Chapter 7 #4
An expression of absolute horror crosses the man’s face as he leaps up and dashes toward the door while he anxiously glances at us, like he’s prepared to be shot in the back of the head at any second. “Open the fucking door!” he screams as he hammers on it.
I shove him out of the way and try the doorknob, even though the man’s desperation has made it quite apparent that they plan on keeping us in this room for some reason.
“It’s Antonio,” I realize.
“What?” Grayson asks, brow furrowed as he drops the cash and rushes over to help.
“Your fucking boss is trying to sell off Antonio. If whoever they’re dealing with had some fucking drug lord’s son in their hands, they could establish control they couldn’t formerly touch.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He’s not that bad of a guy,” Grayson says while he slams against the door.
“You also didn’t think Devon was too bad of a guy!”
He grimaces. “It’s… it’s complicated, Cal. Not everything is just perfectly lined up like you wish it was!”
“Use your head to open the fucking door. Your skull should definitely be thick enough.”
“Well, your attitude alone should be able to bust it down.”
“ My attitude? My attitude is perfect.”
“Maybe if you two worked together you could open the door?” the third guy asks, seemingly relieved that we haven’t murdered him over this. We just haven’t murdered him yet . Evidently, his buddies don’t care about his existence.
I kick the door hard, but still it doesn’t budge.
It seems like Ned is going off the misconception that I really am Antonio’s bodyguard.
He tried to convince Grayson to send me and Antonio in, where they’d have tried to take Antonio from us.
But since we left Antonio alone in the car with a gun that he doesn’t know how to use, it would be more than simple to just snatch him up.
Really, it’s like we hand delivered Antonio to them.
Why did I let my own stubbornness put Antonio in danger? Why did I even leave the car when I should have stayed with him?
“I fucked up. I really fucked up. Why the hell did I leave him alone?” I ask, feeling panicked.
Just because Antonio isn’t na?ve to this world doesn’t mean he’s prepared to deal with any of this shit.
Suddenly, I hear a gunshot and my stomach squeezes tight as I beg that it was Antonio who fired the gun, not them.
“Help me,” I plead.
“Okay, on the count of three,” Grayson says.
“Okay.”
“One… two… three!” We both kick the door at the same time. It groans against our punishment but doesn’t give up yet. “Again.”
We kick it again. This time, the door cracks and flings open.
The man who’s in the room with us hurriedly backs away, like he thinks hiding will be the best option, and it might be because I need to get to Antonio quickly and don’t have time to deal with him.
I rush out of the room and run down the hallway, gun out and ready, but when I get out of the building, I find the SUV Antonio had been waiting in still sitting there, door open, driver’s seat empty.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I yell as I see their vehicle, a newer SUV, speeding down the road.
Grayson runs toward the driver’s seat but I push him out of the way.
“I’ll drive.”
He shakes his head. “No, I’m the better driver.”
“You most certainly are not! Do you not remember the time you rear-ended someone?”
“Because you distracted me!”
“Oh of course, blame it on me!”
“Cal, you’re better with a gun than me. I’m driving,” Grayson says, and I realize that he is quite right. So I get into the passenger seat and don’t even have the door closed before he’s off.
I reach into the back seat to grab my rifle, more than prepared to see how I can do shooting out their tires at this speed, but find it rather empty.
“Where did you hide my gun?”
“I didn’t… hide it. I laid it right on the floor.”
I hesitate as the realization of what he’s saying settles in. “They… they stole my baby. Those motherfuckers… stole my baby.” I’m pissed about Antonio and now I’m pissed about my gun. These assholes really need to watch their backs.
“We’ll get it back.”
“Fuck,” I grumble. “You’re going to have to get significantly closer before I can shoot them.”
“Cal, I’m really sorry,” Grayson says, and it’s quite clear he’s not apologizing about his inability to make up the distance or the Antonio thing. He’s apologizing about that . “I’m so sorry. I really am sorry.”
“Stop,” I tell him, not wanting to hear it. “I need to concentrate. I can’t do this right now.”
“You can never do this,” he says as he slows the SUV just enough to take the curve.
“No matter how many times I beg. No matter how many times I ask, you can’t do it.
I know it’s because you don’t want to think about what happened.
Deep down, you know that there really wasn’t anything I could do to remain here with you.
But if I’d just listened to you better. If I’d just understood.
Please, let me apologize. Stop pushing me away. ”
“I can’t because every time I talk to you, I think of them!”
“I want you to only think of me.”
I wish I could… I wish I could go back to that time, but I can’t. “Please, not now. Just help me get Antonio back, and then… then I’ll listen to you. But not now.”
“Okay,” he says, pushing the vehicle as hard as it’ll go, but it seems like no matter how fast we drive, they’re still so far ahead of us. My stomach clenches as I fear that we won’t make it to Antonio in time—that I’ll have fucked up so badly that I’ll lose him too.
Voicing my worries aloud, I say, “I can’t lose him too.”
“You’re not going to. I doubt his life is even at risk. He’s worth nothing dead. They want to use him. That’s all this is,” Grayson reassures me.
“Right… but we’re not catching up to them. We’re not even getting close to him.”
I glance over but I know he’s going as fast as he possibly can. I’m really not certain what he could do to go any faster.
Desperate for something, I look over at the GPS screen and see that there’s a lane that cuts to the right.
If we take it and they end up doing a left at the end of it, it would put us farther back, but it would also give us a brief moment where we would be lined up beside them as the roads drew close before veering away.
“Turn right at this road instead of the one they turned on,” I say.
Grayson doesn’t even bother to ask why or say a damn thing about how risky it is. I know how risky it is. He trusts me… and I’m unsure why that means so much to me.
It’s hard to tell how close the roads are on a GPS screen, but simply driving after them in a slower vehicle is getting us nowhere. We have to take this chance… I only hope it turns out well or I’ll have lost one of my only friends… again.
Quickly, I climb into the back seat and roll down the window.
“Cal, we’re coming up on the narrowest part in about a quarter of a mile,” Grayson says, obviously understanding what I’m trying to do. “We’re going to be extremely far from them and when moving at this speed with the wind the way it is…”
“I won’t fuck up,” I whisper, well aware I only have a handgun to aid me.
I aim it at the other SUV while I try to decide whether I want to go for the front tire or the back.
If I go for the front and I misjudge, the round could possibly strike the back tire…
or it could go through the door of the SUV and strike Antonio in the leg.
No… I have to risk it on the back tire.
I steady the gun, waiting for the moment when we are closest. I don’t have much time to take this shot. If I miss the first time, I’m not even sure if I’ll have a second to make another before the distance between us widens.
“You can do it,” Grayson says. “You’re the best damn shot I know.”
“Don’t try to butter me up.”
“I know you love compliments, and I only compliment someone when they deserve it.”
“Hm.”
“You know that’s true.”
“Are you focused on the road?”
“Have I driven off it yet?” he asks.
“If you could hit fewer bumps in the road, it’d be fantastic.”
“I will call the city right now and see if they can get them to asphalt it.”
“Get them to block traffic on that other road while you’re at it, then.”
“I called and they told me to fuck myself. Weirdly enough, that’s the same thing you do when I call you.”
“Yeah? You like it, though, don’t you? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t keep calling.”
“Maybe I just like hearing your voice.”
“That’s questionable,” I mutter as I take a deep breath, hoping to steady myself to get into the perfect mindset. Because I can’t fuck up. I really can’t fuck up.
“You ready?”
I don’t answer him; I just focus on the shot I have to make. I do my best to judge their speed compared to ours as well as the wind. Every single thing plays a role in this single shot and I can’t get it wrong. I can’t fuck up.
Focus. I can do this. I can do this.
I pull the trigger, begging that the shot is perfect because the instant the trigger has been pulled, the roads shift away from each other and trees fill the spot in between, drawing the vehicles away from each other.
“Did you hit it?”
“I… don’t know,” I admit. “It’s so far away.
Without my scope or binoculars, I couldn’t see very well.
I think I missed.” The trees blur between us and I know we won’t see the other SUV again until Grayson turns.
And that’s only if I didn’t miss. If I did…
how far ahead of us could they have gotten?
“You’ve never missed,” he says.
“That’s not always a good thing,” I whisper, knowing very well that there’s at least one time that I wish I’d missed.
“Well, I’m confident that at this point in time, it’s a good thing. Let’s not focus on the past. Let’s pretend we don’t even know each other. Hi, I’m Blake.”
“Where did the name Blake even come from?” I ask.