Chapter 7 #2
Oh, screw this. “Let me help,” she said, sitting up in her seat to take in their sun-drenched surroundings. “I can keep watch out the back window while you get us out of here.”
“No. Keep your head down. You need to stay safe.” Devon split his attention between the road and the rearview, but managing both views had to be the mother of all balancing acts.
Kylie refused to budge. “I get that this road is pretty empty, but we’re not going to be very safe if you wreck the car, Devon. Believe me, if bullets start flying, I’ll be the first person to hit the damned deck. But for now, I’m helping.”
Whether it was for her attitude or her argument, she didn’t know, but Devon gave in with a swear. “Fine. We’re going to backtrack for a few miles, then try to pick up an alternate route through South Dakota. If you see anyone—anyone—behind us, you need to say so. Got it?”
“Got it.” Kylie did a one-eighty against the passenger seat, trying to recalibrate her pulse to something that vaguely resembled normal as she stared through the back windshield.
Small houses dotted either side of the dusty, two-lane back highway, the road bisected here and there by a handful of narrow cross streets and hidden driveways.
A minute passed, then two. Devon fired up the GPS on the Challenger’s dashboard, bringing up their location and mapping out an eastward route as he drove.
“Okay. According to this, we can take this road in a straight shot until we get to—”
Oh. God. “Devon.” Fear slipped down Kylie’s spine with cold, clammy fingers. “A red pickup truck just pulled out from that cross street, and it’s catching up to us, fast.”
She turned toward him at the same time his gaze arrowed in on the rearview mirror, and he ditched the GPS in favor of pulling his gun from its holster.
“Hold on, and be ready to take the wheel if I tell you to.”
Devon slammed his boot over the accelerator, the car rocketing down the empty back road fast enough to make Kylie’s stomach drop all the way to her hips.
With her heart lodged somewhere in the vicinity of her voice box, she reached behind her, pulling her seat belt over her chest while still keeping her eyes trained on the pickup truck behind them.
How the hell had it gotten closer?
“Devon.” She’d barely gotten the word past her lips when a figure leaned out of the truck’s passenger window, aiming a trio of rapid-fire shots in the direction of the Challenger.
“Holy shit!” Kylie cried, ducking behind her seat. Although the shots seemed to have missed the car completely, the urge to panic still flared to life in her veins.
But then Devon pinned her with a sure, cool stare, jerking his chin at the steering wheel. “I need you to take the wheel, Kylie. Just stay as low as you can and keep us on the road. You with me?”
Her nod was a default even though she was fifty-fifty at backing it up. “Just steer and watch the road? What are you going to do?”
Devon’s answer was the click of his gun’s safety and the whoosh of the driver’s side window disappearing into the doorframe.
Kylie bit down on her lip, forcing herself to stare out the windshield in front of them.
The road was pretty straight as far as she could see, and she leaned in to grip the leather-wrapped steering wheel from the passenger seat.
“Got it,” she called over the whipping wind. Devon shifted his body so his left boot replaced his right on the accelerator, twisting around to lean the right side of his body out the open window while his left foot still mashed down on the gas.
Spaghetti, meatballs, wine, and a double freaking helping of tiramisu.
Kylie screamed the words in her head, commanding both hands to stay locked on the Challenger’s wheel.
Devon squeezed off two shots with a loud pop-pop, and she sent up a prayer that one of them would hit something vital in the pickup truck.
Nope.
“Keep steering,” Devon yelled, readjusting in a blur.
Three more shots blasted from his gun, the unmistakable screech of rubber against pavement telling Kylie he must’ve bull’s-eyed one of the pickup’s tires.
A jumble of loud, indecipherable sounds flew in through the window, but only after Devon had slid back into the driver’s seat a minute later did she allow herself to turn and look.
“Holy shit.” The pickup truck had banked hard and spun off the pavement. Although the hulking vehicle was upright, it stood at an unnatural angle on the deeply pitched shoulder of the road, clearly out of commission.
“Are you okay?” Devon asked, his knuckles flashing white against the steering wheel as he darted a quick glance at her face. “Dammit, Kylie. You’re bleeding.”
“What? No, I’m not, I’m—ow.” The sting of her bottom lip didn’t register until he reached out to skim it with a gentle touch, but jeez, that hurt.
“You must’ve bit your lip.”
Kylie resisted the weird compulsion to laugh. “If that’s the worst thing that happens to me, I’ll take it and run. Do you think they’ll be able to follow us?”
“Not in that truck.” Devon threw a hard look at the rearview. “But this changes things. We’ll need to keep moving until Kellan can get some help our way.”
“Okay,” she said, sitting on her hands to keep them from shaking. You’ve got this. Devon’s got this. “So, what’s our next step?”
Devon reached out to swipe a fast-food napkin from the glove box, pressing it into her hand while eagle-eyeing the road both in front of them and behind.
“Thankfully, we have enough gas that we won’t need to stop for another two hundred miles, maybe more.
We’re going to have to drive in shifts, but we should be able to make decent time through South Dakota and into Iowa. ”
“You want me to help?” Kylie’s jaw fell open.
“I want to keep you safe,” Devon corrected. “But the best way to do that is to work as a team, so yeah.” He grabbed her fingers, and Kylie felt the squeeze all the way from her breastbone to her boots.
“I want you to help.”