We are flying in the blue-black night, rain slashing the car. Trees become hands, become fingers, become teeth reaching out for us. I don't know if we make sounds, because my heart is in my ears, drowning me. The car is weightless and heavy at the same time as it smacks against the earth, bounces, rolls and rolls, and Luther Leonard is half in, half out of the splintered windshield in front of me, his sneakered feet dangling at strange angles.

I say my brother's name, but there isn't any answer.

My hands feel around the seat for the belt lock, but they quiver so badly they can't settle down. There is something that I feel, but I can't tell what it is. Something in my body that is not right. Something out of place.

In the lopsided rearview mirror, my brother, Joey, is a useless thing in the backseat, splayed over Candy MontClair, blood in his hair.

I say her name.

The sounds that come from her are not words. They're raspy and wet, full and thin at once.

I have to get out of this car. I have to tell someone. I have to get help. I have to leave this place of shattered glass and crunched metal and Luther Leonard's dangling feet, but I can't move. I can't get out.

Through the broken window comes a howling in Wolf Creek Woods. There's howling, and maybe it's me, and then I realize it isn't. It's the howl of sirens, and beams begin to fill our broken car with light.

ONE

My sister, Maddie, is crying, her pretty face damp and frightened. One of my legs is heavier than the other and I don't understand and I want to ask her why, but I can't form words, because there's an ocean inside me, warm and sweet, and I'm bobbing along the waves, just like the ones that carried me and Joey all those years ago in San Diego, when everything was perfect or as close to it as we could get.