Page 66 of Dozer

“Just go,” Levi said.

“How?” There were bikes behind me and cops coming quickly in front of me. “Fuck.”

I put the car in gear, hit the gas, rolled over the weeds, broken glass, and sidewalk, and slammed my front end down the high curb. We bounced hard. As my back tires rolled off, the bumper took a jarring hit. Something popped and crunched. Oh shit. I checked my rearview mirror. Part of my car was still on the curb.

“I hope I don’t need that.”

Metal scraped along the road as I drove away from the cops and Chrome. A few blocks of sparks and grinding, another piece from under my car dropped to the middle of the street.

“Oh my god, what is that sound?” A deafening rumble filled my car.

Levi looked at me with wide eyes. “I think that was your muffler!”

Less than a minute later, we both started laughing.

“That was freaking scary,” she said. “Don’t worry. Dozer can fix your car at the chop shop.”

I groaned. “No, I’d rather not have stolen parts on my car.”

She smiled. “Not quite a Heller yet.”

A few minutes later, I pulled into Levi’s driveway. I stepped out of the car and walked around the perimeter of my vehicle. Oh, my baby was beat up. My front end was dented and the back end… It was missing.

Levi stood next to me as we stared at it.

“Come on.” She tipped her head to the house.

“I should go.”

“No, you need a gun. We have extras.”

“You can’t just give someone a gun,” I said as I followed her.

Levi opened the old wooden screen and pushed open the door. “Mom. Where are you?”

“In my room,” a woman called from the rear of the house.

I followed Levi down the hall and into one of the two bedrooms.

A woman with her hair in a long braid sat on her bed with a book.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, until we had to bail because Crawlers want to kill Blade.”

Really? She just announced it like she was saying she wanted to order a pizza.

“This is Pippa. Pippa, this is my mom, Willow.”

I lifted a hand as a hello.

“She needs a gun. Some dickhead professor is stalking her.” Levi went to the gun cabinet and rifled through the drawers. “She doesn’t have any experience so something small without a lot of kick.” Lifting her gaze, she smiled at her mom. “She’s dating Romeo and Dozer so one of them can take her out for practice.”

“Give her the .38 Special. It’s cute and super light.”

This wasn’t happening. Guns weren’t cute. I wasn’t a vigilante out to handle my own justice. I put my hand to my forehead. She just told her mom I was dating both Romeo and Dozer. I think I was better off when she hated me.

“Bullets are in the bottom drawer.”

---