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Laura tried to undo her seatbelt, but a bolt of pain stopped her. She flexed her hand and her heartbeat radiated through her arm. Any attempt to move was met with resistance. She used her other hand to undo her seatbelt.
The door release wouldn’t move.
“Fuck.”
Max groaned.
Laura felt around the floorboard with her feet. Her toes brushed one of her shoes, and she scooted it within reach. The body of the shoe flopped, but the heel remained intact. She beat it against the window. Her position made it awkward, and it took several blows before the glass shattered. She dropped the shoe and pulled herself through the window, stopping halfway to catch her breath.
At least the tilt of the vehicle made the ground closer.
Branches snapped, and sticks jabbed her in the ribs. An inconvenience compared to the screaming nerves in her arm. She bit back a yell on an inhale and exhaled a hiss from behind her clenched teeth.
The pain receded, and she stood.
Laura felt her pockets for her phone. There was no sign of it on the ground or back seat. “Damn it.”
A hand with bent fingers reached out from a small gap between Brown’s long legs and the crumpled dash. “Brown, Macon, Keiths...” Max’s voice trembled. “I need help, I…”
“They’re dead, Max. Looks like you’re on your own.”
Just enough light got to the floorboard to outline the terror on Max’s face. “You can’t leave me here.”
“Yes, I can.”
“If I don’t check in at the Chalet, they’ll come looking for me. They’ll know it was you.”
“Maybe, but it will probably be a day or so before they bother looking. If they look at all.” In Laura’s experience, people who thought like Max would rather write each other off in favor of an extra zero to their profit margin.
“I’m your First Seat Senator.”
“That you are.”
“You have to help me. It’s the law.” That from a man who was going to have a bullet put through her head less than five minutes ago. “You will not leave me here. Do you hear me? You will not… leave… me.”
Laura steadied herself against the SUV as she made her way to the passenger side.
“I’m ordering you, Laura, I’m…”
“I heard you the first time.” She pulled the handle.
The door opened with a metallic groan. Max sat curled under the collapsed dash. “My leg. I can’t get it loose.” The console pinned it against the gearshift.
She felt around Brown’s belt.
“There’s a crowbar in the back. You can use it to pry the dash back.”
She would have rather bashed his head in.
Brown’s belt was empty. She checked his pockets and found the phone. She woke it up to a lock screen. There was no way to get a passcode from a dead man. “Fuck.” She tossed it into the leaves. But not every man there was dead.
Not yet, anyway.
“Where’s your cell phone, Max?”
“The crowbar, you’ll need to get it.” He grabbed Laura’s skirt, smearing grease and blood over the cream-colored fabric.
“And I need your phone.” She bent down enough to look him in the eye. The pupil of the right one ate up all the color. Burst vessels filled the white of the other, bulging from the collapsed orbital socket. “Your phone, Max.”
