Page 40 of The Circle

He misses the goddamn tires completely. The shot pings off the body of the van.

“The tires, dude! Shoot the tires!”

“I’m trying to shoot the fokken tires, Danny! That’s what I’m doing!”

Ping. Ping. Ping ping ping.

“Well, you’re doing a bang-up fuckin’ job, bro!”

I know it’s not his fault. It’s like asking someone to thread a needle while being swept up in a tornado, but still. It’s annoying.

“Stop the bike!” he shouts.

“What?”

“Stop the motorbike! I need to get one good shot!”

I think this is a bad idea, but I’ve chosen to go all in on Alec van den Berg in this life, apparently, so I do what he asks and screech to a stop in the dirt.

Now that I’m paused for half a second, I notice how pretty this place is. Sun is streaming through big conifers up ahead, casting oddly shaped shadows all over the forest floor. It makes me kind of sad. I’m so tired of being the kind of person who’s responsible for the destruction of beauty. I really fuckin’ am. I’m also tired of being the kind of person who’s sad and tired all the time.

Alec leaps off the back of the bike and runs in the direction of the still-moving van. The grove of trees up ahead doesn’t look sparsely packed enough for the van to make it through, so even if Alec isn’t able to disable the van’s forward momentum, it’s possible it may have to stop anyway.

Unless…

Just as Alec levels his pistol, takes aim, and is about to fire…

The van turns one hundred eighty degrees and comes bearing down on us.

Hard.

Cillian’s arm out the window, pistol in hand, firing indiscriminately.

Alec dives out of the way, but not before one of the bullets hits him in the shoulder and spins him around, knocking him to the ground and leaving him rolling in the dirt, growling in pain.

And that’s when I decide, Fuck it.

Time to end this shit.

I grab the throttle, ask the old Triumph to give whatever she has left in her to give, and gun it straight for the van.

ALEC

I fokken hategetting shot.

I hate it well more than just being shot at, and I hate being shot at to a notorious degree.

I spent many happy years stealing jewels, creating havoc, and being a proper baddie, and somehow managed to avoid being shot at all. But recently it seems that I have developed some kind of internal magnet that just draws bullets into me willy-nilly.

However, now is not the time to cry over spilt blood and, as far as I can tell, I’m unlikely to perish from this particular wound. If being shot point-blank by one of only two people I have ever truly felt for and falling hundreds of feet off the edge of a cliff didn’t do me in, it’s foolish to imagine this bit of wing-clipping is going to do much more than ruin my fifteen-thousand-euro cashmere overcoat. And, while extremely disappointing, it’s not going to kill me. I don’t imagine.

Looking up from the ground, I see Danny now heading straight for the van, which has chosen to turn and bear down upon us. Danny has his weapon drawn and is holding it out in front of him with one hand whilst maneuvering the motorbike with the other.

I’ll not lie. It’s quite a dramatic sight.

Leather jacket, boots, bike, gun. It’s all so very Danny Fortnight that it’s almost like someone doing an impression of Danny Fortnight.

He’s trying to duck down to avoid being hit by the bullets while at the same time keeping his eyes up so that he can shoot straight.