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Caleb gets in and cranks the engine, fiddling with the radio as he backs out of the parking spot. Some rap song comes on, and he grins. “Love this shit,” he says, pulling onto the two-lane highway. “What kinda music do you listen to? The Beatles or something?”
“Really? I might be British, but I wasn’t born in the seventies.”
He shrugs, cranking up the music.
The small town of Dayton eventually gives way to woods and farmland. “Shit…” Caleb stares at the rearview mirror with a furrowed brow. When I turn to look behind us, his hand lands on my shoulder, forcing me back to the front. “Don’t look. They’ve been following us since we pulled out from Wal-E-Mart.
What the hell? A glance in the wing mirror shows a black SUV with heavily tinted windows behind us. I try not to panic because Caleb seems kind of calm, but holy shit...
“Get the gun outta the glove box,” Caleb says, his usual smiley expression serious and cold, like his brother’s. Caleb’s calm is bad. Calm means we need a gun, and guns are terrifying.
I try to control my breaths as I fumble with the glove box, then I take out the black pistol nestled amongst fast food napkins.
“You see that little lever on the side of the gun,” Caleb says, revving the engine as we swerve around a pickup. “It’s the safety. Flip it.” He expects me to use this thing? Panic sets in, slicking my palm with a cold sweat.
“I can’t shoot a gun, Caleb!”
“Well, you’re gonna have to learn because they aren’t following us to say hello.” He takes his phone from the console, his gaze moving to the rearview again as he presses the device to his ear. “Jude, we’re being followed...I don’t know. A black SUV. Tinted windows…” He pulls off the main road then floors the accelerator. The SUV follows, matching our pace. “Over by Pike’s farm. The tractor trail behind the cornfields. “I don’t know, Jude I—Shit!” Caleb tries to hit the brakes, but we hit a rut in the dirt road and catch air. I’m jostled around like a ragdoll when we land, skidding across the path and landing sideways in a ditch.
A cloud of dust flies around the hood, the engine still whirring as Caleb undoes his seatbelt and turns in the seat, gun drawn. “Get out and get down!” He fires through the back window, shattering the glass just as the SUV comes to a screeching halt behind us. “Get out!” he shouts, and I throw myself out of the truck and onto the grass. Bullets ping off the tailgate. I flinch at every gunshot, just waiting for a bullet to hit me.
“Damn. Fuck.” Caleb hisses in a breath. “Shit, that stings.” On a groan, he tumbles out of the front cab, clutching his bloodied right arm. He takes a hard breath, bracing his back against the car as he nods toward the gun still clutched in my hand. “You’re gonna have to shoot that thing. I’m a shit shot with my left hand.”
His words don’t really sink in. My mind was too panicked. A string of bullets rain down around us, pinging from the car and ground. “Ria,” he says, his voice way too calm for the current situation. “You’re gonna have to shoot.”
The gun feels like a lead weight when I lift it, staring through the shaky site as Caleb walks me through how to fire it. Then, just as my finger loops through the trigger, the gunfire ceases, and footsteps make their way towards us.
Caleb nods to the bed of the truck just as a pair of leather boots come into view. The guy who rounds the car has a very large gun pointed right at me. The crack of a bullet splits the air right next to my ear, and I pull the trigger, and he hits the ground. I stare at the blood spreading over the front of his shirt, the lifeless glaze to his eyes...I just killed someone. The internal conflict rising within me is quickly swallowed by survival instincts when more footfalls come pounding down the path.
Caleb raises his gun with his left hand, and I aim mine at the back of the truck, pretty sure we’re about to die.
19
Jude
Marney jerks the steering wheel to the left. Dried rows of corn smack against the side mirror as we barreled down the tractor path. A storm of gunfire rings out of the rev of Marney’s engine, and in the settling dust ahead, I can just make out a black SUV parked in the middle of the trail, men taking cover behind the open doors. I hang my arm over the window ledge and fire several shots. One goes down just as Marney slams on the brakes.
The truck hasn’t made a complete stop before I’m out of the car, firing shot after shot as I charge ahead. Seconds later, Marney’s gunfire joins mine, and in less than a minute, all the men are on the ground, and I take off toward my bullet-riddled truck, the panic just starting to set in. “Caleb? Tor?”
