Free Fractured Memory by Jordyn Redwood

beats. His head felt tight from the rush of blood pounding at his temples. His fingers ached from his grip on the steering wheel.
    Eighty-five miles per hour—the speedometer needle quivered—flirting with ninety miles per hour. Eli rammed his foot into the brake pedal, pumped it several times to get it to engage.
    Julia was silent, her hands pressed together and settled at her lips. In the rearview mirror, Ben and Will’s car had drifted far enough back that he no longer had sight of them.
    “Ben!”
    “I’m here, Eli. We’re having trouble keeping up with you. You’ve got to slow that vehicle down.”
    “I know! I’m trying!”
    Julia gripped the handrail at her head. Jace looked like a wide-eyed child who’d just been put on a roller coaster he didn’t want to ride.
    Another turn up ahead. At this speed, he wasn’t going to make it. “Tighten your seat belts,” Eli ordered.
    The road hairpin turned again, and Eli gripped the wheel to ease them into the curve long before they had to make it, but the wheel was locked in a straight position. He yanked one side of the steering wheel, but it was as if someone had poured superglue into the mechanism.
    There was a brief flash of the guardrail before the bumper pounded into it, the front end of the SUV caved inward. Eli grabbed Julia’s hand. The back end of the SUV flipped up, pushing bile up his throat. A loud pop, like gunfire, filled the car, and Eli felt his face smash into the inflated air bag.
    And then...blackness.
    * * *
    The air bag deployed into Julia’s face, and acrid smoke filled the interior compartment of the vehicle. Julia felt herself somersault forward, the seat belt cutting into her flesh from the force of the hit and subsequent launch into the air. She gritted her teeth against the nausea that built in her gut.
    The car screamed as metal tore from metal. Wind howled through the broken windshield. Then came the stomach-lurching drop into the rushing water. Julia shoved her hands into the air bag to brace herself against the dashboard. The SUV met the river, and a shock wave of pain tore through Julia’s spinal cord. Water surged around the windows. The vehicle rocked and moaned as it was tossed like a miniature toy in the current.
    The worst-case scenario.
    Julia patted herself checking for injures. She wiggled her fingers and toes and found them responsive. She glanced to her left. Eli was slumped onto the steering wheel. Even though she feared a possible neck injury—she had to determine if he was breathing. With both hands she leaned over and eased him back—trying to keep his neck midline with a firm hand on his jaw and one clasped behind his neck. A stream of blood flowed down the right side of his face.
    “Eli!” She pressed her fingers into the bony part of his jaw, hoping the pain would jolt his consciousness like a defibrillator to an aberrant heart rhythm. Whatever caused the laceration to his forehead had likely knocked him out. Water seeped through the floorboards. A shiver overtook Julia—the frigid water would rapidly drop her body temperature. She struggled to get her cheek as close as she could to Eli’s face, stymied by the seat belt, and waited...endless seconds to feel some sort of life against hers.
    A warm breath danced across her chilled flesh.
    Good—just unconscious.
    That was only a momentary reprieve, considering they were bobbing in a wrecked car down an ice-cold mountain river.
    She turned around. Jace had his hands pressed into the seat beside him. He was tight, stiff, his eyes wide with fright.
    “Jace.”
    He didn’t respond.
    “Jace!” Julia yelled.
    He blinked...shook his head briefly and then glanced furtively around. “Julia?”
    A question, like what a child would pose to a mother when danger was imminent.
    Julia released Eli’s seat belt and then her own. She stretched her body over Eli’s and hit the electric control for his window, holding the button down until the window was level. Icy