Page 80 of Chasing the Other Woman

Sam reaches for the second radio, changes the channel, and tries again. “Unit Two, do you copy?”

Static.

The rain hits all at once, turning the windshield silver while the wipers thrash uselessly. The truck rocks under another violent gust. I grip the wheel hard enough that my injured shoulder complains. Sam keeps one hand on the dash and the other on the tablet, her eyes moving faster than mine can follow.

“Road bends south ahead,” she says. “If we take it, we drive closer to the core.”

“If we don’t?”

“We get cut off.”

Behind us, headlights blur in the downpour. One set, maybe two. It's too hard to tell.

I bite the inside of my lip and taste copper. The part of me that ruined us wants to bark orders, shove her back from the windshield, and tell her to duck. It wants to take over completely to keep her out of the storm.

Instead, I look at her.

Sam looks back. Water streaks the glass between us and the sky, and the leather bracelet digs into my wrist as my hand tightens on the wheel.

“What do you see, Sammy Girl?”

Her eyes flash, not with surprise this time, but with recognition. She leans over the radar, then looks past it to the road, the sky, and the ragged black lowering swallowed in rain.

“We’ve got seconds,” she says. “Maybe less.”

The truck shudders, the radio screams static, and ahead, the road vanishes into gray.

Nineteen

SAM

The road disappears in front of us. Not fades. Not blurs. Disappears.

One second, I can make out the pale strip of gravel cutting through the fields. The next, rain hits the windshield hard enough to turn the world into a sheet of moving metal. The wipers thrash uselessly. Wind shoves against the truck, and Brooks corrects without jerking the wheel, his jaw locked tight enough that a muscle jumps near his cheek. I keep one hand braced against the dash and the other wrapped around the tablet.

“We’re not taking the bend,” I say.

Brooks doesn’t ask me to explain. “Where?”

“East.” I lean closer to the radar, then look past it to the road, the sky, the ugly wall of cloud wrapped in rain. “There’s a farm road in about two hundred yards. Maybe less.”

The truck lurches beneath us as something small hits the passenger side with a crack that makes my teeth snap together. A branch, maybe. Sheet metal. I don’t look long enough to find out. Behind us, Hershel’s headlights flicker in and out through the gray.

I grab the radio. “Unit Two, Unit Three, break off. Don't follow us east. Repeat, don't follow lead east.”

Static chews through the first half of Hershel’s answer. “...like hell we’re letting you two…”

“Hershel,” Brooks says, voice sharp.

I look at him. He keeps his eyes on the road. “Follow Sam’s call.”

There's no hesitation in it. No pause. No little glance asking if I'm sure, and no old fear stepping into the cab to pull him back. Just that. Follow Sam’s call.

My throat tightens. I swallow against the sudden ache, keeping my focus locked on the road ahead.

A burst of static, then Hershel again. “Copy. Peeling south. You two keep talking.”

“We will,” I say, though my voice comes out thinner than I’d like.