Page 90 of Sheltering You

“I don’t know!” Derrick searched the darkness ahead. They needed to get back on the highway, but where was the onramp?

No time to find it.

“Don’t stop at the stop sign.” There was nothing but forest all around. “Just take a left and gun it.”

She did, and Derrick braced himself to keep from slamming into the door.

“Where are you exactly?” Michael asked.

Derrick zoomed out on the phone’s map. There was nothing anywhere nearby. Nothing but this lonely stretch of two-lane road that went for miles in both directions.

The on-ramp had been in the other direction.

“Derrick!” Michael said. “Where?”

He told his brother the highway.

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

But Michael wasn’t going to be able to get them out of this.

“Hit the gas, Jazz.” Derrick should be the one behind the wheel. “Go as fast as you dare.”

“But I’m not a good⁠—”

“You have no choice.”

She did as he said, leaning over the steering wheel as if that might help. The road twisted and turned, and Derrick needed to know—had to know for certain—if the driver of the SUV was really following them.

Was it thugs behind them, or just a family who happened to live in this direction?

He prayed for the second.

But no matter how fast Jasmine moved on the winding road, the SUV was still there, the glow of its headlights bouncing off trees behind them.

“Rabie, move to the other side.” Derrick’s voice was unnaturally calm.

“What are you doing?” Michael asked through the speakers. “Just give me a second. There’s got to be a place⁠—”

“Be quiet, Michael. There’s no time.”

His brother stopped talking.

“Put your seatbelt on, son.” Derrick heard a click, then launched his too-tall body over the seat, trying—and failing—to keep a grunt of pain from escaping.

“What are you doing?” Jasmine’s voice was too high and too loud in the small car.

Derrick took a couple of deep breaths, waiting for the pain to pass.

He’d brought the phone with him and now studied the map.

“Jazz, you’re going to have to turn the car around, fast. As fast as you can. There’s no time for a three-point turn. You understand?”

She nodded, hands white-knuckled on the wheel—ten and two, just like he’d taught her.

She’d only learned to drive a couple of months before. Please, God. Guide the car.

“There’s a left turn up ahead. You can use it to give you a little more space. I don’t want you take the left. Just do a U-turn. You have to do it in one shot. It doesn’t matter if you go off the road. Just don’t crash. As soon as you’re facing the other way, flip the lights off.”