The Ride That Killed Them

When my eyes flew open, the scent hit me firststale tobacco layered beneath a suffocating, synthetic pine air freshener. I was back in the backseat of the rideshare, and my three roommates were in the middle of their favorite game: playing at being filthy rich.

The phantom pains of my past life violently crashed into me. In that previous timeline, I had scrambled to de-escalate the situation, warning the driver that they were just joking, knowing full well that you never flaunt wealth in front of a desperate stranger. My roommates, feeling humiliated and stripped of their manufactured glamour, had stormed out of the car in a rage.

But the driver hadn't let me leave. He locked the doors, a sickening grin spreading across his face as he told me that since I had saved them, I would have to pay their toll. The assault was brutal. I fought with every ounce of my being, barely escaping with my life. I went straight to the police.

Yet, when the detectives questioned my roommates, they formed a united front of lies. They claimed I had intentionally sat in the front seat to seduce him, that I refused to get out of the car because I "wanted a thrill." The drivers wife caught wind of this, dragged me by my hair through the street, branded me a homewrecker, and plastered my battered face all over the internet. The digital mob tore me apart. The final nail in the coffin was when the driver sent photos of my violated body to my mother. The shock triggered a massive heart attack. She died before the ambulance even arrived.

Shattered, hollowed out, and utterly alone, I took my own life.

And my roommates? They used the "trauma" of my tragic suicide to secure full-ride fellowships to graduate school, smiling for the cameras as they accepted their offers.

1.

"God, what is this, an early two-thousands Chevy? My family's housekeeper wouldn't even be caught dead driving this piece of junk to the grocery store."

The moment I blinked the disorientation away, Kendalls sickeningly sweet, nasal voice pierced the heavy air of the car.

"And what is up with these seat covers? Polyester?" On the other side of me, Jocelyn pinched the fabric of the seat cover, her face contorting in exaggerated disgust as she shoved it down toward the floor mats. "My golden retriever sleeps on higher thread counts."

"Seriously. I wouldn't even wipe my shoes on it."

My phone vibrated in my palm. It was our dorm group chat. Kendall was texting beneath the sightline of the rearview mirror, egging them on.

Look at this guy in the rearview. He looks like a total creep. Bet he folds the second someone stands up to him.

We are whoever we say we are outside of campus. Keep acting rich, let's freak him out!

The absurdity of the scene playing out in front of me perfectly overlapped with the nightmare of my past life.

Back then, terrified that their reckless roleplaying would invite a tragedy, I had tried to smooth things over. Their reward for my kindness was leaving me trapped in a moving vehicle, completely deaf to my screams for help.

This time, I wouldn't lift a finger to stop them from digging their own graves.

In the drivers seat, the mans face visibly darkened. The muscles in his jaw locked as he let out a dry, chilling chuckle. "You ruin those mats, little girl, and you're paying for them."

"How much could a cheap piece of fabric possibly cost?" Jocelyn scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Do you have any idea how much the Persian rug in my foyer is worth? Forty thousand dollars."

"Exactly. Only people from your... tax bracket obsess over pennies." Phoebe, sitting in the middle, offered a careless shrug. Suddenly, she pointed a manicured finger at the generic, plastic water bottle resting in the driver's cupholder. "Oh my god, how do you drink that tap water garbage? Aren't you afraid of getting parasites?"

Watching their theatrical performance, I slowly shifted my gaze out the window, my mind racing. The sun was dipping below the horizon, bleeding the sky into a bruised purple. I needed to find a way out of this car, and fast. I absolutely refused to be dragged down to hell by these idiots again.

The drivers knuckles turned white around the steering wheel. He grabbed the water bottle, his neck stiffening as he kept his eyes on the road.

"Well, when your life isn't worth anything to begin with, I guess you just drink whatever's cheap," Kendall smirked, practically preening with self-satisfaction. "Unlike us. I literally can't hydrate with anything except Voss, shipped straight from the aquifer."

Phoebe giggled, her eyes curving into cruel crescents. "Kendall, stop. The guy probably doesn't even know what Voss is."

"True. It's a socioeconomic thing. He couldn't grasp it in a lifetime."

The three of them dissolved into high-pitched, grating laughter.

Outside, the wind whipping against the windows began to howl, growing sharper, colder. I gripped my seatbelt tightly. A dangerous, desperate plan began to take shape in my mind.

Before the driver could snap back at them, I turned my head and cut through the noise. "Can you guys just stop? You're going too far."

The three girls in the back stopped laughing, turning to stare at me in stunned silence for a fraction of a second. Kendall recovered first, shooting me a venomous side-eye.

"Giselle? You're taking his side? Oh, wait, that makes sense. You're from some trailer park in the rust belt, aren't you?"

"I heard your mom cleans out diners for a living," Phoebe sneered, looking down at me with an air of aristocratic pity. Even when they weren't pretending to be heiresses, their upper-middle-class backgrounds eclipsed my reality by miles. "No wonder you always smell like cheap bleach and old grease."

"God, you and the driver really are from the same gutter. You guys must have so much in common," Kendall chimed in. "What do you talk about? Food stamps?"

As their insults rained down on me, I bit my lower lip, feigning deep hurt. "You can say whatever you want about me, but leave the driver alone. He's just trying to make an honest living for his family."

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow, letting out a sharp scoff. "Family?"

Kendall lazily kicked the back of the drivers seat with her designer sneaker. "Hey, old man. Someone as broke as you actually has a wife and kids?"

The driver let out a low, breathy laugh. His foot slammed down on the gas pedal.

I whipped my head toward the windshield. The car violently jerked into another lane.

In my palm, my phone began to vibrate incessantly, the rideshare app flashing a glaring warning.

He had deviated from the route.

2.

My breath hitched, my heart hammering so violently it felt like it might crack my ribs.

Time was up.

I immediately leaned forward, grabbing the drivers phone from the dashboard mount and waking the screen. I turned to the girls, raising my voice. "What are you talking about? Look, here's his family right here!"

The cracked screen illuminated a faded, happy photo of a family of three. The driver looked years younger, a testament to how old the picture was. The little boy in the photo was strikingly pale, his skin translucent, his head completely bald from intensive treatments.

In my past life, I had learned the truth much later. The drivers intense hatred for the wealthy stemmed from a broken medical system. His son had battled severe leukemia, and because he couldn't afford the exorbitant experimental treatments that rich families could easily buy, the boy died at only six years old.

His son was the absolute line you did not cross.

Kendall snatched the phone from my hand, her face immediately twisting into open disgust. "What kind of knock-off trash phone is this? The pixels are huge." She squinted at the lock screen. "Ew. Why does that kid look like a ghost? It's genuinely creepy."

The driver whipped his head around, his face contorted into something demonic. "What did you just say!?"

The car swerved wildly, the tires screeching as we narrowly missed a concrete divider. Kendall shrieked, tossing the phone carelessly onto the console. "Watch the road, you psycho!"

Phoebe gripped the headrest, her chest heaving as she glared at the man. "You almost killed us! Over a stupid lock screen?!"

"Seriously. If you're that defensive over a picture, maybe the kid isn't even yours," Jocelyn sneered, raking a hand through her messy hair. "Wife probably cheated on you."

The phone had slipped into the crack between the seats. Moving faster than the driver, I dove for it, retrieved it, and glared righteously at my roommates. "Just because you have money doesn't give you the right to strip away someone's dignity!"

Jocelyn looked me up and down, deeply annoyed. "Giselle, look at yourself. You really think you're in a position to play savior?"

"We let you be the roommate coordinator out of pity, don't let it go to your head!"

Hearing that, my fists clenched so tight my nails dug into my palms. I almost laughed at the sheer audacity.

Freshman year, the three of them had bullied and manipulated me into being the "roommate coordinator" simply because they couldn't be bothered to pick up after themselves. I was the one scrubbing the toilets. I was the one mopping the floors. When the drain clogged with their hair, or when they were too hungover to get their own food, it was always me fetching and cleaning.

In my previous life, I genuinely believed that because I had poured my heart out serving them, they would at least have the decency to tell the police the truth. Instead, they framed me as a slut who threw herself at a predator.

This time around, I was going to make sure they tasted every single drop of the agony I endured.

The driver retrieved his phone, his thumb brushing over the cracked screen. The shadow over his face briefly receded, replaced by a haunting, hollow smile.

"I apologize," he said, his voice eerily calm. "That is the last photo taken of my son before he passed away. I lost my temper."

Kendall shrieked, frantically pulling a bottle of hand sanitizer from her purse and scrubbing her hands. "Dead? Oh my god, that is such bad energy. I literally touched it."

Phoebe pulled out a pack of wet wipes, handing one to Kendall with a worried frown. "Ken, you're totally going to have nightmares tonight."

Jocelyn shrugged, thoroughly unbothered. "Just drink it off. I brought a bottle of Dom we can pop when we get to the rental."

"Ugh, thank god for you."

They chatted back and forth, entirely ignoring the man in the front seat, acting as if the death of a child was a minor inconvenience compared to Kendall potentially having a bad dream.

I watched the drivers face in the rearview mirror. For a split second, his expression completely fractured.

In my last life, mere wealth-flaunting had planted a seed of violent hatred in him. This time, they had crossed lines so deeply depraved I couldn't even fathom the horrors this broken man was dreaming up for them.

The notifications on my phone multiplied. Rerouting. Rerouting. Rerouting.

The vibration in my hand matched the frantic tempo of my pulse. I took shallow, quiet breaths. In my calculated panic, I intentionally flipped the mute switch off.

Instantly, the loud, rhythmic pinging of the GPS warnings echoed through the suffocating cabin.

3.

The driver slowly turned his head to look at me. His eyes were completely dead. A terrifying pool of eerie calm.

They were the eyes that had haunted my nightmares, night after agonizing night.

I looked away instantly, a physical shudder ripping through my spine.

Hearing the chimes, Phoebe peered out the dark window, her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitting together. "Why are there no streetlights out here? Do you even know how to use a GPS?"

The driver let out two dry, rhythmic laughs. He kept his hands casually draped over the steering wheel. "There's a massive pile-up on the interstate. I'm taking a shortcut to get you girls there."

I thought that after the screaming match, they would at least have a baseline level of situational awareness. But I severely overestimated their survival instincts.

Jocelyn crossed her arms, letting out a haughty huff. "At least you're marginally useful."

The other two nodded in agreement.

"Well, this car smells like a dumpster, so we aren't paying extra for the detour," Kendall complained, waving a hand in front of her nose.

The driver remained perfectly placid. Not a single muscle in his face twitched in anger. "Just go into your app and change the drop-off location to wherever we are now. The rest of the ride is on the house."

The three of them paused at the mention of a free ride. They exchanged a look, then collectively turned to me, snapping their fingers. "Cancel the ride, Giselle. Quick."

I clutched my phone tightly. Watching their faces soften at the prospect of saving a few bucks, I knew my window had finally opened.

"No." I sat rigidly in my seat, staring straight ahead. "I'm not cancelling it."

Jocelyns eyes bulged. "Giselle, what the hell is wrong with you? If you need a therapist, go find one, but stop dragging us into your weird complexes!"

"Seriously. You're broke and you're obnoxious. Just do it!"

They fired off insults, their faces flushed with irritation. Jocelyn started spamming my phone with texts in the group chat.

Do you have money to burn or something?!

Do you know how expensive a ride from the airport to the estate is?!

The driver caught my eye in the mirror and offered a warm, almost grandfatherly smile. "Are you worried about safety, sweetheart? There are cameras everywhere these days. Whod be stupid enough to try anything?" He paused, his gaze slowly dragging across the three girls in the back. "Besides... you ladies are clearly very important people. I wouldn't dare offend you."

"Exactly!"

"Why would he do anything to us? He's not an idiot."

Jocelyn, her ego sufficiently stroked by the drivers feigned submission, looked at me like I was something scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

Listening to their absolute delusion, a cold, bitter laugh bubbled up in my chest.

This man drove these roads for a living. He knew exactly where the citys cameras stopped and the dark country roads began. And the fake billionaire identities these girls were parading around? They didn't intimidate him. They only fueled his desire to watch them bleed.

But this time, I wasn't going to be the voice of reason.

"I don't care what you say. I am not changing the destination." I crossed my arms, immovable.

My stubbornness was the spark that blew Kendall's notoriously volatile temper wide open.

"Fine. If you won't change it, get the hell out." She glared at me with pure venom, pointing toward the desolate, fog-covered bridge rolling past the windows. "It's pitch black out here. Good luck walking back to civilization."

"And if you get jumped by some local meth heads, don't bother calling us to save you!"

I let the insults wash over me, refusing to touch the app.

My phone chimed with the third major route deviation warning.

Kendall let out a bark of bitter laughter. "Giselle, you asked for this." She delivered a brutal kick to the back of the driver's seat. "Pull over!"

The driver didn't hit the brakes. "Ladies, why don't you just take her phone and do it yourselves? It's awfully dangerous for a young girl to be out here alone at night."

But Kendall wasn't the type to be reasoned with. In my past life, it was her blinding rage that caused them to abandon the car in the first place.

She kicked the seat again, harder, her voice turning shrill and violent. "I said pull the car over! Are you deaf!?"

Jocelyn and Phoebe leaned forward, aggressively shoving the driver's shoulder.

Between the blaring GPS alarms, Kendall's screaming, and the physical struggle, the cabin erupted into absolute chaos.

The car slammed to a violent halt.

"Get out!" Kendall threw her door open, stomped around to the other side, ripped my door open, and grabbed my arm, yanking me toward the asphalt. "You want to play the martyr? Let's see how you like it out here, you ungrateful bitch!"

I didn't fight back.

I stumbled out of the car, my knees slamming into the loose gravel of the shoulder. The sharp pain brought hot tears to my eyesbut not from sadness.

I was alive. The loop was broken. I had survived the car ride.

Jocelyn slid out right behind me and snatched the phone from my unresisting hands. She tapped the screen a few times, altered the destination, and finalized the drop-off.

Then, she looked down at me, holding my phone over the guardrail of the bridge. She flashed me a radiant, wicked smile.

"Want it back?"

Before I could even open my mouth, she opened her fingers. My phone plummeted into the dark, rushing river below.

"Oops. Butterfingers." She shrugged, her laugh a nasty, metallic sound.

I sat slumped on the wet gravel, watching as the two of them triumphantly climbed back into the vehicle. Kendall, wanting more legroom, had even taken the passenger seat in the front.

Through the glass, I caught the drivers eyes. They were fixed on me, dark and seething with a twisted sense of disappointment that his first prey had slipped away.

Jocelyn slammed her door shut and, with the haughty command of a queen, ordered him to drive.

The driver tore his eyes away from me and hit the gas.

I sat there, utterly still, watching the red taillights bleed into the impenetrable darkness of the tree line ahead.

Beyond that point, there were no cameras. No cell towers. Nothing but miles of dense, unforgiving woods.

Under the cover of the night, a slow, deep smile spread across my face.

Welcome to your personal hell, girls.