Marissa awoke unsure of where she was. Everything was dark; she was outside, lying facedown on the hard ground. She had a splitting headache, and she felt a sharp pain in her side every time she took a breath. Confused and disoriented, she managed to push herself up so that she was kneeling. She looked around at her surroundings, and suddenly everything came flooding back.
She and Ryan had been on their way to the airport. She was flying to Hawaii to meet her dad, and then they were going to sail to the Greek islands for a year. Since she was the first person Ryan met when he arrived in Newport, he had wanted to be the last one to say goodbye to her. But they had never made it to the airport.
Volchok had come roaring up behind them in his van, ramming into the back of Ryan's new car. He had pulled up along-side them, yelling at Ryan to pull over. Ryan had kept going, thinking that he could outrun him. She remembered screaming as Ryan's car was forced off the road, but then everything had gone black.
I must've been thrown from the car, she realized.
Why hadn't she been wearing her seatbelt?
Her mother had nagged her about wearing her seatbelt since she was a little girl. She had never wanted to wear it. She was too worried about putting a crease in her shirt.
"It'll save your life someday," her mother had always told her. Marissa had shrugged it off and assumed it was just her mother being paranoid. But now she was sprawled out on some dark road, wishing she listened to her mother for once.
A little further down the road, something flashed and she had to strain to see what it was.
Sparks. And coming from Ryan's car.
She struggled to her feet and slowly made her way toward the demolished vehicle, clutching her side in agony. The jeep had landed upside down, and she watched as sparks continued to fly from the underside of it. She finally made it to the vehicle and winced as pain shot through her side as she bent down to look in the driver's side window.
Ryan was suspended in the air, upside down, his seatbelt holding him firmly in place. His eyes were closed, but she could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed.
"Ryan!"
He slowly opened his eyes and groaned. "What happened?"
"Volchok ran us off the road," she told him. She smiled in relief. "Thank God you're okay." She jumped as a few more sparks flew from the bottom of the vehicle. "You'd better get out of there."
He nodded. "Back up a little. Let me just get this seatbelt off." He braced himself for the fall as he reached down to unbuckle his seatbelt.
Nothing happened.
"Come on!" Marissa urged, noticing for the first time that there was gas leaking from the rear of the car.
"I'm trying," Ryan snapped, struggling with the belt. "It won't budge!"
Marissa knelt down again and helped him tug at his seatbelt. It didn't want to open.
"Ryan, there's gas leaking!" she said, close to tears.
Headlights shone a little ways down the road as a car headed toward them.
"Get help," Ryan told her, still yanking on his seatbelt, trying to get it to tear.
Marissa got up and hobbled down the road, clutching her side with one hand and waving frantically with the other. The car stopped about fifty feet from Ryan's jeep and the driver, a middle-aged man, got out and hurried toward her.
"What happened?" he asked, staring at the upside-down jeep.
"Please!" Marissa choked, out, trying to catch her breath. "My friend…seatbelt…gas leaking!"
The man seemed to understand what she was saying, and he handed her his cell phone to call for help as he made his way toward Ryan. He was only about twenty feet away when an explosion rocked the vehicle, throwing the man backwards.
Marissa screamed as the jeep burst into flames.