Ex-Factor (Diamond Girls) (27 page)

Movements choppy and frantic, Livvie motioned us out of the small room, eyes frightened and full of unshed tears. “Thank God I found you. Erin… she’s tanked. Like seriously wasted. She just threw back a handful of shots and kissed some random dude from Douglas High before chugging a beer.” Voice growing higher in pitch with each word she spoke, Livvie latched onto my wrist and yanked. “You’ve got to hurry, Nev. She’s not thinking straight. She’s got her keys. She’s gonna drive—drunk!”

No, no, no…”
No!” I didn’t think, I just ran, dodging and weaving through the crowded room. I couldn’t let Erin get behind the wheel. I refused to lose another person I cared about.

“Nev,” Bodie shouted. He motioned toward the set of sliding doors at the back of the room. “This way. Around the house. There’s less people. It’s faster.”

I dashed through the room, around the beer pong table, and out the sliding glass door. My legs burned as I shot across the patio and leaped over some low-lying hedges. I twisted my ankle when I landed on a patch of uneven dirt, and pain shot up the lower half of my leg. I didn’t care. I pushed through the discomfort and kept running.

Vehicles of every name, make, and model sat squeezed into the circular driveway, making it difficult to navigate my way out, much less spot Erin.

“I see her,” Livvie shouted.

I slid over the hood of a tan Hyundai Elantra, the rhinestone bling on my back pockets scraping across the paint with an irritating squeal. I gnashed my teeth, uttering a silent apology to the person whose car I just keyed with my butt.

So focused on finding Erin, I didn’t see the person until it was too late. I rammed into a shadowed figure, knocking us both to the ground. We sprawled onto the driveway in a tangle of arms and legs, grunting as we hit the fancy-cut pavement.

Out of breath and desperate to stop my friend from making the biggest mistake of her life, I shot up off the ground and didn’t look back, muttering a quick “I’m sorry” before hauling ass toward the sound of Livvie’s voice.

It took me all of two seconds to spot Livvie. Legs flying, she was booking it down the long driveway toward the street with Bodie several steps in front of her. “She’s there! Hurry. She’s getting into her car.”

Ankle on fire, hands scraped and bloody from my collision with the stranger, and a good twenty yards behind Bodie and Livvie, I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Stop her! Bodie, take her keys!”

The entire thing played out like a movie, only instead of watching the horrific scene from the safety of a dingy, soda-stained seat I was living it in 3-D.

Just as Erin was opening the door, Bodie yanked the keys out of her hands and quickly tossed them to Livvie, who stood on the other side of the vehicle.

Lungs burning, I skidded to a halt in the middle of the driveway and dropped my hands to my knees in an effort to catch my breath. My pulse roared in my ears as I watched Erin yell and slam her fists against Bodie’s chest, then collapse against him, giant sobs wracking her slender frame. My shoulders slumped and I dropped to my knees as a breathy moan escaped my lips. She was safe—Erin was safe.

The tears—I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t stop my body from shaking. Couldn’t hold back the guttural wail blasting from my mouth. I collapsed forward onto my hands and wretched. The guilt, the shame, all the pent up emotions I’d clung to for so long came rushing out with a deluge of tears. For a moment, the driveway, the outside world faded away, and all I saw was my dad.

“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I should have stopped him. Should have stopped Nate from leaving the party.” I shook my head, choking on my words. “I miss you, Daddy. Every day.”

The ache in my chest, the hole felt raw and new, like someone had punched their fist through my ribs and ripped my heart out. My dad was gone. Six feet under, erased from my life. I’d never get him back, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’d never be able to take back my actions from the night he died. Never get a second chance to save him.

But I could save others.

I had tonight. I’d kept that wasted jerk from getting into his car by tossing his keys. I’d stopped Erin from making what could have been the biggest mistake of her life. I’d finally done the right thing. Finally been the person I should have been all along. Why didn’t that make me feel better?

Nausea whirled in my gut and I felt drained, depleted. I swiped the tears from my cheeks, sucked in a deep breath, and—

“No!”

Heavy footfalls and the sound of Bodie’s panicked voice tore my gaze from the ground. He ran toward me, eyes wide and filled with terror, arms waving frantically above his head. “Nev! Get out of the way. Callie! Stop.”

Fear gripped me, and my body seized the moment I looked over my shoulder.

Blinding white headlights sped toward me at an alarming rate of speed, showing no signs of slowing, much less stopping.

A garbled scream tore through my chest as Bodie wrenched me sideways off the center of the driveway and away from Callie’s oncoming VW Beetle.

Squealing tires drowned out the sound of Livvie’s and Erin’s screams as they barreled up the side of the driveway toward us.

“Oh, my God! Nev!”

“Is she all right?”

Bodie cradled me against his chest, his strong hands sliding over every inch of me, checking me for injuries. He rocked me back and forth, repeatedly mumbling, “You’re okay, baby. I got you. You’re okay.” I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince more, himself or me. I wasn’t okay. None of what happened tonight was okay.

Too shocked to move, much less speak, I lay sprawled on top of him in a tangle of useless arms and legs. Callie had almost—

Erin dove down alongside me, eyes swollen, nose runny, and buried her face in my stomach. “I’m sorry, Nev. I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked, and her body shuddered as she inhaled a deep breath. “This whole thing is so stupid, and wrong. I was so stupid, and wrong. And because of me, a car almost hit you. Please.” She lifted her head, met my eyes. “Please forgive me.”

What little air remained in my lungs puffed out as I cried, and I held my arms open for her. “It’s all right.” I ran my hand over the back of her head. “It’s over, and it’s all right.”

But it wasn’t all right. The party, the drinking, the drunk driving, all of it was so very wrong. How could I explain it? How could I get through to them that a night of drinking and reckless behavior could very easily result in the loss of someone they knew and loved?

I wrapped my arms around Erin and held her tight. She was alive. We’d stopped her from making a potentially fatal mistake. In that moment, nothing else mattered.

“None of this is okay,” Livvie barked from alongside us. Cheeks slick with tears, she pointed toward the red Bug slowly rolling backward toward us and darted forward toward the passenger side door. She slammed her palms against the hood of the car and screamed. “Callie. You’re drunk. Get out of the car. You almost hit Nev!”

Loud music blared from inside the vehicle as the passenger window slowly descended. Blue lights from the car’s dash cast an eerie glow over Callie’s face. Her bow hung askew off the side of her head and her heavy-lidded eyes were puffy and swollen. “Gah damn son of a bith,” Callie slurred. Her voice was pitchy and two octaves higher than normal. Scowling, she chucked the beer bottle in her hand out the window toward us and screamed. “Always in ma fuckin’ waay. I haaate you!”

Bodie shot up off the ground and lunged toward the vehicle, but he was too late.

Screaming a loud “fuck you,” she gunned it, tires screeching across the pavement as she barreled off the driveway onto Vineyard Way.

Right into the path of an oncoming truck.

The sound was deafening. An explosion I was positive could be heard well into town.

Metal crunched and buckled.

Glass exploded outward in a sea of white crystal.

Red sparks fanned out in a riot of color as the giant truck pulverized Callie’s Beetle into a ball of scrap-metal.

I didn’t remember getting up. Didn’t remember running down the driveway toward the wreck.

The glass. That, I remembered. It crunched beneath my feet as I neared Callie’s mangled Bug.

And vomit. I remembered puking when I caught sight of the blood pooling on the ground beneath Callie’s body. Limp and broken, her body hung twisted out the of driver’s side window, a large chunk of glass jutting out from the left side of her face.

I staggered backward. My vision tunneled.

A raspy voice shouted off in the distance. “She came out of nowhere. I didn’t mean to hit her. I couldn’t stop.”

The world started to spin and slowly fade away.

“Nev? Nev!” Bodie’s voice sounded faint, muffled, as if he was screaming at me from a distance.

Warm hands latched onto my shoulders.

Everything went black.

Chapter Eighteen

Status update:
YOLO, baby. Makin’ the most of it…

Five months later…

As student liaison for the Every Fifteen Minutes program at Grant High, I’d known what to expect when I came to school that morning. Prior knowledge didn’t stop the shiver of dread that rippled across my flesh moments before it happened.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

My body shook with each weighted knock, and my mouth went dry, my palms sweaty.

The door swept open, and a towering figure swathed in black robes glided slowly into the room. It was as if a blast of cold air had trailed him into the classroom, and try as I might, I couldn’t stop myself from shaking.

My pulse raced, and the urge to look at Erin was overwhelming. For the program to work, the other students needed to feel the maximum impact of what was about to happen. Secrecy was everything, so I chomped down on the inside of my cheek and did my best to appear as frightened and confused as everyone else.

The Grim Reaper came to a stop at the front of the room and slammed the base of his sickle onto the aging tile below. I’d met the officer beneath the chilling costume, knew he was a nice guy with a wife and two daughters of his own. The nausea came anyway, and my limbs felt heavy, weak.

“Meg Crewson,” His voice was impossibly low and chilling, and reverberated off the aging classroom walls. “Your time here is at an end.”

Metal scraped against tile as Meg slid her chair back and quietly made her way to the front of the room, face blank and void of emotion. She fell in alongside the Reaper and kept her eyes to the floor.

My chest constricted, a lump forming in my throat. She was doing a fabulous job holding herself together. I’d spent a good thirty minutes with her on the phone the night before listening to her cry and worry she wouldn’t be able to maintain her composure. She was still raw from the horror that had happened at her house a few months before.

I glanced over to Bodie, who like me, had to pretend he didn’t know what was going on. Because of our pasts and the direct involvement we’d had with alcohol-related accidents, the school had wasted no time in suggesting we work alongside the police department to coordinate this year’s program. We’d had a hand in every aspect of the scenario, from recommending which students to participate, down to what music to play in the corresponding video that would post online. He nodded his head once, the movement small, but enough for me to know he was trying to tell me everything would be fine.

Another grim-faced officer stood at the front of the classroom alongside Keltar. He clutched a sheet of white paper and cleared his throat.

“Attention, class.” Officer Landry’s voice was deep and gruff, his expression sober to match. “I’m here to inform you one of your classmates, Meg Crewson, was killed last night in an alcohol-related accident. A straight-A student, Meg was not only the junior class student body president; she was also an active member in the community, having worked as a volunteer at the local hospital, and assisting with several other charitable events. She is survived by her mother, Gail, and her father, Jason.”

The Reaper, who’d been standing with his black-gloved hand on Meg’s shoulder, quietly pulled the paper from Officer Landry’s hands and drifted down the narrow aisle toward our table.

Silence flooded the room as he dropped the obituary onto the table in front of Meg’s empty seat and topped it with a single black rose.

Fourteen students left their classrooms in the same fashion—one every fifteen minutes, right up until the simulated crash on the football field. Referred to as “The Living Dead,” each of the chosen were covered in eerie white makeup and given new shirts to wear that reflected their newly deceased state. Upon returning to their classrooms, they spoke to no one, and even went so far as to change their individual status updates to “I died today.”

Second and third periods were a blur of hushed voices, nervous chatter, and worry on my part. Could I go through with it? Could I live through another accident, even a simulated one? The passion I felt for the program, and the idea that we could possibly be saving someone’s life with the education we were providing was what prompted me to become involved in the first place. If I could save even one person the grief I lived with on a daily basis, then the pain I was about to relive would surely be worth it. Even if it tore me to shreds in the process.

Hot tears trickled down my cheeks as I sat in the passenger seat alongside Bodie. We’d both been excused from US History to participate in the simulated crash scene, and were parked in a tan sedan that had been strategically placed on the orange track in front of the football field. In front of us, about fifty or so yards ahead were two cars, both draped with white tarps.

I stared out at the covered cars and shook my head, lower lip trembling. “I don’t know if I can do this again, Bodie. The crash scene, it’s so close, so similar to Callie’s.” My shoulders dropped, and a quick sob blew past my lips. “It’s too soon. I’m gonna blow it. Break down on the track and ruin the whole thing.”

Bodie squeezed my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “We both knew this was going to be hard, Nev.” He glanced over to the covered vehicles, then to the Grant High students filling the bleachers to near bursting. The muscles in his jaw quivered as he swallowed, and his eyes narrowed. “I thought I was gonna lose it when I watched the moulage team paint Tommy and the other victims with all that blood.” His hands curled into fists and his entire frame shuddered. “I don’t remember anything about the night of my accident, but I’ve heard stories. I know what happened to Jackson, to Haley. When I look out onto that field, they’re who I see first. And I know that no matter how hard this is, it’s worth it. We have to do this, Nev. We have to keep people like Meg, and Callie and fuck, even Eli, from dying like my best friend, my baby sister, and your dad.”