She squatted down and tried to lift the girl by the armpits. The girl’s body tilted awkwardly to the side like a heavy sack of flour, but she still didn’t stir. Grunting, Hanna planted her feet and hoisted the girl upright again. Then she began to shift her across the center console and into the driver’s seat.
“Don’t do it like that,” Emily blurted, stepping forward. “We have to keep her neck stable, in case there’s any damage to her spine. We need to find a blanket or a towel, something to keep her neck steady.”
Hanna eased the girl back down into the seat, then peered into the back of the station wagon. There was a towel in the footwell. She grabbed it, rolled it up, and wound it around the girl’s neck like a scarf. For a moment, Hanna looked up. The moon had drifted out from behind a cloud and momentarily lit up the road, and the whole forest was alive with movement. The trees swayed violently in the wind. As a flash of lightning turned the sky white, all of them swore they saw something move near the creek bed. An animal, maybe.
“It will probably be easier for us to carry her around the outside of the car instead of trying to shift her from the inside,” Emily said. “Han, you take her under the arms, and I’ll take her feet.”
Spencer stepped forward. “I’ll get her around the middle.”
Aria reluctantly peered into the car, then grabbed an umbrella from the backseat. “She probably shouldn’t get wet.”
Hanna looked at all of them gratefully. “Thank you.”
Together, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily lifted the girl out of the passenger side of the car and slowly shuffled her around the back and toward the driver’s seat. Aria held an umbrella over the girl’s body so that not a drop of rain hit her skin. They could barely see through the driving storm, having to blink every few seconds to keep the rain out of their eyes.
And then, halfway around the back, it happened: Spencer’s feet slipped in the quicksandlike mud and she lost her grip on the girl. Madison tilted violently inward, her head banging against the bumper. There was a snap—maybe of a tree limb, but maybe of bone. Emily tried to bear the brunt of Madison’s weight, but she slipped, too, jostling Madison’s limp, fragile body even more.
“Jesus!” Hanna screamed. “Hold her up!”
Aria’s hands wobbled as she tried to hold the umbrella steady. “Is she okay?”
“I-I don’t know,” Emily gasped. She glared at Spencer. “Weren’t you watching where you were going?”
“It’s not like I meant to do it!” Spencer stared into Madison’s face. That snap resonated in her mind. Was the girl’s neck now tilting at an unnatural angle?
An ambulance wailed in the distance. The girls stared at one another in horror, then started shuffling faster. Aria yanked the driver’s-side door open. The key was still in the ignition, and the left-turn signal was blinking. Hanna, Spencer, and Emily moved the airbag aside and set the girl down in the buttery leather seat behind the wheel. Her body listed to the right. Her eyes were still sealed shut, and the expression on her face was placid.
Emily let out a whimper. “Maybe we should stay here.”
“No!” Hanna screamed. “What if we did hurt her? We look even guiltier now!”
The sirens grew louder. “Hurry!” Hanna grabbed her purse from the backseat and slammed the driver’s-side door hard. Spencer shut the passenger door. They scrambled up the hill and dove into Aria’s car just as the ambulance appeared on the ridge. Emily got in the car last.
“Go!” Hanna screamed.
Aria jammed her key in the Subaru’s ignition, and the car sputtered to life. She did a quick three-point turn and sped away.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” Emily sobbed.
“Keep driving,” Spencer growled, peering out the back window at the whirling lights on top of the ambulance. Two EMTs jumped out of the ambulance and carefully maneuvered down the hill. “We can’t let them see us.”
Hanna swiveled around and stared out the window. All kinds of emotions knifed through her. Relief, definitely—at least Madison would get help. But the regret was like a vise around her throat. Had moving Madison made her worse? What had just happened?
A low sob burst from her lips. She put her head in her hands and felt the tears come.
Emily started crying, too. So did Aria.
“Stop it, guys,” Spencer snapped, though tears were running down her cheeks as well. “The EMTs will take care of her. She’s probably fine.”
“But what if she’s not fine?” Aria cried. “What if we paralyzed her?”
“I was just trying to do the right thing by driving her home!” Hanna moaned.
“We know.” Emily hugged her tight. “We know.”
As the Subaru wound around the hairpin turns, there was something else everyone wanted to say but didn’t dare: At least no one will know about this. The accident had happened on a desolate stretch of road. They’d gotten away from the accident before anyone had seen.
They were safe.
The girls waited for the accident to hit the news: CAR CAREENS OFF EMBANKMENT ON REEDS LANE, they imagined the headlines would read. The story might recount the girl’s high blood-alcohol level and how badly the car had been smashed up. But what else would the reporters say? What if Madison was paralyzed? What if she remembered she hadn’t been driving, or even remembered the girls moving her?
All the next day, each of them sat by the TV, checked their phones for breaking news, and kept the radio on low, on alert. But no news came.
A day passed, and then another. Still nothing. It was like the crash had never happened. On the third morning, Hanna got in her car and drove slowly down Reeds Lane, wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing. But no, there was the bent guardrail. There were the skid marks in the mud and a few shards of glass on the forest floor.
“Maybe her family was really embarrassed about what happened and made a deal with the cops to keep it quiet,” Spencer suggested when Hanna called her to express her uneasiness at the lack of news. “Remember Nadine Rupert, Melissa’s friend? One night, when they were seniors, Nadine got drunk and wrapped her car around a tree. She was fine, but her family begged the cops to keep the DUI a secret, and they did. Nadine was out of school for a month getting rehab, but she told everyone she was at a spa retreat instead. Later, though, she got drunk again and told Melissa the truth.”
“I just wish I knew if she’s hurt,” Hanna said in a small voice.
“I know.” Spencer sounded worried. “Let’s call the hospital.”
They did, on three-way, but since Hanna didn’t know Madison’s last name, the nurses couldn’t give them any information. Hanna hung up the phone, staring into space. Then she went on the website for Penn State—which was the school Madison said she attended—and did a search for her, hoping she’d find her last name that way. But there were quite a few Madisons in the sophomore class, way too many to go through one by one.
Would she feel better if she came forward and confessed? But even if she explained that another car had come out of nowhere, knocking her off the road, no one would believe her—they’d assume she’d been as wasted as Madison. The cops wouldn’t congratulate her for being honest, either—they’d haul her off to jail. They’d also realize that she’d needed help moving Madison and had had to recruit her friends. They’d be in trouble, too.
Stop thinking about it, Hanna decided resolutely. Her family wanted to make it go away, and you should do the same. So she went to the mall. She tanned poolside at the country club. She avoided her stepsister, Kate, and was a bridesmaid in her father’s wedding to Isabel, wearing a hideous green dress. Eventually, she stopped thinking about Madison and the accident every second of the day. The crash hadn’t been her fault, after all, and Madison was probably fine. It wasn’t like she knew Madison, anyway. She’d probably never see her again.