Page 97 of In The Trenches (Owens Protective Services)

“I was actually thinking I would slide over as you shift in front of me.”

I could feel the weight of her incredulous stare and glanced over at her. “Are you fucking crazy?”

“I take that as a no,” I nodded. “How do you feel about firing a gun?”

“Are you just coming up with the most insane shit you can think of? I have one good arm and you want me to bend outside a window, on the edge of a fucking mountain, and fire a gun I don’t know how to use at moving vehicles?”

“Relax,” I snapped. “It was just a suggestion, which leads me to the third option.”

She went still, knowing this was the worst and most terrifying. “Please don’t say it.”

“I need to take them out, and I need the truck facing the other direction.”

“I’m not hearing this,” she muttered, covering her ears like a toddler. “This is not happening. I’m not in this truck. Nobody is chasing me. I’m back in my shitty apartment with my air mattress, and no one is after me,” she said, rocking herself as if that would make this whole situation better.

“Look, the road widens ahead to four lanes. That’s our best option. I’m going to—”

She cut a nasty glare in my direction and I stopped explaining.

“Right, you don’t want the details.”

“Just tell me I’m going to live through this.”

I really hated to lie to people. I wanted to reassure her that everything would be fine, but hell, shit went wrong all the time. And we were on a mountain road being chased by maniacs that wanted us dead.

“Most likely,” I answered.

“Most likely?” she shrieked. “What does that even mean? We might live, but you’re not sure? What are the odds?”

“What? Like you want percentages?” I asked, glancing over at her.

“Eyes on the road!”

“You fucking asked!”

“Not for you to look at me while you’re driving like a madman on a winding road,” she snapped.

I took a turn just a little too fast and nearly sent us off the edge of the cliff. I wasn’t used to driving with someone that freaked out so easily over something as simple as driving fast on a curvy road with the potential of falling to our deaths.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gotten in the truck with me,” I snapped. “You know, none of this would have happened if you had just been honest with us from the start!”

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“When there’s a woman involved, it usually is her fault,” I muttered.

“This is not happening to me,” Beth mumbled. “I am not here. I did not escape my step-father, drug dealers, a fucking blackout, men kidnapping me, only to be taken out by a lunatic in a fast truck!”

“Yeah, we’re gonna come back to all that shit as soon as I get us out of this,” I retorted.

“Ifyou get us out of this. You still haven’t given me any odds,” she said, still shaking in her seat as she grabbed the handle in the truck, hanging on as if we were going over the edge any second.

“Odds, fine…Let’s say—” I swerved around another corner, narrowly missing the edge of the mountain. “Sixty percent.”

“That’s not odds!” she shouted.

“Woman, if you keep yelling at me, you won’t have to worry about us going over the cliff. I’ll throw you over!” I said, lowering my window.

“You’re supposed to be protecting me.”

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