18. Maria #2
He glances at a wide-angle electronic view screen on the dashboard that displays what’s behind us and on each side. “Uh oh.”
The tone of his voice warns me. I don’t see anything on the screen, and twist in my seat to look out the rear window. “What is it?”
“Renegades. About two miles behind us. I caught a flash of their headlights. Fuck.” He taps a button, and the needle on the battery charge gauge swings to the top.
“We have sufficient charge.” He glances at the screen again.
“Now I have a decision to make. Speed up and risk them seeing our rainbow blur? Or slow down, stay invisible, but risk them overtaking us and recognizing our sound, smell, or tire tracks?”
My heart freezes. I have to make it home to Zinnia. Dying out here isn’t an option.
“Hey, take it easy.” He raises his foot from the accelerator and reaches over to squeeze my leg. “Breathe. We’re armed to the hilt.”
I gulp in air. “I still can’t believe you took my daughter out here.”
“She came back safe and sound, didn’t she? We will, too.”
All the time he speaks, his gaze flips from the road in front of us to the view screen displaying what’s behind. The renegades gain on us, riding two-wheeled vehicles.
“What can I do?”
“Nothing…yet. At this speed, they can’t see our rainbow blur, and I don’t want to launch any weapons at them. That’ll give away our position.”
“How many? I mean, I count twenty vehicles.”
“They’re riding motorcycles. Hang on.”
He glances to the right and pulls over to the center lane, where a concrete divider runs between the two roads.
A portion of the short wall is entirely missing.
He drives through the gap and we hit something hard.
The truck jerks and tilts as our tires roll over the unseen obstacle.
The sharp jolt throws me against my seatbelt, which tightens violently against my shoulder.
An ear-splitting bang rattles the truck, and I grip the door handle and hold my breath.
“Fuck!” He wrestles the steering wheel. “Front tire blew. Whatever we hit must’ve been something sharp.”
The truck swerves, and Chris fights for control, but the front-end dips sharply. Another bang and we’re stuck in some kind of cement v-ditch.
He unbuckles his seatbelt, grabs a pair of binoculars from the door pocket, drapes the strap around his neck, and hands me the backpack. “Time to bail.”
“What? You’re just going to give them the truck and everything we scavenged? Aren’t we safer in here?”
“See that?”
I track where he’s pointing. One motorcycle hauls an enormous machine on wheels. “What is that?”
“A gun-mortar. Capable of lobbing large explosives at us.”
“But if they destroy the truck, they lose the—”
“With a gun like that? They’ll sacrifice the truck, target the electronics to destroy the invisibility crystals, and capture us. Force us to let them into the ark.”
Zinnia. My pulse speeds up, my throat tightens, and I croak, “We can’t let them.”
“Hush. I got this. Wait for me. They can’t see us if we stay within range of the invisibility crystals.
” He grabs a rifle, gets out, and hugs the truck as he works his way around the perimeter to my door.
Opening it, he pulls me to him and leans close to my ear.
“Be silent. Don’t let go of me. I’m turning on both our bracelets, and we’re going to crawl away, perpendicular to the truck, and head for the wall.
As long as our invisibility bubbles stay overlapped, we can see each other. ”
I nod. The renegades in the lead have figured out which gap we fled through. They stop their motorcycles and drop below the cement barriers. The sound of rapid explosions fill the air.
I don’t know if vampires can faint, but if they could, I would.
Chris covers my body with his. “Machine gun,” he whispers. “See that other opening? The one farther ahead of us. We’re going to crawl along the concrete barrier and come out there.”
“But how do we get back to the ark?”
“You’ll see. And we’ll do it without them following us. We can’t let them find the ark. Trust me. I have a plan.”
When we don’t return fire, the renegades get braver. Two of them, heavily armed, whoosh through the opening and follow the truck’s tire tracks in the sand.
Chris rolls off me and crawls forward. Scattered throughout the sandy surface are sharp rocks, and I rise enough to keep my breasts from scraping against them while tapping Chris’s foot with my hand to let him know I’m still following.
My knees and elbows ache from pressing against the hard, uneven gravel, while I bite my tongue to keep from gasping with each painful movement.
Tears fill my eyes, but all I can think of Zinnia. I have to do this for Zinnia.
We reach the second opening. Chris pushes me through, and I land on softer sand.
“Wait here,” he whispers.
“What? You’re leaving me?”
He meets my eyes. “Trust me.”
Part of me screams that I’ve only known him for a few days, and he’s betrayed me once already by turning me into a vampire.
But a deeper part of me remembers how he saved me, how he offered himself up to Tig, and how he always protects me with his body whenever there’s danger, even if he’s afraid of having a family depend on him in the long run. Right now, in this moment, I…trust him.
With my safety, I trust him.
I nod quickly.
He steps away from the invisibility bubble we share and disappears.
The renegades have all dismounted their motorcycles, although the one pulling the gun-mortar swings around so the barrel faces where the truck’s tire marks end. A mix of men and women creep forward.
One man yells, “Abandon the truck, and we’ll let you leave unharmed.”
Without warning, the truck reappears, the invisibility crystals turned off.
“Smart decision. Now get out”—the man points at the gun-mortar—“or we blow up the truck with you inside it.”
The doors swing open.
Oh my God, I hope Chris isn’t at the truck.
Then I hear a motorcycle start. I glance toward the sound, but I can’t see it. The noise grows nearer to me and stops.
Chris reappears, the rifle he carries still slung over his shoulder. “Hurry. Get on.”
I run to where he straddles the bike and throw one leg over, resting my foot on a round peg, mimicking his stance, the backpack still with me.
He triggers his wristband. “We should be invisible now. Grip my stomach and hang on. There’s going to be loud noises.”
A blast goes off, the ground rocks, and the truck explodes, spewing flaming metal across the renegades and lighting up the dark night.
I hunch against Chris’s back, squeezing his waist tightly as we watch the fireball.
Screams of agony fill the silence. The renegades who were close to the truck are on fire…
some on the ground, others running away.
Then another loud bang shatters the air. I duck out of reflex, and whatever is left of the truck is blown into small, flaming bits.
Loud noises? Seriously? Chris is the king of understatement.