“Hold on.” Park grabbed the emergency brake and yanked it up.
Nothing happened.
“Oh, good,” Park said.
Cooper laughed. He didn’t even realize he was doing it until Park looked at him with concern. Nothing was funny. He certainly didn’t feel amused. The tingling in his lips had spread across his face, across his scalp and down his spine until he couldn’t sit still. His arms ached where they dug into Boogie’s carrier. But the fluttering in his chest insisted on erupting as laughter, anyway. Beyond Park’s disbelieving face he saw the speedometer tease fifty-five.
How many times can you cheat death? The unwelcome thought burrowed into Cooper’s head like a parasite. Surely four is one too many.
Up ahead the road disappeared where it curved once more around the mountain. Beyond it the sea glittered like a dark gem set between the colorless snow and sky. They wouldn’t make it at this speed. Cooper reached out and put his palm against Park’s chest as if he could brace him from impact.
Poor Boogie. I should have left her at home.
“Hold on,” Park said again. Not that tired old line, Cooper thought, and gripped the front of Park’s coat while pulling the cat carrier closer to his chest until the metal latch bit into his skin. It wouldn’t make a difference in the end.
Park downshifted, and Cooper jolted forward as the car tugged back a little and whined in protest. Park exhaled loudly. It wasn’t a dramatic drop in speed, three miles at most, and the bend in the road was directly ahead of them now, but it was something. Cooper was tempted to just yank the damn thing all the way to first gear but resisted. Instead he watched as Park downshifted again and again, one gear at a time, each drop in speed nowhere near as much as he wanted it to be, each jolt forward harsher, and each whine of the engine louder and more strained.
Park dropped them to second gear just as they entered the curve, and Cooper slammed forward as the speedometer dropped one last time. It was still too fast. The tires screeched as they took the curve and he barely heard them over the engine, so high-pitched and stressed-sounding now that Cooper half expected something to pop and give beneath them. Abruptly the back tires fishtailed over a patch of ice, and for just a moment it felt like falling.
Park gripped the steering wheel with both hands and Cooper held his breath. He remembered being fifteen and just learning how to drive, with his dad in the passenger’s seat. He remembered the feeling of taking that first turn at any speed over twenty-five mph.
“What if I tip the car over, Dad?”
“You won’t, Coop.”
“But how do you know?”
“They’re built not to. Trust me.”
He remembered leaning away from the turn as if he could counterbalance the whole car, and his dad’s subsequent annoyance. “Get your butt back in the seat! We’re not going to tip!”
Cooper felt his left ass cheek digging into the cushion now, instinctively trying to keep some equilibrium...
...and then suddenly they were on a straightaway again, going thirty-four. He laughed again, this time sounding slightly more relieved and less like a cartoon villain in a haunted asylum.
“Yes!” His voice was loud, ragged and shaking with adrenaline. “Now what? Do we wait for the next uphill?” he asked, avoiding looking at the angry sea stalking his periphery.
“Too risky,” Park said. “It might get worse again before it gets better.”
“So we...” Cooper looked to the left. Several miles ahead, the inner cliff face they were skirting eased away to what looked like steep hills and small trees, though the topography of the land was hard to determine beneath the snow.
“We hope another car doesn’t come,” Park said. “Or any hidden drop-offs.”
He put his hand over Cooper’s—still gripping the front of his coat—and pulled it to his mouth for a brief kiss, then guided them onto the wrong side of the road, inching toward the barrier-like buildup of snow on the left that a plow had made. The car jumped and tilted before they could even touch the barrier as it crushed the runoff on the side.
Inside her carrier, Boogie hissed and swatted at the cage door, finally attune to the danger.
When the side of the car hit the icy bumper, the car rocked and Cooper couldn’t hold back his shout. The sounds of the ice grinding against the metal made it feel like they were going faster rather than slowing down, now that the distance was measured with slaps, bumps and screeches.
“Ready?” Park had to shout.
“I trust you,” Cooper said. He could feel the pounding of Park’s heart against his fist just before they turned fully off the road and he was thrown into the passenger door as the car leapt and skidded across the snow.
A horrible screeching sound rang out—so there was a real guardrail beneath all that after all—and then the screech continued as Boogie took up the war cry. Cooper had lost hold of Park and was just clutching the carrier with his right hand while his left hand shot out in front as if he could stop what was coming.
Another teeth-clattering thump came from beneath them, and Cooper lurched forward. Boogie yowled and the right side of his face slammed into the protrusion between the windshield and the passenger-seat window.
“Fuck!” Cooper grabbed at his face as a rave party briefly went off in his eye. He felt a lurching in his stomach and his thoughts tripped like a skipping record before abruptly going black.
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ISBN-13: 9781488074745
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
Copyright © 2020 by Charlie Adhara
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Wolf in Sheep's Clothing (Big Bad Wolf) Page 30
