Page 40 of Wandering in Darkness
The man hits the ground on his back, likely still alive and fine as long as he gets attention soon. Grayson puts a hand on my arm and pulls me toward our car.
“Why the hell would you do that?” he demands. “You were in such a fucking rush to make sure I didn’t go out there that you didn’t check anything. There was a tree behind you that you could have used for cover. It would have kept you completely covered until you needed to draw him out. Hell, you might have reached him without him ever even seeing you if you’d done that. Instead, you just risked your life for no damn reason.”
I ignore him as I reach our SUV. There’s no hesitation as Antonio gets into the driver’s seat.
“Cal, I’m speaking to you,” Grayson says.
For a man who acted like he didn’t know how to drive a vehicle earlier, Antonio sure shoots off before we even have the doors shut. I practically fall in when Grayson grabs me by the back of my pants, giving me the ultimate wedgie as he shuts the door.
“Sorry!” Antonio cries. “I just saw the sketchy black SUVs, and they very much look like bad guy SUVs.”
I look back and see two SUVs falling into line behind us.
The engine roars as he pushes it to its limits. “I was going to eat brunch. And meet your friend’s dog. And then maybe eat some brownies, and when we got back to Felix’s we could watch a movie,” Antonio rambles on.
“We can still do all of that. We just have to ditch these guys first… or shoot them.”
Grayson’s hand stops me from lowering the window. “Don’t you dare stick your head out those windows. They have guns already pointed at us,” he warns. “They’re being cautious because Antonio is in the vehicle. But the moment we start shooting?—”
“I’ll lose them. Don’t risk your life. I’ll lose them,” Antonio assures me, fingers tight on the steering wheel.
“I don’t know a lot about cars, but I feel like theirs are a bit faster than ours,” Grayson says with a grimace.
“Speed would help, of course. But it’s not the only thing that matters,” Antonio replies as the vehicles steadily gain on us. “Please buckle your seat belts.”
“How am I supposed to shoot out the window if I do that?” I ask, positive I could force them back if I had a moment.
“You’re not supposed to.”
Grayson reaches over to buckle me in while I try to smack him off.
“I know how to buckle myself.”
“Yet you still aren’t buckled,” he says as he fights me until he wins and buckles me in. He looks quite pleased with himself once he’s done that and smiles at me again. He’s acting like we’re on some swan boat in the middle of the most romantic pond, when I’m pretty sure we’re in a death trap. At these speeds we’ll definitely die if Antonio crashes the car,butif they let me shoot we’d onlyprobablydie.
“Not sure if you’ve noticed, but they’re close to kissing our bumper at this point,” I say.
“I didn’t notice, thank you,” Antonio retorts. “Now hang on, I don’t need your head smashing through the window.”
“I would prefer it didn’t as well. What are you planning?”
“I’m going to turn onto that bridge.”
I look ahead of us and see averysharp ninety-degree turn right onto a narrow one-lane metal bridge. It’s one of those bridges where you creep over and feel like it might crash down right when you’re in the middle of it. But nope, we are driving as fast as the SUV can go and Antonio seems determined that we’re going on this bridge.
But hey! It wipes the smile off Grayson’s face.
“Uh… you know, what if we maybe do shoot instead? I’m starting to think I’m with Cal on this. I feel like shooting sounds significantly safer than turning onto that bridge,” Grayson says.
Antonio lifts a handoffthe wheel to wave us off. Like he’s so casual about all of this that he doesn’t even needtwohands. “Just hang on.”
“I don’t think hanging on is going to help us live through this,” Grayson says. “Cal, since we’re going to die, can I apologize right now?”
“No.”
“Fucking hell. Do I have to find you in the afterlife?”
“Maybe! Maybe I’ll have amnesia after Antonio murders us.”
