Chapter 19 #2
My eyes follow the vehicle, and I’m on high alert until it disappears from view.
I want to say more to my best friend, but I stop, all my attention going to the side mirror. Another black SUV ambles up the highway toward my stopped vehicle.
“Okay, don’t panic,” I whisper to Yennifer, but more to myself. “I think some shit is about to go down.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Her edgy voice filled with dread. I don’t answer her for fear I might lose my shit completely.
The SUV rolls to a complete stop this time, and in the blinding lights, I can’t make out much except for two figures exiting the vehicle and walking toward the officer.
My foot hovers over the brake, my finger poised right above the ignition button.
“Yenn,” I rasp, then in the side mirror I see?—
Pop-pop-pop!
I don’t stop to stare at the fallen police officer or the men rushing toward my vehicle. I start the ignition and slam the car into drive, taking off into traffic like a bat out of hell.
“Shae! What the hell’s going on!” Yenn screams, a sharp, panicked sound.
“They just shot him!” I scream, putting the pedal all the way to the floor and zooming over seventy miles per hour in under ten seconds.
The sun starts hitting the horizon, and all my attention goes toward finding somewhere safe to hide.
“Call King!” I rasp, realizing all the windows are still down, and that’s why everything sounds so loud in the car. But before I can roll the windows up, the unmistakable sound of a powerful engine revving has me looking for the source.
I’m too late—a dark vehicle rams into the back of the tiny luxury sedan.
“Shit! I’m being rammed!”
“I’ve got your location, Shae! Get off the highway! You gotta lose them!” Yennifer shouts, and I’m grateful we still share location with each other on our phones.
I jerk the car to the right and off the graded slope of earth leading to a side road. The wheels hit the new pavement with a deafening thunk , and I swerve in front of a late-model Toyota. The driver honks, laying on the horn, but I keep my eyes on the road.
People. I need to get into a crowded area around people.
“This can’t be Storm. He wouldn’t do this, Shae,” Yennifer yells.
“I don’t—I don’t know,” I stutter, taking a hard right, and flooring it.
Up ahead, traffic lights show I’m entering civilization, and the road behind me starts to clear. Everything still sounds so damn loud, the wind whipping through the vehicle and hitting my face like needles.
I feel like crying; I feel like passing out with my heart beating out of my chest.
Part of me only wants Storm right now, despite the shit that’s gone down in the last several hours. Hell, despite him breaking my heart all those years ago. Storm should be here, because I know deep inside my soul that he’s not the one responsible for this.
The terrifying thing, though, is I don’t know who is.
Suddenly, there isn’t a vehicle chasing me, and the road falls completely silent.
Did I lose them?
“I think it’s clear,” I say, but I’m barely holding it together, looking around—left, right, rearview mirror, up ahead.
What the fuck just happened? Adrenaline causes my teeth to chatter.
Storm couldn’t have set this up. Storm couldn’t. Storm wouldn’t.
My brain scrambles to rationalize the terror I’ve just experienced.
“Carjacking,” I blurt out, pulling my foot off the accelerator. The speedometer goes from sixty to fifty to forty-five.
“What?”
“Not Storm. I th-think they were trying to jack me.” There. That’s a reasonable conclusion. “That makes sense, right? They saw a c-car on the s-side of the road and decided t-to rob me. Good thing I drove off!”
I speak loudly, trying to moderate my tone.
“I need to figure out where I am and where I need to go,” I tell Yennifer, releasing a staggered cry when I spot a row of shops three blocks ahead.
“You need to go back. You need protection—you need Storm. What if you lead them here to the twins? That wasn’t random, Shae!”
My heart rate, which hasn’t recovered from the car chase, speeds up again. She’s right, but….
I stop at a deserted traffic signal. It’s early, and there’s one shop light on. A bakery. The scent of fresh bread fills the air through the still-open windows.
“I’m going to…” I take a slow breath, clutching my chest, and I whirl through the scenarios. I look back at the navigation panel, and my fingers shake. Airport or hotel?
Who do I trust? Myself…or Storm?
My fingers shake as I hit “Navigate.” The green light glows ahead of me.
“I’ll go to Storm,” I say out loud, blowing out a breath.
I lift my foot off the brake.
Rrrrrip.
My door wrenches open—a knife flashes—and before I can even think to panic, my back hits the concrete as I’m pulled from the vehicle.
My stunned silence only lasts a second.
I scream so loud my ears ring. My attacker only lets the sound continue for a few seconds before backhanding me so hard I flip over on the ground.
“Please don’t hurt me! I have children!” I shout, registering Yennifer’s distant wails and the mocking purple-orange sky.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” a dark voice grates out. Petrified shouts unleash from my chest as my assailant drags me away from the vehicle, gravel scraping along my spine and hair popping from my scalp.
“Shae! Shae!” Yennifer screams.
Oh, God. I’m going to die.
Daddy, please keep my babies safe. Take care of them.
I close my eyes and think of my babies’ faces…of Storm’s face back when he loved me. I let these be the last things I see.
Pop-pop-pop-pop.
My body jolts with each burst. Sound warps—sharp, then distant. It’s like being underwater with a bomb going off above me. I jerk, my eyes sliding shut and my ears ringing as the force of the blasts steals my hearing.
Hot liquid splatters my body.
Then, a thud.
A heavy weight lands on my back, pinning me to the ground.
“Help!” I shout, even though I can’t hear anything—not my own voice, not the chaos, not the soundtrack of Yennifer’s panicked screams over the speakerphone.
When I finally lift my head, I gape in horror at the bloodied arm draped over my body.
My jaw unhinges, and I feel my mouth open as if in an endless scream as it becomes clear: I’m in the middle of a blood bath.
Before I can draw any more conclusions, the world explodes into movement with a dozen people showing up from what feels like nowhere. The weight of the corpse disappears from my back, and I’m pulled into someone’s arms.
My throat burns as I scream, taking in the death scene around me. The man who dragged me from the vehicle lay on his back with his eyes open and unseeing, half of his face missing, blown off.
The pain in my throat intensifies.
I fight against the hold, kicking, screaming, biting, but the person carrying me only grips me tighter.
So, I do what my body—my soul—commands, and I put all my might into pushing out a single word.
“Storm!”
We stop moving, and I think the person’s going to release me. Instead, soft, familiar lips land on my temple.
“S-Storm?” My ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton, and I stop fighting, start breathing, and try to look at my savior.
And meet a pair of moss-green eyes.
I repeat his name, but the word barely passes my lips before everything goes black.