AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Only one thing would turn my entire arm to dead weight so quickly.
Silver.
Whoever was driving the Corolla was using silver bullets, which sent a cool fear slithering down my back. I’d been through more than my fair share of kidnapping attempts and, stupidly, that’s what I’d believed this was. Or an incredibly motivated carjacker who really, really wanted a yellow BMW.
The silver bullets meant something more sinister. It meant this person was, without a doubt, here to kill me.
It’s not like people wanting to kill me was something new to me. I mean, I’d spent my formative years hunting down and assassinating rogue vampires. It isn’t the kind of job with a long-term life expectancy prospect attached to it. I’d been shot before. I’d been stabbed and bitten and a whole assortment of other bone-crushing, lung-rupturing, life-flashing-before-my-eyes type experiences. You’d think finding out someone was out to get me would be old hat by now.
But it never stopped sucking.
Especially because enough people hated me and wanted me dead I didn’t even have a short list for who might be behind the wheel of the car trailing us. The bullets meant they knew I was supernatural and not human, but it didn’t narrow the field much. Silver was used against both vampires and werewolves, and since I was both, I didn’t know which of my monsters they thought they were poisoning with the bullets.
I braced my feet against the wheel, making sure the BMW wasn’t weaving all over the highway, then transferred my gun to the left hand. It wasn’t my dominant weapon hand, but I could kill with it just as effectively.
My wounded arm drooped, swinging like a rag doll’s in the wind. The edge of the window dug into my ribs as I steadied myself for the next shot. I was lucky the bullet had torn right through me. The silver poisoning acted fast, but since the bullet wasn’t lodged in my shoulder, I would also heal faster. It would be more than a week before I was up to full health, but if I’d had to wait for the bullet to be removed, I might be waiting a month or more before I healed. Happy wedding day, Secret. Here’s a bullet hole to show off in your white dress.
I fired again, and this time I wasn’t aiming for the driver, in spite of the new open-air concept of their windshield. My target now was one of function over fatality. The Corolla’s front wheel popped with the gusto of a giant party balloon, and the car jerked wildly.
Instead of braking, though, the driver sped up. Brigit must have been watching the action because she had started to let up on the gas when I hit the black car’s tire. Between his increase in speed and our sudden drop, the physics of what happened next was inevitable.
Which didn’t stop me from being surprised when the Corolla smashed into our bumper for the second time that night.
My foot skidded, the wheel jerking to the right, sending our car into a spin. I sat upright, trying to get my beautiful purple shoes unstuck from the steering wheel, but I was caught, and getting out without looking was a hopeless puzzle. I kicked forward, and the car continued to spin in a full 360-degree turn.
With my elbows braced on the soft top of the BMW, I emptied the remainder of my clip into the open windshield of the black car. From inside my backseat there was a faint, continuous wail. At first I thought something had been hit and the sound was my engine failing. Then I realized it was Kellen.
We kept up our dizzying rotation, propelled on our circular course by my own stupid feet. The only way I was getting unstuck was to pull.
“Brigit,” I shouted into the wind. “I need you to grab the wheel.”
Cool hands brushed against my ankles, and I knew she had heard my request.
Okay, I thought, what’s the worst that could happen?
With the gun now empty and the driver of the other car no longer returning fire, the weapon was hampering me. I dropped it through the open car window and used my good arm to hold myself steady, then yanked my feet back, freeing them from the trap of the steering wheel.
Which was the precise moment the Corolla chose to strike again.
Brigit released the gas and hit the brake, stopping the car with a hard lurch, and I slid from the window, falling fast towards the pavement. First my knees caught the edge of the window, then Brigit wrapped her hand around my ankle
, keeping me from falling farther. I took a short breath and felt the blacktop under the crown of my head, so close it was a hair shy from cracking my skull.
We had stopped, but the Corolla was still veering out of control, and when it hit the front end of the BMW, it sent off an explosion of sparks and kept moving ever closer to where I was dangling. I winced, turning my face away from the burning points of light. My own car lurched, wheels spinning, and we were reversing again.
The smooth, cold driver’s side door of the Corolla skimmed by me near enough I could have tasted the metal if I stuck my tongue out. In the next moment it tipped onto two wheels and flipped onto its side before tumbling into the ditch with a scream of metal against concrete.
Brigit stopped the car, and it rolled slightly as she shifted into park. When she released my ankle, I slipped and had the foresight to brace myself for impact before I could smack my head on the road. My knees went over my head, and I did a sloppy somersault before coming to a rest next to the car.
Brigit’s head appeared through the window, excitement replaced with terror in her wide eyes.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Kellen’s white face wedged between the driver’s headrest and the window, staring down at me in wonder. “I was sure your head was going to be smushed.”
I ran a hand through my hair, the straight strands now a tangled mess with a new chunk missing where the bullet had grazed me. The severity of what had just happened began to sink in, and I plopped onto the ground, staring at the two girls as if I’d never seen them before.
“Can someone call Lucas?” I asked, an unfamiliar tremor in my words.
