8. Chapter 8
Chapter eight
T he Charger’s engine screamed as Vince stomped the gas pedal. He was bent over the wheel, gripping it savagely, his jaw set and his teeth clenched as he glared at the road, entirely focused on swerving around the vehicles ahead of them. The SUV bashed them from behind again, and their tires shrieked across the pavement as they skidded sideways.
“Fuckers!” Vince roared, cranking on the wheel with all his might, straightening the car just in time to keep them from clipping the back of a semi that blared its horn at them.
Rissa’s scream was stuck in her throat. Beside her, Elio was rocking back and forth, gripping his head, an incoherent mumble breaking from his lips in answer to her frantic question. Her heart was thundering with panic as Vince swerved again, throwing her against the door, Elio’s weight crashing into her shoulder.
“Vince,” she cried when she could catch her breath again. “Something’s going on with Elio.” What if the jolt had done more damage, starting some internal bleeding in his brain? She could feel her panic rising to a crescendo and heard it in her voice, millions of miles away from the professional calm she would have been intent on keeping if were they in any other circumstance.
“Not much we can do about it now,” Vince yelled back between clenched teeth. “It’s all I can do just to keep us on the road! We’ve got to lose these bastards before they kill us.”
Rissa’s heart leaped into her throat as he abruptly let go of the wheel with one hand, fumbling for the glove box on the passenger side. At the same time, the SUV caught up to them again, nosing into them from behind, and the car swerved once more.
There were several short pops behind them, followed by the sharp thwack of metal burying itself in the back of the car. Rissa spun around to see that the man in the passenger seat of the SUV was hanging out the passenger window, a handgun glinting in his hand. Two more cracks of gunfire made her flinch and duck, her breath catching in her throat.
Vince grabbed the wheel again, grinding out, “Mahoney. Get up here. I need you to get the gun out of the glovebox and return fire.”
“I can’t just. . .” Rissa’s aghast voice trailed off as she realized this was a ridiculous argument. The people behind them were trying to kill them—or something close to it. This was no time for squabbles over whether or not she wanted to or was capable of wielding a firearm.
With one last desperate glance at Elio who still had his eyes shut and his head gripped between his hands, she scrambled over his knees and the console and into the passenger seat next to his cousin.
Vince was sweating and cursing constantly under his breath as he yanked the wheel first one way and then the other. The engine roared beneath them as the Charger sped down the road.
Glancing out the window, Rissa immediately felt sick to her stomach. The trees and even other cars were whizzing past in a virtual blur because they were moving so fast. She had never been in a car that was moving as fast as they were driving now.
We’re all going to die, she thought, her heart in her throat.
But she said nothing. Instead, she unlatched the glovebox with trembling fingers and pulled out the heavy black pistol that lay inside.
“It’s loaded,” Vince gritted from between his teeth. “Safety catch on the side. Open the window and start shooting.”
Gunfire rattled behind them once again. A car suddenly slowed right in front of them, and Vince cursed, stomping the brake and spinning the wheel. They clipped the back of the car, sending both of them spinning.
Rissa grabbed the handle on the door, grinding her teeth to keep from screaming again and from being thrown into Vince’s lap. Miraculously, they ended up facing forward, but the Charger immediately lurched from another hard hit from the SUV. In the back seat, Elio shouted in pain once again, his voice raw with what sounded almost like a sob. Rissa’s heart fluttered with terror, both for what he was suffering and for what might happen to them all.
This had to end.
A sob caught in her own throat as the Charger finally stopped weaving enough for her to sit up straight. Her finger found the catch on the side of the pistol and flipped it. Closing her hand around the cold steel, she hit the button to lower the passenger side window and crouched on her knees facing it.
Reaching around with her free hand, she gripped the headrest of the passenger seat to keep from being thrown from the window with another sharp turn and leaned her head and gun hand out the window as far as she dared. The wind whipped around her, stinging her skin and roaring in her ears.
Rissa pointed the gun at the SUV, which had swerved to the right and was creeping up as if to get beside them and push them off the road. She aimed at the windshield, her mind shying away from the possibility that she would hit one of the men inside and kill them. Their circumstances were too dangerous to think like that.
Squeezing the trigger, Rissa heard the crack of the shot, and the pistol leaped in her hand. She squeezed again and again, and a spiderweb of cracks suddenly blossomed across the windshield she was aiming for. The SUV swerved back behind them just as Vince yelled.
“We’re coming up on a bridge. Hang on!”
Drawing her arm back into the car, her heart pounding in her ears, Rissa twisted back in her seat to face forward. The bridge crossed a flat glittering river. It shimmered in her vision like a mirage.
She suddenly remembered crossing it with Elio on their way to the resort. They had stopped for gas and snacks just before, and she had commented on how good the cookies were that she was eating.
“Give me a taste?” Elio had asked, glancing across at her with a winning smile. Rissa grabbed a cookie from the pack and leaned across to pop it into his mouth, letting her finger briefly trace his bottom lip.
“Mmm,” Elio hummed in appreciation. His right hand left the wheel to weasel its way beneath her butt, lifted slightly off the seat with her leaning. Pleasure shuddered through her as his fingers found the sensitive place between her legs. Their gazes tangled again, the warmth in his eyes making her heart swell with answering emotion even as his finger-work made her gasp and her fingers tightened around the package of cookies.
It’s a miracle we made it without swerving off the road then , she thought as her brain momentarily fled to the safety of the memories and lost itself there.
She was yanked back to the present by another hard jolt as the SUV bashed into them once again.
“Shit!” Vince bellowed, and this time Rissa couldn’t contain her scream as the Charger spun out of control. Dizziness snatched her as they whirled—the bridge, the SUV, and then the bridge again, flashing before her eyes. There was a sickening crunch as they hit the guard rail, and Rissa was thrown against the front of the car, her head banging the windshield and her elbow ramming into the dash.
The airbags burst from the glovebox and steering wheel. Rissa felt hers burning against her skin, but she was already half on top of it. She dropped the gun, grabbing for something to hold onto, her own scream ringing in her ears as the Charger continued forward, leaping the rail and plummeting toward the river below.