night.”
“I am your friend,” he said, brushing snow out of his eyes so he could see me.
“It didn’t seem like that in there!” I snapped.
“What could I say?” he said.
“You could’ve told the truth.”
“I did!”
“You’re a liar, Luke Bishop,” I said, looking straight into his green eyes. Then winding up the window, I said, “Goodbye.”
Without looking back at him standing in the oncoming blizzard, I pressed my foot down hard on the accelerator and headed out of The Ragged Cove.
Chapter Eleven
The engine of my little car groaned as I forced it up the narrow snow-covered roads and away from the town below. Fierce gusts of wind shook its very frame and the wipers worked overtime to clear the snow.
I’d cranked the heater up to full blast, but it did nothing to take away the freezing chill. Even inside the car, wispy plumes of breath escaped from my mouth and nose and covered the windscreen in a misty film, making visibility almost zero. Leaning forward, I peered out, desperate not to steer off the road and into some ditch. I knew that if I could just reach a main road, the chances were that it would have been gritted with salt and I would be able to make my way home to Havensfield without incident. Even if I had to drive all night, I was determined to get there. I hadn’t even stopped at the Crescent Moon Inn to collect my stuff – I would pay to have it forwarded to me at a later date.
I just wanted to be away from The Ragged Cove; but more than that, I wanted to be as far away from Luke as possible. I didn’t care if I ever saw him again. I felt crushed inside at how he had treated me back at the station and how he’d lied about what had taken place up at the graveyard. I knew that he had seen that girl – I knew it!
Wiping at the inside of the windscreen with the back of my hand, I could just make out a sign fixed to the side of the road. As my car crawled towards it, my heart almost leapt with joy. The sign read:
You are leaving The Ragged Cove
Please drive carefully!
Feeling as if I were returning to civilisation – the real world – where mobile phones worked, radios got a signal, shops stayed open, and vampires didn’t chase you around graveyards in the middle of the night, I almost felt like punching the air with joy. Taking one hand from the wheel, I switched on the radio and my heart sank as the sound of static hissed through the speakers.
But then, as my car inched towards the sign, I heard something faint – a sound within the static and it sounded like music. Turning the dial on the radio, I lent forward and to my joy, I could hear the sweet voice of Adele singing ‘ Someone like you’ .
“C’mon,” I said aloud. “I want to hear you!”
Her voice was faint, almost like she was lost somewhere within the static, but with every inch my car took towards that sign, her voice became clearer. Turning the dial in the hope of picking up a clearer signal, I took my eyes off the road for what seemed just like a second. But in that moment, I hadn’t seen the sheet of black-ice covering the road. The back end of my car skidded right, then left as I gripped the wheel and screamed, “ No! ”
The Mini spun out of my control and headed for a huge drift of snow. Thumping into the ancient stone wall that lined the road, the car tilted right, and for a moment I thought it was going to tip over onto its side. Slamming my hands against the dashboard to steady myself, the car nose-dived into a ditch, its rear wheels lifting off the road. Leaning forward in my seat, my chest pressed against the steering wheel, the voice of Adele began to fade until the sound of static seemed almost deafening.
Pushing against the car door, I clambered free of the car and fell into the snow outside. At once, my nose, ears and hands began to sting with the cold. Shielding my eyes against the blizzard, I looked around, trying to get some bearings. The sign telling me that I was so close to
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