Chapter 14 – Corvus #2
Rook’s gun discharged two shots, ringing in my ears.
One hit the rear tire of the hatchback to the right, sending it swerving off the highway, spinning into the ditch, toppling onto its side.
The other missed Drake, but the gunfire was enough to scare the other car off the road, leaving him with no cover for at least another couple of miles.
I clenched my teeth, ignoring the smoking wreckage behind us to focus my attention ahead.
I fired. Once. Twice. Drake jerked, the motorcycle swerving madly before he managed to right it.
Rook fired, but his shot went wide, pinging off the metal center meridian in a shower of sparks.
“Keep it fucking steady,” Rook bellowed, and Grey, heedless of the lines on the highway, drove straight up the middle, laying on the horn to keep the cars attempting to merge onto the highway from getting in our way.
“Now,” he shouted. “Do it.”
Rook fired again and this time he would’ve had the fucker had he not swerved out of the way at the last second, using a break in the meridian to put himself on the other side of the highway, driving against oncoming traffic.
He bent low over the bike, flattening himself with his elbows wide as he steered through the speeding, honking vehicles.
“He’s going to get away,” Rook hissed, watching like a fucking bobblehead, trying to keep his sights set on Drake as Grey continued driving.
“No he’s not.”
“Shit!”
Two cars on the northbound highway crashed trying to avoid hitting Drake, a third flipped over the median into our path.
My head knocked against the window frame, neck screaming with whiplash as Grey avoided the collision, the smell of metal and gasoline heavy in my nose. The glow of fire in the rearview.
Cars piled up on the opposite highway, busting through the meridian, clogging the air with a thick, dense smoke.
“Do you see him?” I asked Rook, trying and failing to locate him in the wreckage or the now tens or maybe hundreds of cars slowing to a red-brake-light stop.
We did not just fucking lose him.
No.
I slammed my palm on the dash, my breath hot and heavy, coming out through bared teeth.
Rook grabbed my shoulder. “There!”
I followed his line of sight and found a single tail light as it curved, getting off the highway.
“Grey—”
“I saw.”
He took the next exit, jamming the Rover into a lower gear as we whipped around the curve and took the first left.
With bated breath, we drove in tense silence, the whistle of the wind the only sound above the distant roar of fire and sirens as we took the exit road toward Edgewood.
We barreled down the road, passing every vehicle in our way, scouring the shoulder, the trees, the roads forking off in both directions.
The Rover rolled to a stop when the road finally reached a two way split, holding up traffic as it caught up behind us. Left would take us back to Thorn Valley. Right to Lennox.
There were no red tail lights in either direction.
Grey punched the steering wheel hard before grabbing it to anchor him through a feral war cry. “Fuck, fuck, fuck .”
The car behind him honked, long and loud and his eyes glittered with rage before he threw it into reverse, demolishing the front end of the car behind us before throwing it into park. His hands gripped the wheel as he fought to tame his breathing, leaning his forehead against the worn leather.
There was nothing Rook or I could say now that wouldn’t make him feel even more like a failure than he clearly already did.
“You did what you could,” I said, my voice terse and emotionally detached even to my own ears.
We fucking lost him.
And now he knew that we knew who he was.
I dragged a sweaty palm over the scruff growing on my jaw.
“Just fucking say it,” Grey demanded, his voice hollow. “I never would’ve lost him before. The one fucking thing I’m good at and I?—”
“ Don’t ,” Rook sat back in his seat, laying his Browning in his lap to press his palms into his eye sockets. “How the fuck would you’ve caught a motorcycle driving on the other side of a fucking meridian in opposing traffic. Who the fuck are you, Houdini?”
Grey didn’t reply, and the man in the car behind us opened his door, phone to his ear. Blood running in a straight line down the middle of his forehead.
Rook opened his door, flashing his gun at the guy. “Back in your car, asshole.”
“We need to get back,” I found myself saying. “Maverick needs to answer for this motherfucker. He knows something. He has to.”
Yes. A new idea. A new angle. Something. I needed something to go on. Anything that could lead us to her .
Grey turned left, taking us back to Thorn Valley.
My phone vibrated and I took it out, knowing better than to hope it would be anything good.
And as usual, I was right. My stomach soured at the message lighting up the screen.
Sensing my tension, Rook leaned forward, trying to peer over my shoulder to read the text, but I thumbed the side button and the screen went black, reflecting my own carefully constructed mask back to me. “Who was it?”
“Diesel,” I lied.