Chapter Sixty-Six Ella
Chapter Sixty-Six
Ella
Rhia and I burst through the sliding glass doors into the chill.
The cold air hits my face, stealing what little breath I have left.
The nearest driver turns, confusion flashing across his face as we sprint toward him. He doesn’t have time to process it.
Rhia veers sharply and drives her shoulder into his chest, the impact sending him staggering back into the curb.
She doesn’t slow.
She dives straight into the driver’s seat as I wrench the back door open, my fingers slipping on the handle. My hand is shaking so badly it takes me two tries to get it open.
“Rhia—”
Lex’s voice slices through the air behind me as he and Antonio storm through the doors.
“Ella. Stop.”
More men spill out after them, boots pounding against concrete, shouts overlapping as they alert the other men already waiting outside by the vehicles.
I throw myself inside and slam the door shut just as Rhia hits the lock.
The sharp click echoes louder than it should.
Suddenly a shadow looms at the window. One of Tiero’s men lunges for the passenger door, his hand yanking hard on the handle.
It doesn’t budge.
“Go!” I scream.
Rhia twists the key as the guy at the passenger door pounds his fists against the glass. I’ve never been more grateful for Tiero’s armored vehicles.
The engine roars to life, and Rhia guns it, tires screeching as we surge forward. A strangled sound tears out of me as I jerk backward, my spine slamming into the seat.
I twist around, watching Lex as he slides behind the wheel of the second SUV, while Antonio gets in the passenger side. Another car pulls out right after them, headlights flaring, men piling in with practiced efficiency.
They’re following us.
Of course they are.
Rhia takes the turn out of the hospital grounds hard and fast. I slam into the window, pain sparking along my side.
“Seatbelt,” Rhia snaps.
I fumble for it, fingers clumsy, missing the latch twice before it finally clicks. Doing everything one-handed doesn’t help.
The sound is her cue. She floors it.
The hospital disappears behind us.
“They’re close,” I whisper, my throat tight as I watch the cars chasing us.
“I know,” she says, eyes locked on the road. “Lex will make sure we get enough distance.”
I keep staring at the line of headlights that refuse to fall back. It’s easier than thinking about what’s beneath us, under the metal and the seats and the floor.
My stomach twists.
Rhia accelerates, jaw set, shoulders rigid as we leave town behind. The road narrows, bends tightening as the mountains close in.
My breathing comes in short, shallow bursts.
“And Lex is sure he disabled the bomb?” I ask, needing to hear it again.
“Yes,” she says without hesitation. “He wouldn’t have let us drive off otherwise. And even if something went wrong, we still have ten minutes before it’s meant to explode.”
“Seven now,” I murmur, glancing at the car clock.
She nods once, acknowledging my countdown, and then adds, “One of Freemont’s men arrived early last night. He kept eyes on the car the whole time we were inside the hospital.”
The reassurance barely makes a dent. What if it wasn’t enough?
Cold fear floods my veins, my pulse spiking as the thought takes hold.
What if whoever planted it noticed? Before the Freemont man arrived. What if Tiero’s mole or the Chicago mob somehow reenabled it?
I don’t say any of it, though. Rhia needs every ounce of focus she has on the road ahead, not on the terror spiraling in my head.
“Shouldn’t we have seen the markers by now?” I wonder out loud, rubbing the back of my neck.
Rhia doesn’t look at me. “We’re fine.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
A pause.
Too long.
“Rhia.”
The SUV sways as she takes the next corner fast. My body locks, bracing for an impact that doesn’t come.
I sneak a look at the clock again. The countdown gnaws at my gut, making nausea crawl up my throat.
Four more minutes.
Lex and the convoy are still there. The distance between us has stretched, but not enough for my liking.
I can still make out Antonio’s head through the rear window. I swear he knows I’m looking. Like he can see straight through the glass and into the panic clawing at my chest.
My skin prickles.
I press a hand to my stomach, anchoring myself to the only thing that matters.
I force my lungs to work.
In… Out…
The road coils ahead, trees and rock blurring past as the mountains close in around us.
“What if something triggers the bomb?” I ask, my limbs tingling all at once. “The turns. The speed. The brakes—”
She doesn’t answer.
I don’t know if it’s focus or restraint, if she’s locking everything down so I don’t spiral harder, but the silence stretches thin.
Another bend. Then another.
The cars behind us vanish from view, swallowed by the tight twists of the road.
Finally.
Rhia’s grip tightens on the wheel.
“This is it,” she says. “First marker.”
My pulse spikes.
I crane around in my seat just in time to see it flash past, a tall orange snow pole on the shoulder, its reflective band catching the headlights as we fly by.
The road dips sharply after it, visibility collapsing. The world narrows to gray asphalt and looming trees, rock walls pressing in close.
“Second marker,” Rhia says.
Her voice is tighter now. Strained in a way I’ve never heard before.
Two minutes.
She takes the next turn hard enough that my stomach lurches, my body bracing instinctively, waiting for something to go wrong.
I twist again, staring through the rear window.
Headlights flare briefly around a distant curve, then slip away as we round the next bend, the road folding in on itself and hiding them once more.
“Hold on,” Rhia shouts.
I grab the door handle just as she slams the brakes and yanks the wheel. The SUV veers off the road and into a narrow turnout I barely register before we’re plunging down a dirt path, tires skidding, gravel spraying.
My body slams forward against the seatbelt, spine jolting hard enough to rattle my teeth.
We stop.
For half a second, everything freezes.
Then I see it.
Half a mile ahead, our replica SUV rolls back onto the road and keeps going, steady and unremarkable. Same color. Same shape. Same future I was supposed to die in.
My gaze drops to the clock.
One minute.
Rhia rips off her seatbelt and is out of the car in one fluid motion. My door flies open and she unbuckles me.
“Let’s go,” she orders.
I don’t argue. I barely think.
Figures emerge from the trees, dressed head to toe in black. Their movements are fast, efficient, practiced.
Freemont.
Rhia drags me away from the SUV, and the cold snaps against my skin. The ground is uneven beneath my shoes, loose dirt and stones shifting as adrenaline makes everything feel slightly unreal.
I spot a man holding a remote, his focus locked on the small screen in his hand.
My stomach knots.
Hands lift me without warning, and suddenly I’m being set onto a dirt bike. A thick black jacket is shoved around my shoulders, and I push my good arm through the sleeve on autopilot.
Rhia steps in close, zipping it up as best she can before pulling a balaclava over my head.
“Thanks,” I murmur, grateful beyond words that she’s with me. The sling makes everything harder.
A man I don’t recognize swings onto the bike in front of me.
“Hold on,” he shouts.
Easier said than done.
The engine surges before I can respond. I wrap my right arm around his waist as the bike launches forward, shooting uphill into the forest.
Trees blur past. The ground drops and rises beneath us. Everything feels too fast.
My thoughts scatter. Tiero. The baby. The clock. The bomb.
I can’t hold on to any one of them for long.
Another engine growls close behind us.
I turn my head and catch a flash of red beneath a black balaclava.
The bike climbs higher, weaving deeper into the forest, branches snapping past, darkness swallowing the path. I glance back one last time.
The abandoned SUV is already being swallowed by camouflage in the ditch Rhia stopped. Two men drag a tarp over it while another slides beneath the chassis.
To check the bomb?
My pulse spikes.
What if it does go off?
The thought barely finishes forming before the road below us explodes.
A blinding flash erupts through the trees, followed by a thunderous boom that tears across the mountainside. The shockwave ripples through the forest floor, rattling the bike beneath me even from this distance.
My scream breaks free before I can stop it.
Fire bursts upward through the canopy, a towering inferno marking the road we were traveling on, turning the gray morning into something violent and unreal.
That should have been me.
Behind us, flames roar above the treetops as thick black smoke coils into the sky, rising from the road far below.
A sob tears out of me. I feel raw and uncontained.
The world will believe I didn’t make it. Nor Rhia.
The bikes keep moving, carrying us away from the flames, from the mob.
And away from everything I used to be.