Hardwired by Trisha Leaver Read Free Book Online Page A

fell next to it, and I jerked my head toward the road, panic screaming through my body.
    The stones falling toward us were getting bigger; the last one hit me in the chest, stealing my breath. The sound of metal whining in protest drifted through the air, and I looked up, following the path of the falling rocks. The other van was directly above us, its back tires caught on what was left of the guardrail.
    â€œWe’ve got to get out of here.” I rolled over and pushed myself upright. The debris was tumbling down the embankment even faster, pinging off boulders and trees before settling on the ground around us. We had minutes, maybe only seconds, before the other van lost its balance and came skidding down the cliff, crushing us.
    â€œGive me a second,” Chris said. He pushed himself up off the ground and climbed back through the van’s broken windshield.
    â€œAre you crazy?” I yelled, pointing toward the wall of rock sliding toward us. “We don’t have time to pull anybody out.”
    â€œI’m not planning on it,” Chris said, poking at our driver with his foot. The man didn’t move, didn’t so much as grunt. Chris rolled him over, gagging at the sight of his mangled face. Swallowing hard, he dug his hand into the man’s pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen was nothing more than a giant spider web of cracks, but Chris hit the power button anyway, muttering a prayer that it would work. He got nothing, not even a dim flicker of light.
    â€œCheck the ground. The guard must’ve had a phone too,” Chris said as he tossed the broken one aside.
    I had no desire to crawl back into that wreckage, to cement those mangled bodies in my memory as I searched for a phone I knew wouldn’t work. But I quickly looked around anyway, hoping to find a perfectly intact and functioning phone just lying there in the snow.
    â€œThere’s no way we’re going to get a signal out here,” I said as another wave of rocks skidded down the hill, landing inches from where I stood. “Forget about a phone. We gotta move. Now !”
    I stumbled over my own feet, fighting the shakiness in my legs as I attempted to navigate the uneven ground quickly. Stopping a few feet away, I slowed down to wait for Chris, my attention completely focused on the steady flow of rocks tumbling toward us.
    We carefully picked our way up the rocky bank. For every three steps we took, we slid back two, adding more bruises to our already battered bodies. The van above us was swaying, and I shifted my course, losing ground but steering clear of the van’s eventual downward path.
    I cleared the last boulder, was only steps from the road, when I waved Chris to a stop. “You hear that?” I asked. I was positive I’d heard something—like a knocking, only deeper. The knocking turned to a scream, and I heaved myself up and over the guardrail, then took off running for the van.
    It was identical to ours, the letters IGT decaled on the driver’s-side door. They’d been headed to the Bake Shop. That van was full of guys just like us—the newbies from the intake facility. The ones we’d been moved out to make room for.
    â€œIt’s gonna go,” Chris called after me. “There’s no way you’re going to make it in time.”
    I would. I just needed to stay on my feet, to push my pain aside and will my body to move.
    The van lurched, the guardrail pulling free of its anchors with a thunderous pop before the vehicle rolled forward. A hand flattened against the inside of the window as the van began to slide over the bank, the terrified eyes of the people trapped inside pleading with me for help.
    I collapsed on the snow-covered road and screamed out my rage as the van disappeared over the side of the cliff. It didn’t roll like ours. It plummeted straight down, smashing into our van and exploding in a ball of fiery red.
    â€œThey were alive,”