I Promise (Prologue II)

September 19, 1994 — ~6:10 AM | M20, southeast of Maidstone

POV: Peter

Peter saw the car the moment it slid sideways into his lane.

"Oh God. No, no, no!"

He slammed on the brakes and gripped the steering wheel with both hands as the distance between them disappeared far too quickly.

"Come on! Stop! Fucking stop!"

The car kept spinning across the road in front of him, and for a brief moment Peter could see the people inside. A woman in the passenger seat, a man behind the wheel—

and a child in the back.

"No! Please, no!" Peter pleaded, his voice rising in panic.

He yanked the steering wheel to the left, but the lorry barely responded. The cab began to turn while the trailer, loaded with tonnes of steel pipes, continued pushing forward.

He felt the trailer begin to swing out behind him.

Then he heard it.

SNAP!

One of the securing straps broke, and the steel pipes shifted violently behind him. The metallic screech cut through the roar of the engine and the screaming tyres.

All Peter could do was keep pulling left and somehow get the cab past the car. Then the cab shot past the Bennetts, so close that he saw their car disappear beside his window.

No impact. He had missed them.

Then a second strap snapped, and several steel pipes broke free from the trailer and crashed onto the road, throwing sparks across the wet motorway.

Peter fought the steering wheel as the trailer swung around behind him. He saw the barrier coming towards him and braced himself.

"Fuck—"

The impact threw him forward against his seat belt before the lorry finally came to a stop.

For several seconds, Peter didn't move, his heart hammering in his chest as he listened to his own breathing. Then the thought of the car hit him. He raised his head and looked back.

"Please…" he begged as his eyes searched the motorway.

Steel pipes lay scattered across the road, and among them he spotted the car sitting sideways only a few metres from one of the pipes. Peter stared through the windscreen, desperately searching for any sign of movement.

Then the driver slowly began to move. A moment later, the woman beside him did the same, and Peter finally allowed himself to breathe again. They were alive.

He dropped his head against the steering wheel. "I fucking hate Mondays."

***

POV: The Bennetts

Daniel waited for the impact, but it never came.

For a moment, he simply sat there with his eyes squeezed shut and both hands clenched around the steering wheel. When he finally opened his eyes, the car was sitting sideways across the motorway.

"Sarah?"

He turned towards her. Sarah sat beside him, deathly pale, both hands still braced against the dashboard.

"I… I'm okay."

"Olli?"

They both turned towards the back seat. Oliver was still strapped into his child seat, his eyes wide and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"It's okay, sweetheart. Everything's okay," Sarah said, forcing herself to smile.

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Oliver's lower lip began to tremble before he burst into tears. "Mum!"

"Hey, hey. It's okay," Sarah said immediately. "We're all here. Nobody is hurt."

Daniel looked at Sarah, and before he knew it, he started laughing. It wasn't because anything was funny. They had almost died, their son was crying in the back seat, and somehow the absurdity of what they had been arguing about only minutes earlier hit him all at once.

"We're okay," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Jesus Christ, we're actually okay. And we were arguing about a bloody telly."

"And whose fault was that?" Sarah replied with a shaky laugh before leaning across the centre console and kissing him. "I love you."

Daniel smiled. "I love you too."

"And me?"

The small voice from the back seat broke through Oliver's sobs. Still smiling, Daniel and Sarah turned towards their son.

Daniel's smile vanished the moment he saw what was coming through the rear window. Another lorry was heading straight for them.

"Oh God…"

Sarah followed his stare. For a split second, neither of them moved. Then she realised where it was going to hit.

"OLLI!"

She tore against her seat belt and twisted towards the back, reaching desperately for her son. Oliver stared at her, frightened and confused.

"Mama?"

Daniel instinctively reached for Sarah just as the lorry slammed into the car.

***

POV: Peter

Peter had seen it coming, but he still flinched when the lorry hit the car.

At the last possible moment, the driver pulled to the right. It wasn't enough to avoid the collision, but it kept the lorry from hitting the car squarely. Instead, it smashed into the front at an angle, crushing the driver's side and sending the car sliding several metres across the motorway before it finally came to rest among the scattered steel pipes.

Peter stared at the wreck. "No…"

His first instinct was to run towards it, but another car was already approaching. Peter stopped himself just as its brakes came on, tyres screeching against the wet road. Another vehicle behind it began slowing as well.

"Come on…"

The first car came to a stop well short of the wreckage, and when Peter looked further down the motorway, he could see the traffic behind it slowing as well. That was enough.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

He hurried towards the wreck, stepping around the scattered steel pipes as quickly as he could. The closer he got, however, the more his pace slowed. The front of the car was barely recognisable. The driver's side had been crushed in, and what remained of the windscreen was covered in cracks and broken glass.

"Hey! Can anyone hear me?"

Peter reached the driver's side and looked through the shattered window. The moment he saw the inside of the car, he wished he hadn't.

His stomach clenched, and he turned away, swallowing hard as he forced himself to move towards the rear. That part of the car had been damaged as well, but nowhere near as badly as the front.

The boy was still there, motionless in his child seat with his head hanging slightly to one side. Blood ran from somewhere beneath his hair, down his forehead and across the left side of his face.

"No…"

Peter grabbed the rear door handle and pulled. It resisted at first, but after another hard pull, the damaged door finally opened. He dropped down beside the boy and reached towards him before stopping himself. He had no idea how badly the child was hurt or whether moving him would make things worse.

"Please…"

Peter stared at him until he finally noticed the slight rise and fall of his chest.

He was breathing.

"Oh, thank God."

For a few seconds, Peter could only kneel there beside the open door, staring at the unconscious boy. Then his eyes wandered past the car towards the steel pipes scattered across the motorway, and he remembered the strap.

He had seen the damage. He had stood at the services with the bloody thing in his hand and known that he should replace it. He could still remember running his thumb across the worn section before tightening the ratchet anyway.

"That'll hold," Peter whispered.

His own words made him feel sick, because the strap wasn't even the first time he could have stopped this. He had known the load was too heavy before he ever left the depot. He had argued about it, complained about it, and then climbed into the cab anyway because he didn't want another few weeks of shit routes. Then, when he found the damaged strap, he had been given another chance to do something about it.

And he had ignored that one too.

Peter looked towards the front of the car. If he had refused the load, they would never have been here. If he had replaced the strap, those pipes would never have ended up across the motorway.

"Fuck…" He covered his face with both hands as his breathing broke into ragged sobs. "What have I done?"

Peter bent forward beside the open door, trying to breathe, but every time he looked at the boy he saw the two people in the front of the car again.

"I knew," he choked out. "I knew it was too heavy. I fucking knew. I could've said no. That's all I had to do. Just say no." His hands were shaking so badly that he had to press them against his legs. "And then the strap… I saw it. I fucking saw it and I still drove."

His voice broke completely as he looked towards the front seats again. "I was worried about my fucking job. Your mum and dad are dead because I was worried about some fucking shit routes."

Another sob tore its way out of him, and Peter dropped his head, no longer trying to stop himself. "I'm sorry. Jesus Christ, I'm sorry. You shouldn't be here. None of you should be here."

For a while, he could do nothing except kneel beside the boy, crying and repeating the same words under his breath. Then he noticed the blood still running down the side of the child's face.

Peter stared at it and forced himself to breathe. Sitting here crying wasn't helping the boy. He could hate himself later. Right now, the child needed him.

He wiped his face with both hands and pushed himself back to his feet. "I'm getting you help," he said, his voice still shaking. "You hear me? I'm not leaving you."

Peter looked down at the unconscious boy one last time.

"I promise."

Then he turned towards the stopped traffic behind him and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"SOMEONE CALL AN AMBULANCE!"