Page 332 of The Lies We Play

The pedal goes to the floor and doesn’t come back.

There’s no resistance. No catch. No grind of pads finding rotors. Nothing under my foot but the metal of the floor pan through the carpet, and the car ahead of me is still right there, and the rain is still coming down, and my foot is pressing on a pedal disconnected from anything in the world that could save us.

I don’t say anything.

I don’t have time.

I cut the wheel.

I cut right because right is where the shoulder is, and the shoulder is where I have a chance. The car responds because it doesn’t know its brakes are gone. The car has only been told to turn.

We go around the lead car on the gravel of the shoulder at eighty miles an hour with the rear end fishtailing and Liv’s body slamming against the door, her hand still on my thigh, Creed’s voice saying my name through the speaker without stopping.

“Hal. Hal. Hal. Hal.”

We are past the lead car.

We are on a stretch of road that goes uphill for half a mile and then— I know this from the GPS I memorized three hours ago in the apartment, I know this because I memorized everything, I know this because I’ve been a man who memorizes routes since I was eleven years old—bends hard left around a stand of pines with a guardrail on the outside.

Half a mile.

Then a left turn.

With no brakes.

“Liv.”

“Yes.”

“The brakes are gone.”

“What?”

“The brakes are gone, Liv. The pedal is on the floor.”

Her hand on my thigh closes.

She says, “Okay.”

That one word hurts worse than panic.

She trusts me.

Even now.

Especially now.

“Hal—”

“I know.”

“Hal, listen to me,” Creed says. “The downshift. Downshift, Hal. Engine brake. Drop it. Drop it now.”

“I’m dropping it.”

I drop it.

The car screams.