Doomed by Tracy Deebs

bad shape, his face pale and sweaty and his entire body shaking. Still, he wraps his good arm around Josh and pulls him in close.
    Unable to do any more for him right now, Theo and I run to the Range Rover, where Eli is back in the car, pounding on Emily’s door from the inside. In the crash, it caved inward, wrapping itself around the top of Emily’s leg. She’s completely wedged in.
    Now the only question is, how are we going to get her out?
    I look at Theo, but he looks as bewildered as I feel. We need the fire department. The Jaws of Life. Something. But there isn’t anything—just us.
    “Eli.” Theo’s voice is calm, but his jaw is clenched so tightly that I have to listen closely to understand what he’s saying. He’s at the back of the SUV now, trying to open the tailgate, but it won’t budge, either. “I need you to crawl into the back. Your dad usually keeps a tool kit there. The red box. Remember?”
    Eli starts moving before Theo even finishes his sentence. Emily whimpers as he leaves her. I crouch on the ground, next to her window. “We’re going to fix this. We’re going to get you out. I promise.”
    “Found it!” Eli crows, and then a soft-sided red bag flies toward Theo, who is sitting on the ground, next to Eli’s open door. He catches it, pulls out a small hammer—the kind you use to break windshields. We glance wryly at each other. Too little, too late. There’s also a bigger hammer in the tool kit, a huge screwdriver, a long, heavy flashlight, and some Allen wrenches.
    Theo pulls out the screwdriver and hammer, hands them to Eli, who’s made it out of the trunk again. “Can you wedge the screwdriver under the caved-in part of the door?”
    “I’ll try.” Eli leans over Emily, and he must have jostled her because she cries out again.
    “I’m sorry,” I hear him whisper to her.
    “That’s okay. Just please get me out of here.”
    “I will.” The metal screeches in protest as he pounds at the screwdriver with a hammer, but it moves a little.
    Emily starts to cry. I tilt my head so that our eyes canmeet through the car window. “Just a little longer, Emily. I promise. Just a little more.”
    She nods, puts a hand up to the glass.
    I place my hand up so that it meets hers, with only the glass of the car window in between. Palm to palm. It’s the way we used to swear promises when we were little girls. We haven’t done it in years, but it feels right now, here in the middle of all this chaos. It’s a pledge, from both of us, not to give up.
    Eli hits the screwdriver again, and Emily screams this time. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one, but I smile encouragingly at her. “Come on, Em. We’re almost there.”
    Eli’s pounding away in earnest now, and the metal is twisting, shuddering. Emily looks terrified, but I hold her gaze with my own. Will her to be strong, to hold on, not to lose it. Not yet.
    “Wiggle your leg a little,” Eli tells her, and she does. A smile crosses his lips briefly, and I know it’s good news. The door is moving. A little bit at a time, but it is moving.
    I glance at Theo, who has run over to the truck that hit us and is trying to rouse the driver. He’s not having any luck, and suddenly I’m terrified the driver is dead. That he’s been dying this whole time and we didn’t even bother to check.
    I don’t know how this happened. Our light was green, I know it was. I saw it. Did the delivery truck just run a solid red, then? Was he distracted by the radio, by what’s going on in the world? I glance up at the traffic lights to make sure I didn’t imagine it, to make sure they really are working.
    They are. The lights are green. So how … And that’s when it hits me. From my vantage point I can see a crosssection of lights, one that runs north-south and one that runs east-west. Both sides are green.
Both sides are green!
    The worm must have somehow affected the control system that runs the traffic lights, and turned them