Chapter 34
vera
“Floor it,” I said as soon as I got in the car, pushing Elaine in ahead of me, and Petra didn’t even wait for me to shut the door, slamming the gas and squealing out of the parking lot. Behind us, I heard one crack, and then another, as explosives went off in the building behind us.
“God, I hope everyone got out,” Elaine breathed shakily, buckling her seatbelt and taking her mask off as she craned to look through the rear windshield at the flashes of light and color.
“Only straggler was Yulia,” I said. “And she’s hard to kill. She’ll make it out. Which car are we after, Petra?”
“Bright green sports car with red racing stripes.”
“Tasteful man, I see. And subtle at that.”
“What are we going to do?” Elaine said.
“Catch him,” I said. “And get the key.”
She nodded. Didn’t want to know the details. Smart wife I had.
We caught sight of the car before long, tearing off onto the highway, and Petra floored it to catch up with him, weaving through traffic. Petra’s radio scanner buzzed with police reports, people talking about the car chase on the west side, but we weren’t going to be long enough for them to catch.
“Son a bitch, traffic is bad today,” Petra said, and she veered sharply, throwing Elaine with a short scream into the door as we slipped between two cars so close that both drivers veered away from us, and up ahead, Peter was caught in with the lanes full. “Want me to run him off the road?”
“Just pull up next to him.”
Elaine shot me a wide-eyed look. “Vera, are you joking?”
“Yes. That’s me. Vera the jokester. I’m a funny woman.” I took the gun from the hidden compartment. “I’m going to kill this motherfucker.”
“Get ready,” Petra said, and she laughed as she stomped on the gas.
Peter veered wildly ahead of us, and he panicked, shooting for the gap between a semi-truck and an SUV, but the SUV panicked too, veering to the side and getting clipped.
Peter’s car squealed sideways as he struggled to right himself, other cars laying on their horns, but it gave Petra the opening to slide the car up next to Peter’s, where I lunged across Elaine, threw open the door, and jumped, slamming into the passenger door of Peter’s ugly sports car, my foot lodged under the door and holding the handle.
Inside, I saw the man’s sweat-streaked face as he panicked, tried to bash me into Petra’s car, but Petra pulled away, dropping back in line with the cars behind us.
I planted the electromagnetic lockbreaker on the door, but it didn’t give.
Fancy model. Sure.
I took the corner of the lockbreaker and I smashed the window with it. One swift blow, and the tempered glass dissolved, raining into the car, and I reached through and unlocked the door, swinging myself around it and into the passenger seat.
“Sorry, mind if I hitch a ride?” I said. He wasn’t feeling the jokes after all, because he tried to grab a gun from the center compartment, but I batted it from his hand and into the backseat.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“You wanna chat? Stop the car. Otherwise I’ll put a bullet in your brain and then get what I want.”
“You want money?”
“No. I don’t need to kill you, necessarily, but you tried to hurt my wife, so, sorry.” I pressed the gun to the side of his head. “Pull off. To the side. Stop the car. I’ll count. On three, I blast your fucking brains out.”
“Fucking hell,” he spat, and he pulled off onto the shoulder, slowing down.
“One…”
“I’m stopping! I’m stopping!”
“Two…”
He stopped the car, slamming to an abrupt halt, and he turned to me with his hands up.
“Three.”
I pulled the trigger.
Technically, I didn’t say I wouldn’t kill him if he did stop. I just told him to stop, and that I would blast his fucking brains out on three. I was a woman of my word.
City would be better without him.
I specifically brought the lowest-powered cartridges I could for this mission, so the bullet didn’t get too far.
The front of his skull was split like an overripe melon, and he slumped back against the headrest with that look of panic on his face as the final expression he’d ever pull.
Wondered how many people he’d done the same thing to.
I mused on it as I reached into his coat and searched for the hidden zipper—I’d been wondering if I still knew how to kill without flinching when the situation called for it. Not even a blink.
Guess there really was just something about Elaine.
I found the hidden zipper close to the collar, pulling it open and tugging out a roll of paper, and I slipped it inside my own pocket before I got out of the car.
Petra pulled up to the shoulder ahead of me, Elaine throwing open the back door, and I got inside without Petra even stopping, stomping on the accelerator again as I shut the car door, police chatter getting louder as we left the highway and disappeared into the crowd.
“Did you… kill him?” Elaine said quietly.
“What gave it away? The look in my eyes? Or do I smell like burned powder?”
“Well, mostly his blood all over you.”
“Ah, yeah, that’ll do it. God knows how many people he was going to continue killing if I left him unchecked. Let your conscience be at ease.”
Petra spoke in a dry, amused voice from the front. “It’s because he touched your wife.”
“I gave him ample warning,” I said lightly, and I took the paper from my pocket, scanning it. A massive encryption key, sixty-four characters. Even I needed to take a few seconds to memorize it, but finally, I took a lighter from the compartment and burned it.
The system was ours.
We made it safely to the house, escaping the police attention, but something was off as soon as we arrived. I signaled for Petra to turn off the police scanner, and when Elaine asked what was wrong, I shook my head, listening.
An uncomfortable silence. Something wasn’t right. Even the birds had gone quiet.
I stepped out of the car once Petra stopped, gun in hand, and I placed it before long—a familiar presence there at the front door. I angled the gun up and spoke coolly.
“Wanted to finish the job?” I said.
The bushes rustled, and out from cover stepped Yulia, her mask gone now, gaze sharpened like a blade.