Page 41 of Wandering in Darkness
“I think you’re just dead after someone murders you! I don’t think you have amnesia.”
“If I say I might have amnesia then you agree.”
“One hundred percent. Fully agree with you.”
“Good,” I say as the road is coming closer and closer. “Antonio, not to tell you how to drive, but I think you need to slow down if you’re planning on taking that turn.”
“The goal is to never let the vehicle chasing you know what you’re doing,” he responds. “So if I start pressing the brake too soon, he’ll know just when I’m planning on turning and prepare himself for it.”
“I think at this point it’s safe to let them know!” I cry, grabbing the door and the driver’s seat that’s in front of me when he presses on the brake just enough to pivot the car. The tires squeal, the vehicle shutters, but it doesn’t even dream of fishtailing as he swings us right onto that road while I get a front-row seat to the vehicle behind us losing control and shooting off into the river. I feel like I’m in an action movie as it becomes airborne an instant before making quite the splash in the river. The other one misses the turn completely and by the time they realize it, we’re already over the old metal bridge and on the other side of the river.
Grayson is holding his chest while Antonio pushes the SUV back to its limits. “I feel like in fifteen years I’ll be drinking with some buddy and be like, ‘Oh, let me tell you about this cool car chase I was in,’ but right now… right now, I’m just shaking a little bit and feeling thrilled I didn’t piss my pants. My stomach crawled into my chest. It might still be there.”
“Mine tried crawling out of my throat,” I whisper.
Antonio adjusts the mirror so he can look back at us. “Why? What happened?”
I’m not sure I could possibly be any more shocked. “What…what happened?”
“Yeah?”
“We nearly died. You held our lives in your hands.”
“Every time you get in a vehicle, the driver holds your life in their hands,” Antonio says, as though he can compare this to someone driving me to the mall.
“Were you not concerned about thatat all?” I ask.
“No? This car doesn’t even go that fast. It has a good weight distribution to keep it from flipping and the tires are good enough. No, I wasn’t concerned at all.”
I hug my rifle case as my heart thunders away. It looks like I’m not being dramatic at all, since Grayson is hugging the seat in front of him while looking like he’s just gotten done running the car chase instead of being the passenger of one.
“So… where do we go from here?” Antonio asks, not caring at all that we’re still recovering from our brush with death. “I guess we could go home. I bet Felix and Lane can figure out how to get out of all of this by themselves. Hell, they’re probably already sharing a coffee with the guy and having a good laugh while we’re out here nearly dying.”
“How about we drop you off somewhere safe and I’ll go back for them?” I suggest.
Antonio is quiet for a moment before glancing back at me. “Hell no. We’re in this together. If I had a semi or a dump truck… hmm… maybe a snowplow… I’d just drive it straight through their greenhouses. Then I’d coolly get out and be like, ‘I’m here to take out the trash.’”
I nod enthusiastically. “Ah yes… I’m glad we have all of this in mind, including a catchphrase.”
“I feel like you’re making fun of me and I’m not quite sure why.”
“I’m not sure either,” I mumble. “Especially because I really don’t have a better plan. Maybe we’ll ask Grayson, seeing ashewas like, ‘Yeah, let’s go join an evil drug-dealing organization.’”
“Sounds like you’re the only one in the car who hasn’t,” Grayson says, and when he sees that I’m glowering and not laughing, he just shrugs.
“Whydidyou join them?” I ask.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It fucking matters.”
“We’re going to go back. I’ll figure out how to get your friends out of it. And then you guys will go home. Please?”
“No.”
“Cal, please?”
“Tell me the truth or I’ll never speak to you again,” I say.
