Page 45 of Convergence

“Eva, no,” Everett warned.

“Your dad-” Nate started.

“Died the day my mom died. Now when I say go, you need to go,” I muttered quietly to them as the fake cop approached.

The fake cop approached us with a bored expression and raised his gun to Nate. I lunged at him with the club ready to strike. I got a solid blow to the guy’s head before he could do more than take a shocked breath. The man dropped to his knees, and the handgun clattered to the gravel. He fell to the ground after I hit him again with the nightstick. I looked to see both Nate and Everett tense with anticipation watching me, and our eyes all dropped to the fallen gun. I’d never shot a gun before.

“Go,” I told the guys.

“No,” they both said.

“I’m not leaving here without you,” Everett added gruffly, straining against his handcuffs. “Get me out of these cuffs.”

I scrambled to the key ring and looked for a key that probably didn’t look like any other key. I tried a few odd-looking keys before I found one that had a small rectangle at the bottom. Everett’s handcuffs successfully opened, and he lunged for the gun, holding it out as I unlocked Nate’s cuffs. Footsteps were approaching as we scrambled to stand.

“Go go go go,” Everett commanded quietly as we took off quietly towards the trees again.

I heard the fake police shout as they found their bloodied partner. They started running, following our footsteps in the snow towards the tree line. This time, I held Everett’s hand, and he grabbed Nate’s as we quickly made our way through the woods together. Once we were in the trees, there was no snow to track our footsteps. We stopped hearing the sounds of our would-be attackers as we went further and further into the woods. We didn’t let go of each other until we stumbled out of the woods and into what seemed like the back of a strip mall.

Panting, we all turned to each other and assessed the damage. We brushed our hands over each other, knocking off twigs and leaves and checking for blood. We were bruised and scraped, but no major injuries. I still had the tight handcuff on my left hand, having dropped the key ring in our dash through the woods. Everett used the sleeve of his coat to wipe at the blood on his eyebrow with a hiss. Nate rolled his shoulders stiffly and tried to adjust his broken glasses on his nose. I was still numb and was unsure of any injuries I had suffered. Nate reached out and thumbed blood away from my lip and I winced.

“Are we all okay?” Everett asked.

I nodded.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Nate replied with a relieved sigh.

Everett reached out and pulled us both into a tight hug, and kissed the top of my head. “We’re okay,” he said, as if he was convincing himself. He stepped back and patted down his waistband and pockets. “I’m sorry, I dropped the gun. I thought it was in my waistband.”

“I dropped the handcuff key,” I added.

“Yikes,” Nate said, looking down at the handcuffs hanging from my left hand. Everett reached for me and tucked the metal into the sleeve of my coat so it wasn’t dangling any more.

“We need to get out of here, though,” Nate reminded us.

We carefully walked around the front of the building and saw it was an empty strip mall. Graffiti covered the walls, and the windows were boarded up. It was facing a large road that had residential streets intersecting it. We found a quiet street with cars parked along the curb. Nate looked around, assessing our surroundings, and tugged on a few cars’ door handles. Only one car was left unlocked on the street, and it was a small, black sedan. “Perfect,” he muttered contentedly to himself as he slid into the driver’s seat. I looked around nervously, waiting for someone to come running out of their house. But it was late and a cold, dark weeknight in December. Nobody was paying attention. I had only been looking around for a minute before the engine of the car started.

“Nice,” Everett said to Nate. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

I got in the back seat, and Everett quickly followed me in. The car was clean but had a slightly moldy smell, like a window had been left open in the rain once and the fabric got musty. The beige cloth interior was cold against my hands as I clutched the seat beneath me.

“I played a lot of the Grand Theft Auto games during some formative years,” Nate said nonchalantly.

“Uh, I didn’t think the game taught youhowto hotwire a car,” Everett scoffed as Nate quickly navigated us out of street parking and to the main road.

“It doesn’t. But I took an interest. Like I said, formative,” Nate said with a shrug. “So, Tennessee?”

“Yeah, head that way. When we stop for gas, I’ll call him,” Everett said.

I was still tense, sitting on the edge of the seat. Everett reached for my hand below where the handcuff was tight against my skin. “Hey, we’re okay. We’re all safe. We got away,” he said soothingly. I realized I was shaking.

Nate glanced at me in the rearview mirror, his brow furrowed in concern.

“I know,” I said after a moment.

“You’re in shock, I think,” Nate suggested. He turned on the heating to full blast.

“Here, let’s get you warmed up,” Everett said and helped me out of my coat after shrugging his own off. Our coats were wet from snow and covered in gravel. He pulled me to him, letting my head rest on his chest and draping my coat over us. His body heat radiated into me and I slowly felt my body again. He stroked over my hair as he leaned back against the car door.

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