Page 52 of What I Should Have Done

“Phoenix, Crow and I are in pursuit! Over,” I radioed over the comms, spitting sand beneath the tires as I shifted, gunning the buggy even faster.

“Copy, Viper, don’t let them get away. Over,” Dom responded.

“I’ve got the weapons truck,” Ford grunted, clearly engaged in something. “Bogey,” he added, and if I hadn’t been actively involved in the conversation, I would’ve likely missed it.

Scottie’s hand latching onto the frame beside her, bracing, as I tore the buggy around the corner snapped me back to our present pursuit. Shifting once more, I slammed the stick into the highest gear and gunned it. A straight path cut through the dunes. The canyon walls were high, the sun glaringly blocked. But it was no deterrent to me, and I pressed the pedal to the floor.

Metal against metal, hot beneath my boot, we screamed like a missile, closing the gap between the fleeing buggy and ours. Scottie’s fingers tightened around the frame. A sharp right rapidly burst into view. The enemy ATV sailed around the corner, slowing so as to not skid into the wall.

Turning sharply right as I shifted down, I spun the wheel left. The tires drifted down the middle of the ravine. Gracefully guiding the buggy out of the turn, I straightened us and shifted again. My muscles pumped, working effortlessly to tighten the space between us and the fleeing vehicle. Corner and corner again, I drifted the ATV around flawlessly.

Wind rushed against my cheeks, the distance between the canyon walls growing. As the path widened, an idea popped into my head. “Hold on, Scotch,” I shouted to my passenger.

“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?!” she screeched in response, and I chuckled, skidding the buggy around a corner. And the ravine opened up into a wide, dead-end cavern. It was now or never.

“MIKEY!” she screamed, as instead of slowing down like I should have, I gunned it.

Tightening my grip on the wheel, I braced and clipped the rear bumper of the enemy’s buggy with the nose of ours. A grunt escaped my chest upon impact. They spun away like a top, until a tire caught the side of a boulder. Metal slammed against rock, splintering both solid surfaces as the sand rail flipped over.

The moment our buggy was clear of the totaled death trap, I locked in the clutch and brakes. Rising in front of us, the end of the canyon wall nearly swallowed us whole. I barely managed to whip the buggy into a turn before we, too, slammed into the sheer rock face.

Shifting, I drifted the buggy in a 180. My eye caught sight of the enemy’s ATV coming to a halt.

And a combatant stumbled out, shouldering a fucking rocket launcher.

Scottie.

Without thinking, I let go of the steering column and launched myself toward her. My arms snaked around her body, tackling into her as the familiar crack and whoosh of the weapon being fired exploded into the air.

As if the world slowed, her eyes widened upon recognition. She ducked her head into my shoulder. While cocooning her into my body, we flew out of the passenger side.

Blunt force ripped through my spine as my back collided first with the ground.

Oxygen snapped from my lungs. Rocks bit into my arms through my shirt. Skidding across sand that crawled into every crack in my uniform, I latched onto Scottie tighter. And rolled sideways as a boom thundered through the atmosphere.

Ringing from the explosion dampened all other sounds. Heat engulfed my body as flames erupted from the totaled dune buggy. Metal shards shattered around me, and pain, as hot as red iron against skin, seared through my left thigh. Digging my fingers into Scottie’s body, I held tighter as we slammed away from the explosion.

Hands snapped around my shoulders. Instinctively, I released Scottie from my arms, as the enemy raised my upper body from the ground. And a fist met my jaw, slamming me back against the dune floor.

The world spun; black and white stars danced in front of a hazy vision. My arms refused to cooperate. The adrenaline that normally roared through me like a monster created for death himself, seemed absent as everything spun.

Another blow rocketed through me, cracking the back of my head against the stone ground. Through the sludge that curdled around me, a hazy figure straddled me. Blood dripped from wounds upon this strange creature’s face.

And then a crack snapped through the ringing in my ears. The man ready to throw a third punch collapsed on top of me.

Dead.

Sand swirled around me. The grim reaper’s scythe wrapped around the assailant’s soul and stole him away. Red iron dripped from the hole in his head, plunking warm against my cheek.

“Mikey!” someone shouted, muffled behind the swaying of the ravine that death would meet me in. A voice that usually sounded like smooth whiskey on a porch in the middle of summer didn’t now. Now, it met my ears stretched and ragged. Pleading. A note I’d never heard from it before.

“Mikey!” the woman shouted again, desperation coating her hoarse tongue. “Blondie!”

I knew her…

As if my body was a puppet on strings, I rose like the death that consumed my every thought.

My soul blackened with the desire to do what the enemy had failed to deliver. The world spun around me, swaying beneath my unsteady feet. Squinting, all befuddlement zapped away as I sighted Scottie, pinned to the ground mere feet away beneath a man larger than even myself. He tightened his fingers around her neck, the blood draining from her face as she kicked and squirmed with no effect.

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