Page 58 of Redemption

“We have about five minutes before they bust through the gate and all hell breaks loose. It’s safer for Lily if we take two cars and lead them away from her.”

“Keys?” Keegan holds his hand out in Charlee’s direction.

“In the diaper bag.” She points with her chin to the bag before squeezing me in a one-armed hug. “Love you Kels and be careful.”

“Yeah, love you too. We’ll see you at the house.” Lily squirms between us and I drop a kiss to the top of her soft dark hair, inhaling her clean scent as if it’s for the last time and I hope like hell it’s not.

With my heart in my throat I watch my best friend walk out the door with Keegan. Teegan squeezes my shoulder and nudges me along outside to his truck.

“Get in the front seat and stay down.”

I do as he says without complaint as he climbs into the driver side. Without a word, he turns the ignition and we drive around the side of the house to what I’m guessing is the the back way off of the property.

We make it a quarter of the way down the backroad when a pair of headlights glare right behind us. I hold my breath and hope like hell that they’re just a regular car passing by. Several beats of tense silence goes by as we wait.

“Teegan?” My palms sweat the closer they get to us.

“I see them.” His eyes do a quick glance in the mirror and then back to the road. He slams down on the gas, but they stay glued to us. The vein in my neck jumps the longer they keep with us. Then we’re hit from behind and my body jerks forward so hard that my neck cracks. “Fecking bastards.” His grip tightens on the steering as he locks out his arms. A loud pop echos behind us right before the glass of the back window shatters. I protect my head with my hands as more bullets rain down on us. “Scoot down low in your seat, Kelsey.” Teegan orders as he scans the road ahead, hopefully finding us a way out of this. Out of nowhere another set of headlights flash in our eyes as they come at us head on.

“We’re going to crash,” I scream as Teegan swerves to the side to avoid them, but we’re pushed from behind at the same time causing our truck to spin and flip over.

“Brace yerself.” That’s the last thing I hear before the sound of metal twisting hits my ears and the world goes black.

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