“What?” I ask under my breath, scanning the trees, the garbage can, the fence. I’m annoyed now. Someone’s hiding somewhere. Voices don’t just materialize in a person’s head. But my friends are focused on one another, not one of them noticing that someone’s calling my name, and I have the horrible thought that maybe I am hearing voices, like that guy in the movie about the beautiful mind.
Not liking that possibility, I decide it’s a prank. “Having fun?” I mutter as I spin a slow circle and end up facing the street again. The crossing guard’s gone. There’s no one else around. Except—
There’s a girl, a little girl. She’s squatting in the road in the middle of the crosswalk. Doing what? Picking something up? I expect her to stand up and move along, and when she doesn’t, wariness shoots through me.
A memory hits: me walking across that same crosswalk when I was a kid, and my mother waiting on the far side of the street with a hug and a cookie. I hit back, burying the image because it hurts too much to think about it. Pain’s one of the two things I do still feel with a razor’s edge. Anger’s the other. Everything else is muted and distant, like I know I ought to feel things even when I don’t.
Right now, I choose anger instead of pain. That little girl shouldn’t be there. Someone should have picked her up after school. Her head’s bowed, and she doesn’t look up when I yell, “Hey,” and again, louder, “Hey!”
There’s something familiar about her. . . .
Crap. She’s Janice Harper’s little sister. She’s deaf. And Janice isn’t here to get her because she’s in detention.
Miki! Now!
The words reverberate in my thoughts, but I’m already moving before the unseen boy finishes barking the order. Because there’s a truck—old, rusted, going too fast—just moving into the blind curve, picking up speed and weaving side to side. The driver’s head is down; there’s a phone in his hand. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s texting.
My heart slams against my ribs.
I don’t think. I just run. My feet hit the ground, but I feel dull, sluggish, like I’m running through waist-deep water and everything in the world—including me—has slowed down to a crawl except that truck.
I’m too far away.
Faster. I need to move faster.
The truck is coming out of the curve now, doing at least double the speed limit, music blaring from the open windows.
I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, my throat already raw. The kid can’t hear me. She can’t hear me.
I run full tilt, chest heaving, terror driving me. And something else. All the anger and fear and grief I’ve been bottling up for two years bubbles to the surface, finding its release in the slim hope that I can control the outcome here, that I can reach her in time.
I’m at the sidewalk now. A single leap carries me over the grass and the curb onto the road.
My shadow falls across the girl and she looks up, her eyes going wide and her mouth rounding a perfect little O. She starts to rise. There’s a terrible shriek of tires on asphalt as the driver sees us and hits the brakes. The truck skids sideways to come at us broadside.
I dive, hands outstretched. My palms connect with the girl’s chest, and I shove her as hard as I can.
She goes flying back with a cry.
I see everything with abnormally sharp clarity, like a series of perfect snapshots capturing each millisecond. I see the girl. I see her tears. I see the blur of motion from the corner of my eye as my friends run along the sidewalk toward us. And someone else shooting past them . . . Luka.
I see the truck spinning again to come at me head-on—so close I can make out the chunks of rust on the grille—and the pavement, flat and gray, coming up to meet me. I hit hard and slide along the rough surface, layers of cloth and skin scraping away.
There’s the endless screech of the brakes and the smell of burning rubber. My head jerks up and I try to scramble out of the way. I can’t find my footing.
Terror clogs my throat.
Then there’s a hand on my arm, tight as a vise, yanking me to my feet.
Luka.
He pulls. I pull. Opposite directions. Our dance is all wrong.
The truck slams us both.
I shouldn’t be able to define each sensation, each event. But I can. I double over forward with the force of the blow. Then I’m lifted. I’m flying. Screaming. Until I hit the ground and my breath is forced out in an obscene rush.
There’s no pain. Not yet. Only shock and the cold knife of my fear.
Sound hurts my ears. My name. People are screaming my name, over and over. I want to tell them I’m okay, but my mouth won’t work, and I have no breath to lend sound to my words.
Turning my head, I see the little girl standing at the side of the road, her face streaked with tears. My friends are standing beside her, screaming, pushing at the air. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do. The roaring in my ears drowns out whatever they’re saying.