My head was throbbing and blood filled my mouth. Wincing at the taste, I explored with my tongue and found that I’d bitten the inside of my cheek—probably on impact.“Steve?”Charlie. It sounded like he was in pain.“Steve, you okay?”I opened my eyes and blinked, staring at the dent my head had made in the dashboard. I spat, bright red, and then spat again. There were chunks of broken glass in my lap, and I wondered where they’d come from. Then it all came rushing back to me.“Yeah,” I groaned. “I’m okay. How about you?”Charlie coughed. “Got the wind knocked out of me, but I’m alright. What the hell happened?”I didn’t answer, because the answer was obvious. We’d wrecked. It had all happened so suddenly. We’d just gotten out of work, and were crawling north on Interstate 83 during Baltimore’s evening rush hour. Hector was behind the wheel, cursing in Spanish because we’d just been funneled from four lanes down to two, and wondering why they couldn’t do road construction at night, after the rush hour was over.
