She was aware of herself screaming. Aware of her seat suddenly tipping impossibly downward, like the scoop of an earth-mover dumping its load. Both of her feet shot forward reflexively, jamming hard against the wall of the footwell beneath the dash. For a moment she screwed her eyes shut, and then by some compulsion she opened them again, and saw nothing but pine boughs rushing at her. They bent and rode up over the Explorer’s hood, scraping past the windshield. Some of them—the bigger ones—jarred the vehicle and sent it skidding left or right.

They’re slowing us down, she thought, but we’re still going fast. We’re going very fucking fast and—

The impact.

Like the end of the world in half a heartbeat.

The airbags exploded around her, and the seat belt slammed across her chest like a two-by-four. She felt the Explorer’s back end throw itself upward and then come crashing back down, the movement threatening to crack her head against the underside of the roof—but the seat belt held her fast. A second later, everything came to rest, the transition almost as jarring as the impact had been. She was still in her seat, held in place by the belt, the world around her almost impossibly calm.

She sucked in a breath and immediately started coughing—the air was thick with gasoline fumes, coming in through the empty frame of the windshield.

And smoke. From where, she couldn’t tell.

She was still coughing when she felt Dryden’s hands take hold of her—felt them patting down her arms and then her upper legs.

“Are you hurt? Can you feel everything?”

She blinked and looked up and saw him right there in front of her, leaning across the console and facing her.

“Is anything numb?” he asked. His speech was quick, urgent.

Danica shook her head. “Don’t think so.”

Dryden unlatched her seat belt and she tilted forward into him; he got a hold of her and guided her across the console toward the open door on his side.

“You’re doing good,” he whispered. “Come on, we have to move fast.”

He helped her past the steering wheel, and the hanging shreds of airbags, and the pebbles of tempered glass that covered everything. The light inside the vehicle was chaotic: warning lights on the dashboard flashing out through the wispy smoke—strobing reds and blues and greens.

He held on to her as she stepped outside; her foot came down onto tilted ground, slipped a few inches, came up firm against a tree root.

From somewhere right behind her, beneath the vehicle, came a guttural sound—like a gas grill igniting.

“Go,” Dryden whispered.