Chapter 27 Raine
Raine
The road vanished under rushing water, a silver sheet that reflected the Jeep’s headlights back into my eyes. Boone fought the wheel like it was a live animal, knuckles white, jaw locked tight.
“They’re not backing off,” he muttered, voice low and sharp.
I twisted in my seat, rain soaking through the cracked window seal, rifle braced against my shoulder. The second van tore through the flood behind us, plowing through like the storm didn’t matter. Masked silhouettes leaned out the windows, guns glinting under the beams.
The survivors ducked low, the boy’s thin wail cutting through the roar of engines and rain. I forced steel into my voice. “Down! Stay down!”
A burst of gunfire shredded the night. Glass shattered, spraying across the Jeep’s back seat. The mother screamed, shielding her son with her body. The older man throwing himself over both of them.
“Raine—” Boone snapped.
“I see them!” I fired back, squeezing the trigger. The shot sparked off the van’s grill. Too low.
The return fire pinged off the Jeep’s frame, hot metal spraying across my arm. Pain flared, sharp and hot, but I gritted my teeth. Not now. Not when lives depended on me.
Boone yanked us into a hard turn, tires skidding. “We can’t outrun them forever. We need cover.”
I scanned the storm-wracked treeline, heart hammering. Floodlights glared off the river ahead, the current swallowing whole trees as they snapped free. No safe roads, no quick exits. Just chaos.
“Bridge ahead!” Boone shouted.
Through the curtain of rain, I saw it—a narrow span of concrete, half-submerged, water raging inches below the deck.
“You can’t be serious,” I said.
Boone bared his teeth in a grim smile. “Best shot we’ve got.”
The van’s headlights flared bright behind us, closing fast.
I gripped the dash, pulse pounding. “Then floor it.”