BY THE TIME WE DID pull over—or rather, ground to a halt in the middle of the street—rain was starting to speckle the windshield (or what was left of it) and the sky had darkened, none of which prevented Joan from leaping onto her seat the moment we stopped and grabbing the handle of one of the ceiling hatches.
“Is that a good idea?” I asked, as she turned the handle and pushed the hatch open. “We haven’t even had a look around yet—”
But she had already burst through the opening and was gasping for air, sucking it into her lungs in great, shuddering gulps, exhaling as though she’d been holding her breath for a lifetime. “I—I don’t care,” she rasped, as though she were collapsing from exhaustion. “Couldn’t ... couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t—do it a second longer.”
“What’s wrong with her?” as
