**“I FOUND JASMINE’S EARRING IN BRANDON’S PORSCHE WHILE HE SWERVED US TOWARD THE CLIFF.”**
The tires screamed as Brandon jerked the wheel, gravel pinging like gunshots against the chassis. My fist tightened around the silver hummingbird earring I’d pried from the floor mat—*hers*. “You swore you stopped seeing her!” I snarled, the lie still bitter as the coffee on his breath.
“It’s not what you—”
“Don’t!” I slammed my palm against the dashboard, the sting sharp and grounding. Rain blurred the windshield, but not enough to hide the guardrail splintering ahead. The car fishtailed, and for a heartbeat, I tasted salt—tears or the ocean below?
He reached for me, pleading. “Listen, *please*—”
The earring’s jagged edge cut into my palm as I whispered, “I disabled the brakes this morning.”
His face drained. The Porsche lurched, tires skidding sideways.
Then, muffled beneath the roar of the engine: a whimper from the trunk.
👇 Full story continued in the comments…The whimper cut through the screeching tires like a knife. Brandon’s eyes, already wide with terror, darted to the back. “No, not here, not *now*,” he stammered, fumbling for the central locking button.
“Who is that?!” I shrieked, the hummingbird earring forgotten as a new, cold dread seized me. Was Jasmine in there? What had he *done*?
“It’s… it’s complicated!” he yelled back, wrestling the wheel. The guardrail was just feet away, a broken line against the blurring grey. “I was trying to—”
The car hit the rail with a sickening crunch, metal screaming as it dragged along. We were sideways now, the world tilting violently. Rocks and mud sprayed the windows. The cliff edge loomed, an impossibly deep black void opening up beside us.
“Open the trunk!” I screamed, bracing myself against the dash. The sound of tearing metal was deafening.
“I can’t! It’s jammed!” Brandon’s voice was a raw gasp of pure panic. “Listen, she… she was in trouble. Someone was after her because of *us*. I was just trying to get her somewhere safe, away from the city!”
Lies. More lies. But the whimper came again, louder this time, followed by a muffled cry. My stomach twisted. It wasn’t just about his betrayal anymore.
The car wasn’t slowing. The dragging metal and skidding tires were our only friction. The edge was *there*. I could see the spray of the waves far below.
In a split second of desperate instinct, I grabbed the handbrake lever. It was useless for stopping, but maybe… just maybe… if I yanked it hard enough while the car was sideways…
“Hold on!” I yelled, wrenching the lever up with all my strength.
The rear wheels locked completely. The Porsche spun violently, a chaotic dance of metal and screaming rubber on the very lip of the abyss. For a dizzying moment, we were perpendicular to the drop, the driver’s side facing the sky, the passenger’s side hanging over the edge.
Then, with a final groan of tortured metal, the dragging guardrail gave way, or the ground beneath us crumbled. The back end of the car, the part with the trunk, swung out first, heavy and uncontrollable.
I heard Brandon scream my name. I heard another muffled cry from the back.
The world tumbled. Metal shrieked. Glass shattered. Water roared.
***
Silence. A heavy, ringing silence broken only by the lapping of water.
I was upside down, strapped into the seat. Water slowly, chillingly, seeped into the cabin. The air was thick with the smell of gasoline and salt.
My head throbbed. I fumbled with the seatbelt buckle, my fingers numb. Click. I fell onto the crushed ceiling, landing partially in cold water.
Pain flared in my ribs, my arm. But I was alive.
“Brandon?” I choked out, coughing on the water.
There was no answer. Just the gentle surge of the waves moving the wreckage. I looked across. Brandon was slumped against his airbag, still strapped in. The angle, the impact… it didn’t look good.
Panic returned, colder than the water. The trunk. Jasmine.
I twisted, trying to see the back of the car. The rear was submerged, crushed against rocks at the base of the cliff, or perhaps partly under the water. The trunk lid was gone, ripped away by the impact.
I could just see shapes in the murky water. Mangled metal. And… something else.
My breath hitched. Was that… an arm? Trapped beneath twisted steel?
I pushed against the ruined frame of the car, the water rising. I had to get out. I had to see.
I clawed my way through a broken window, sharp edges tearing my clothes. The icy water engulfed me. I surfaced, gasping, next to the partially submerged wreckage.
The moon, now visible through clearing clouds, cast an eerie light on the scene.
The trunk area was a horror show of twisted metal and broken contents spilled into the shallow water.
And there she was. Jasmine. Unconscious, blood matted in her hair, half-trapped by the debris. Her eyes were closed, her face pale.
I scrabbled onto a section of the wrecked car that was above water, my body aching. The salt stung my cuts.
Brandon… gone. My revenge had been absolute, destroying him and nearly destroying myself.
But Jasmine… she was here. Alive? I couldn’t tell from this distance, trapped as she was.
The whimper from the trunk, the lie about stopping, the earring… it all coalesced into a grim, twisted picture. He hadn’t just cheated; he’d dragged her into something dangerous, something that had ended like this. And I, in my rage, had sealed their fate.
My teeth chattered, but not just from the cold. I was alive, standing on the wreckage of my relationship and Brandon’s life, at the edge of the sea. And Jasmine, the catalyst for all of it, was trapped beneath the metal, a silent testament to the destructive spiral of betrayal and revenge.
The only sound was the relentless crash of waves against the rocks, washing over the wreck, slowly claiming the secrets it held. I was alone, staring at the consequence of my actions, waiting for dawn or the tide, whichever came first.