Page 70 of Stowaway Whirlwind
I don’t feel an ounce of pain, only animalistic rage and adrenaline when I reach through to grab the driver—a skinny male—around the neck and haul him backward through the window while he kicks and twists. Mrs. Fitzroy is in the passenger seat screeching obscenities louder than my Lily Jo crying from the car seat buckled in the back.
I want to go to my baby more than I want to live, but first, I have to kill this bastard who betrayed us, dressed in all black with a ski mask over his head. Make sure he can never take another child again.
He’s doing his best to fight me off, a wiry motherfucker with more strength than he should possess as he tries to punch up and back into my face. But the beast inside me that needs to protect my family at all costs is stronger, and the bastard’s glancing blows are nothing compared to what I’m going to do to him. I get my arm under his chin, crushing his windpipe in a headlock as I roar and drag him further away from the vehicle. He digs his heels into the ground and stops trying to punch me, instead clawing at my arm, gouging my fresh cuts.
High beams and flashing red and blue lights from the road behind my car nearly blind me as the truck at the frontturns sharply into the clearing and almost flips. My momentary distraction costs me, and the guy elbows me hard twice in my gut, punching the air right out of my lungs, loosening my hold on him. He gets only two steps away before I tackle him to the ground. I sit on his back, get my arm around his neck again, and yank his head back like I’m trying to pop it off his shoulders.
Tonight, this traitor is going to die.
Chapter 25
Goldie
Amanda and I scream when the cop behind me rams into our tailgate, giving us whiplash as our heads snap back when the truck jumps forward. I wrench the steering wheel to the left to avoid running head-first at top speed into the trees up ahead at the bend in the road, which would have killed us on impact. Amanda reaches over to gain control of the wheel when my hands slip, slick with sweat, so we don’t go careening off the road on the opposite side into the deep ditch.
I slam the gas pedal down as soon as she gets the truck straightened out and relinquishes control back to me, the big tires slipping momentarily on the road before gaining traction. We take off, the powerful engine roaring as I push the needle past the RPM’s red zone, leaving the cop in our dust after they narrowly dodge crashing headfirst into the same trees we avoided.
“There!” Amanda shouts, and I follow her pointed finger toward the left.
“Goddamnit!” The fucking cop has caught up to us, maybe thirty feet from our tail, and I wouldn’t put it past them to try the same maneuver.
I almost flip the truck, pulling it off the road into the clearing without slowing, and the cop shoots past us on the road at the unexpected move, slamming on their brakes and hydroplaning. My heart bashes into my ribs at the scene as I speed through the field. Davis’s Buick and a black truck have a gray sedan boxed in, and just when I get within fifty feet, the cop catches up again. They speed up, the back end of their SUV bouncing wildly over the terrain, and they swerve, tapping the back right of the truck with the front of their SUV.
We’re not so lucky now as the Ford spins out, going up on two wheels for a terrifying three seconds before landing with a hard crack on all four, the engine stalling. The move would have thrown us from the vehicle if Amanda and I hadn’t been wearing our seat belts. As it is, my chest feels like it’s been caved in, my seat belt locked tight and unable to be unbuckled. Amanda hacks away at it with a huge knife I didn’t know she had, and as soon as it gives way, I throw open my door and fall out of the truck, wheezing through what might be a few cracked ribs.
I ignore the cop’s deep, booming shouts from behind me as I find my footing to run toward the vehicles…until a shot is fired, hitting the ground a few inches to my right. I skid to a stop and turn around with my hands held up high, shaking my head, pleading with him to let me go. I inch backward as he advances on me, his gun aimed at my chest. He’ll have to kill me to stop me from going to my baby, who must be in that sedan.
Then Amanda screams, “Drop your weapon or I’ll shoot!” from behind me, having run around the truck after freeing herself from her seat belt. I turn my head a fraction, and from the corner of my eye, I see her holding my gun up in front of her with two steady, outstretched arms, pointed at the cop as I continue inching backward, bits of jagged rocks biting into the soft soles of my bare feet.
The cop drops his gun in an instant, most of his face shielded by his cowboy hat, but not his dark mustache and wide mouth, which falls open. “Mandy?” There are so many emotions rolled into that one word. Disbelief. Pain. Love. Longing. And then he’s racing toward us, running past me.
I swivel, watching in stunned silence as Amanda drops her arms a split second before he crashes into her, her eyes huge and rounded. “Roman?”
The cop nearly knocks her off her feet with a moan. He wraps his long arms around her back to lift her and slams his lips against hers, his cowboy hat knocked backward off his head.
I dodge around them now that the cop doesn’t have his gun trained on me and pump my legs as fast as I can, slipping frustratingly in the freezing cold, water-logged grass, until I reach the gray sedan’s passenger side door, each breath more painful than the last. Through the window, I can barely make out the tiny, frantic shape of Mrs. Fitzroy in the driver’s seat, repeatedly putting the car in drive, then reverse, ramming back and forth into the vehicles with my daughter in a rear-facing car seat in the back. The sedan’s wheels spin, digging into the soft ground, the engine overheating and starting to smoke.
The noise I make at the danger she’s put my baby in is nothing short of a thousand mothers’ pure primal rage, and I didn’t know I possessed the kind of strength and speed needed to jump on top of the car’s smashed-in trunk when I can’t open either of the passenger side doors to get to Lily.
I spare no attention for Davis, who can handle his own, on top of some man’s back, choking the life out of him. I hope Davis makes the bastard suffer before he kills him. Mrs. Fitzroy doesn’t see it coming, continuing to throw the gear shift around, when I punch her in the side of her head through the broken driver’s side window. She lets out a guttural scream as her head snaps to the side.
I jump and dive through the window while she’s incapacitated to slam the gear in park, then rip the key out of the ignition. I’m half in and out of the vehicle when she recovers enough to fist my hair and does her best to rip it out in chunks, but I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care! Nothing matters except killing her and rescuing Lily.
Glass slices my hips and bare thighs when I grab onto the center console andpullmy body through the window until I collapse in a heap on top of Mrs. Fitzroy, then straddle her, pinning her to the seat beneath my weight. I can’t see through my curtain of hair as Mrs. Fitzroy yanks my head side to side with her fists still wrapped in my hair, trying to knock me off as she bucks up to unseat me, but I can feel well enough where she is when I find and grip her skinny, weak neck with my left hand, crushing it and cutting off her air supply when I slam her back against the seat to hold her in place.
My hair parts with her next rip, and I watch with deep satisfaction as her face turns purple while her eyes bulge. “Get off me! Help! Help!” she chokes out in barely a whisper.
“You fucking cunt!” I punch her with my right fist, first against her cheek, feeling it crack, then straight at her nose, the small bones shattering beneath my knuckles. “You’re going to die for this!”
She mouths for help, but there’s no one to save her from my wrath. Her hands fall limp from my hair on the third punch to the center of her face, warm blood bursting forth, pouring down into her gaping mouth, gasping even in her unconscious state, slumping to the side after I finally let go of her throat. Sweet, sweet gratification wells up inside me when she gurgles on her own blood and her wheezing slows.
I push my hair back out of my face, scramble off of her, and climb between the two front seats into the back, my hands and legs shaking uncontrollably and slippery with Mrs. Fitzroy’sblood and mine. Lily is crying so hard now that she’s not even making a sound, unable to draw a breath, her face beet red and her lips turning blue as her tiny chin quivers. I thought I knew what terror was until this very moment, but I was so wrong.
I unbuckle the unfamiliar car seat with fumbling, swollen hands, immediately bringing her to my chest as soon as I get her out. My voice is high-pitched as I try to soothe her, her tears wetting my collarbone. “Mama’s here, Lily. Breathe!” I rub her back vigorously, willing her chest to rise and fall. I choke on a sob when her silent cry breaks, and she draws in the biggest, harshest breath like it’s painful to drag the foul gasoline and smoke-scented air into her tiny lungs before she starts wailing—the most beautiful, beautiful sound.
“Oh, you did so good, Lily. So good.” I push her face into my neck as I rock her side to side, heaving with my relief. “Keep going, baby. Mama and Daddy are here, and you’re ok. I’m going to get you out of here. Just keep breathing for me.”
With renewed strength, knowing I need to get her to a hospital fast in case the car chase and Fitzroy’s repeated crashes have hurt her, I stumble out of the back seat with her held upright firmly to my chest, trying to keep her head and neck steady. The world is an apocalyptic nightmare of flashing lights and sirens and shouting from all directions.
