“I don’t want anything from you!” She screams. “You took everything from me!” She sobs hysterically.
“Lilly, get out of the fucking car now!” Theo punches the driver window. It cracks but doesn’t break. His eyes are wide, filled with panic. “Baby, please get out. Leave her.” He begs.
Cassie lets out an enraged scream and turns on the engine. “Cassie, stop!” I shout as the wheels squeal and the car lurches forward. Fuck. Okay, calm, I can stop her. Talk her down.
“Cassie, this isn’t the way. I can help you.” I tell her.
“You can’t fucking help me!” She shrieks. She floors it to the end of my road, and turns left at the end. She doesn’t even look as she floors it straight out of the small junction. Fuck. “You have everything I want, and he doesn’t want me!” She screams. “I thought you were my friend!”
“I am.” I try to soothe her, but she is so fucking far beyond reason right now.
The car flies in and out of the slow moving London traffic. I scream when we narrowly miss a head on collision with an oncoming car. Car horns blare as she cuts in and out, drifting from one side of the road to the other. We jump a red light in a symphony of squealing tyres, as we miraculously manage not to die. She crashes over a speed bump and I hear the scrape of metal as the car bottoms out. She drives deeper into central London, picking up speed in the powerful Aston Martin. My heart rate is through the roof, adrenalin flooding my system as we dance with death. We take out wing mirrors as she scrapes up the side of parked cars. This car is going to be fucked. I glance down quickly. Fuck, I don’t have a seat belt on. I fumble with shaking hands, managing to fasten the belt in place.
“Cassie, you’re going to kill yourself. Think about the baby!” I plead desperately.
“I have nothing!” She screams. Her eyes flick around manically as the car swerves violently. Okay, fuck, this was without doubt the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. Why do I always seem to be a martyr for this girl? I should have just gotten out of the car. I thought she was troubled, desperate. I felt sorry for her. She’s not troubled though, she’s fucking insane. She’s suicidal, and I seem to be stuck with her inside her method of choice.
She slams her foot down on one of the busier backstreet roads, oh fuck I know where we are. There are a set of lights ahead for a busy junction. “Cassie slow down.” Faster still. “Cassie stop!” Nothing. We’re metres barely twenty yards from the junction, so I do the only thing I can think of. I pull up the handbrake. The wheels lock and the sickening screech of rubber on tarmac fills me ears. Then we start to spin…and spin. It’s all a blur. I scream as the wall of a building whizzes across my vision. Then everything happens so fast, there’s a flash of bright light, followed by an enormous bang. I’m thrown sideways and my head cracks against the window. There’s the horrifying sound of metal bending and then I’m floating, the symphony of destruction ringing in my ears. Another huge bang, agonising pain splits across my chest, and then everything goes black.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEO
“There!” George shouts as he catches sight of the Aston up ahead. Cassie has left a trail of destruction in her wake, and I’ve struggled to keep up with her. The car pulls away, getting faster and faster. “Theo, she’s heading straight for a junction!” George yells.
“I know!” I snap. I step on the accelerator. I’ve never felt so helpless before. Lilly is trapped in a car with a fucking high druggie. I watch as the Aston accelerates dangerously before suddenly locking up, all four tyres smoking. The hand brake. Lilly pulled the handbrake. The car dives to the left and goes into a flat spin. I hit the brakes of the Maserati. All I can do is watch in horror as the Aston spins faster and faster before the wheels cross the white line of the junction and the car gets smashed from the side by a lorry. The impact sends it into the air before it crashes back down into the tarmac and rolls several times, landing on its roof. George is screaming beside me, but it’s overshadowed by the screaming inside my head as I watch the nightmare unfold in front of me.
I’m running across the street before the car has even stopped moving. No, no, no. Please no. I don’t hear or see anything except my pulse hammering in my ears, and the crumpled metal in front of me. “Lilly!” Tears blur my vision. The car is so mangled, surely no-one could survive that?
I manage to force the mangled door open. “Lilly. Lilly, can you hear me?” The air bags are still deployed. There’s smashed glass everywhere. Lilly hangs limply in the seat, her hands touching the roof of the car. I crouch down and move the hair away from her face. I choke. Her face is covered in blood. I feel her pulse and thank everything and anything she’s alive, but it’s faint.