shows up in my rearview, a long, black shape pulled from another line of time.
It wanders, a drift so small you’d miss it if you didn’t know to watch for it; I do. The drift comes again, a lazy kiss to the double yellow. The driver’s head dips, a shadow shrug. The future I remember hits play.
Now.
I punch the brakes and snap the wheel right. Seatbelts lock; the Escalade shrieks. We skate into the outer lane and the limo howls past, missing our bumper by inches. Blair’s hand clamps my forearm.
