AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Present Day—Thatch
I THREW MY truck in reverse and slammed my foot down on the gas. “Low, forward, baby!”
“It’s Collin!” she whispered in horror.
I didn’t need to be able to see him to know that. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would try to push us off a bridge. After gaining a few feet back, and then feeling the resistance coming from the SUV, I glanced at Harlow to make sure she was facing straight ahead.
Without giving Collin a chance to let off the brake, I slammed my truck back into drive and took off in the direction of Richland. I pushed my truck as hard as she would go, but Collin was in a BMW; it didn’t take long before I saw him eating up the distance in my rearview mirror.
“Hold on, Low,” I gritted as he closed in, and braced for the impact. We jerked and swerved, but I corrected it quickly. “You okay?” I shouted as I floored it again.
“Yes! Go!”
I was already going 115 mph on a 55 mph road, and Collin was still right behind me. My truck was shaking; I couldn’t push it much more.
“Harlow, I’m going to hit the brakes, okay?”
“What?”
“On the count of three, be ready for the brakes!”
She didn’t respond, but I saw her bracing herself out of the corner of my eye. I waited until Collin was within a car length from me, and watched as he slowly began moving to the side as he prepared to come up beside me for the next hit.
“One . . . two . . .” I watched the SUV closely, then shouted, “Shit!” as I slammed on the brakes.
We hadn’t even come to a full stop when I saw Collin’s airbag deploy, and I took off again.
“That wasn’t three,” Harlow choked out, and I glanced over to see her entire body shaking and tears streaming down her face.
“I’m sorry.” I brushed her hair back from her face and looked her over quickly before paying attention to the road again. I tapped on my phone when it rang, and put it on speaker. “Yeah?”
“Whatever the fuck that was, it hurt like a bitch!” Deacon yelled. “But he’s already driving.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, and glanced into the mirror. My stomach fell and fear flooded my veins when I saw the misshapen front of the BMW coming up not far in the distance. “Shit.”
“Yeah, we were getting ready to try a pit on him whenever that last thing just happened. We’re coming, but he’s fuckin’ fast, man.”
“I know,” I groaned as Collin got closer. “I’m almost to the city. If I can get there, he’ll back off. He won’t do anything in public.”
I could see Harlow nodding as she sobbed.
“It’s gonna be okay, Harlow. We’ve got this.” Deacon tried to sound encouraging for her, but I could tell through the phone that he was in pain.
I tried to coax my truck to go a little faster, but it wasn’t happening, and Collin was almost to us. “Come on, come on, come on,” I mumbled, and only felt the tiniest bit of relief when we started getting into civilization. Deacon was still trying to calm Harlow, and Collin was going faster than ever—despite having smashed into the back of my truck.
He knew he was about to lose his opportunity.
I glanced down to my speedometer, 118 mph, and we were finally seeing cars now. Collin and I wove in and out of them. Horns were honked and cars swerved out of the way, but I didn’t slow down. When I got on another stretch where there were no cars, I allowed myself to feel some small bit of hope.
“We’re almost there, Low.”
We had three, maybe four minutes before we got to a place where the traffic would be too heavy to continue at high speed. And while I was betting Collin would stop then, I had also thought earlier that he would’ve stopped as soon as we got around other cars, and he hadn’t.
Collin pulled up directly behind us again, but this time he drifted to the right, and I did a double take when I saw him leaning out of the driver’s window.
“What in the fuck,” I whispered as my eyes darted between the road and my rearview mirror. “What is—” I broke off suddenly, and felt sick when I saw why he was risking leaning out. “Shit,” I hissed, and started using the entire road to drive, hoping it would make it harder for him. “Don’t look back!” I yelled when I saw Harlow turn. “Just keep talking to Deacon, Low. Close y
our eyes and talk to Deacon,” I begged.
