Page 11 of Velvet and Valor
Traffic grows heavier. Orange signs declare construction ahead. Hope explodes in my chest. Road work means people. People who might be able to help me out of this jam. It also means the limo will have to slow down or even stop. Maybe I can even escape.
That is, if the guy in the black car doesn’t kill us all first. He’s coming up fast behind us, growing larger in the back windshield.
Moorcrock glares at the brawny man next to him.
“Take care of this,” he says, menace heavy in his tone.
The big man draws a pistol and rolls down the limo’s driver side rear window. His size makes getting a clean shot difficult. It’s almost funny watching him try.
“Quit fucking around, you goon,” Moorcrock snaps.
The big man, spurred on by Moorcrock, shoves the entirety of his body from the waist up out of the window. He finally is able to aim. I plug my ears in anticipation of the gunshot, because the big man is holding a hand cannon--
The limo crosses the yellow line into the adjacent lane at just the wrong time. A bus peels the big man right out of the window. He vanishes so quickly it almost seems surreal.
The muscle car swerves wildly to the side, missing the big man as he tumbles wildly down the tarmac. The tow truck behind the muscle car, however, doesn’t have the time or the agility to dodge.
I close my eyes right before the big man’s head goes under the front truck tire. All that’s left of him is one of his shoes, sitting on the limo’s seat.
Moorcrock swears and I take in a deep breath to hold back nausea.
The muscle car comes roaring back, having recovered from its swerving defensive maneuver.
“There’s no way I can outrun him, Mr. Moor—boss,” the driver says.
“Then make it so he can’t follow us anymore,” Moorcrock says with chilling finality. He turns to me and arches his brows. “You might want to brace yourself.”
“Oh fuck,” I mutter, steeling myself for impact. This is what I get for being snarky at the indie film festival.
Our limo suddenly tears hard to the left, crossing two lanes of the freeway with the rabid squeal of tires. I’m thrown to the limits of my seatbelt, leaning close to the window. I can see another car rushing toward us, at least that’s how it seems from my point of view.
I know we’re going to hit them, it is as inevitable as the dawn. We smash into the other car and a scream rips from my throat. The other vehicle, a small electric car, fishtails like crazy and slams into the side of a pickup.
I cringe at the sound of twisted, screeching metal and heavy crunches behind us. So many people hurt, maybe even killed, all for what?
How did I end up here? If someone pitched my experience to me as a movie plot, I’d laugh them out of my office for being too far-fetched. I lose sight of the black muscle car. The limo pours on the speed and stretches a wide gap between us and the pile up.
The traffic drops down from four lanes to two ahead, which is bunching up the traffic somewhat. Our driver doesn’t slow down much at all, weaving in and out between lanes and narrowly avoiding a collision by mere inches.
“Is he still back there?” Moorcrock asks, craning his neck to see behind them. “I think we got him…shit.”
The black muscle car rips along the shoulder, re-joining the main road once it moves past the wreck.
“Who is this guy?” Moorcrock mutters. “The freaking Terminator?”
“Maybe it’s the Italians,” the driver calls back.
“Nah, they’re in shambles after Moreno got pinched for that crazy scheme,” Moorcrock says. “And I don’t know of any other players in the game who’d be gauche enough to drive a Charger.”
Moorcrock’s eyes narrow, and he gives me a suspicious look.
“I have no idea who that is,” I sputter, holding a hand up in the air.
Moorcrock relaxes.
“I believe you.” He looks up toward the driver. “Jimmy, I think you’re going to have to do the thing.”
The thing? What thing?
