Allie's War Season One (16 page)

Once more, his eyes phased, but it was gone as soon as I saw it, leaving only a tension around his eyes, a quick glance at me. The GTX leapt forward, throwing me into the edge of the seat. I heard more shots and peered back between the seats.

I saw the cop in the road, firing steadily at us.

“Get your head down!” Before I could react, Revik caught hold of the chains between the handcuffs, yanking me down forcibly.

“Was that Terian?” I said. “The guy from the park?”

Revik gave me the barest glance. “Yes,” he said.

“I thought you killed him!”

Revik jerked the wheel sideways. The tires thumped up over a curb, bounding me high enough to pass the headrest.

“Put on your fucking seat belt!”

“I can either stay down, or wear a seat belt...pick one!”

He didn’t answer.

I slid carefully back up the seat, peering out over the dashboard past the plastic statue of the saint.
 

Still holding the gun, Revik gripped the steering wheel with his other hand, edging it hard and soft as he maneuvered us across a pit of gravel towards a field that stood between us and the main freeway. I looked back at the onramp, realized he’d bumped the curb to avoid the line of police cars heading for us on the frontage road beside the freeway entrance.

Slamming his foot on the gas once he cleared the gravel, he bounced us across a weed-choked stretch of grass dotted with broken bottles, plastic bags and scrub brush. I glanced at the speedometer, saw it edging towards 60 mph, then glimpsed a large rock and cried out, but Revik had already jerked the wheel to clear it, jumping us into oncoming traffic.

“Jesus! Revik—”

“There are things I haven’t told you,” he said, over the screech of tires as he straightened the car out from a skid. For the barest instant, his eyes glinted silver. “...About Terian.”

I swallowed as his eyes faded back to clear.

“Is he here?” I said. “In the physical?”

Revik barely looked at me. “No.”

I glanced over as he wiped his nose. I didn’t notice the blood until his fingers came away covered in it.

“What happened?” I said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing. I’m losing light.” Reaching into his pocket, he dug something out and tossed it at me. Small and bright, it landed on my lap. It was a key.

“I'm not chasing you anymore,” he said.

I snatched the key off my leg just before he swerved again. Revik rammed the GTX over the path of an eighteen wheeler, sliding past as the man honked. Still watching the road, I unlocked the cuffs from around my wrists, dropping them to the floor.

“Thanks,” I said.

He nodded curtly, not looking over.

EARL REDDING KNEW a sicko when he saw one.

He’d been running long-hauls across the whole of this country for 27 years, including all over California, and that mecca of perverts and terrorists, San Francisco. This dark-haired fellow, who obviously had some Oriental in him, had the audacity to impersonate a cop. Luckily, Earl saw through it. And a good thing, too...not five minutes later the Chink fuck went on to shoot three of Washington’s finest dead on the highway onramp like some kind of cop serial killer.

That poor white girl was clearly one of his victims. Whatever his intentions, whether he wanted to sell her, rape her some more, or kill her, Earl couldn’t let it stand.

He’d watched the whole thing, calling in details on his radio, then, when he saw the shooting and the green muscle car heading for the freeway proper, he’d turned the wheel, making the beginnings of the arc needed to clear the island around the onramp. Once he’d straightened out the length of his rig, he downshifted and jammed his foot on the gas, driving up the shoulder past the line of cars.

Up ahead, a couple of highway workers stood beside the remaining cop car parked up on the shoulder. They were in the process of covering one of the cop’s bodies with some kind of tarp. A line of cars stood in the left lane, waiting for the space to clear. Horns honked, a few drivers cheered the highway workers as they huffed the second cop car up the steep incline and back towards the road, some even helping, wearing civvies as they pushed along with the orange jumpsuits.

Earl pulled further up into the shoulder, glancing to his side to make sure he wouldn’t tip the rig. He started yanking on his horn. When the highway workers didn’t look back, Earl pulled harder, more urgently, finally just holding it down for a long, continuous bellow.

First one worker looked up, then another.

Earl saw the second react, eyes widening to white-rimmed dots in a cartoon-like face. Earl waved his hand out the window, telling them to get out of the way. One shouted to the others. Another tried to wave Earl off, but Earl only hit the horn harder. All five of them finally scattered, three in the right direction, two in the wrong one.

The front grill of Earl’s truck slammed the back end of the cop car.

The car leapt forward on the hill then abruptly off to the right and into the main onramp, rolling straight for the gravel bank at a quickly accelerating rate. It knocked over one of the highway workers, hitting another a glancing blow that threw him 10 feet where he promptly began to skid down the sharp gravel of the hill. The car shortly followed him.

Earl only saw part of this. Glancing once in his rearview mirror, he patted the 12-gauge wedged between the cushion of his seat and the plastic storage containers that held his music collection and audio books for driving. Muttering, he aimed for the freeway down the sloping frontage road.

Seeing the green GTX on the weed-choked field between the town and highway, Earl hit the gas, and the giant engine thrummed louder.

“You’re going to put that girl down, boy,” he muttered, wiping a hank of greasy hair out of his forehead. “Then you and I are are going to have a talk...yessir.”

He propped the gun against his knee, dislodging a photograph that had been wedged in the ashtray since he’d quit four years earlier. On it, a little boy and girl smiled, encircled by the arms of a woman with long, streaked-blond hair.

Earl didn’t notice.

9

MORTAL PERIL

MY EYELIDS DROOPED.

I jerked up my head, then shook it violently, overwhelmed by my own exhaustion, irritated by its suddenness...but more than anything, scared by it. The intensity of my sudden desire to sleep struck me as more than a little strange. It was weird enough, in fact, that it made me wonder if I’d been drugged. I couldn’t imagine when, or how, so my mind drifted to shock, to wondering if I was having some kind of psychological reaction.

Was this how people went into shock?

But I wasn’t really that kind of person, either.

Generally, when the shit hit the fan, I got more alert, not less. I’d never been one of those people to fall apart in a crisis, to go catatonic or start flipping out. Never.

And yeah, okay, granted this might be
more
of a crisis than I’d ever dealt with before, but I’d been in life or death situations before today, sure. Hell, I’d been in life or death situations a few times in that prison cell, only a few months before.

I didn’t go into shock. I didn’t panic. Not like that, anyway.

My mind usually got really damned clear in those situations, in fact.

Usually, I was the one to keep my head straight when stuff got rough, like when Cass had that asthma attack at the bar in college and nearly died, and when my friend, Frankie, got stabbed by that crazy biker chick outside the No One Club.

I hadn’t freaked out. I was scared, sure...but I dealt with it.

The GTX had been weaving up the road, avoiding cars, for what felt like hours now, although I knew realistically it couldn’t be more than twenty or so minutes. I still crouched low on the passenger seat, watching Revik’s eyes dart between side and rearview mirrors as he wove from lane to lane, evading our pursuers. Crouching there, I struggled to stay awake, watching trees and land flash by through the windshield and side window, even pinching my arms to keep my eyes open. Most cars on the road, seeing the black and whites, just got out of the way.

I nodded off, thinking about this...

There was a crash, metal grating on metal.

I jerked in my seat violently and opened my eyes, saw Revik slamming the GTX into a Ford Ranger with banged up fenders, forcing it into the next lane. I saw the driver of the Ford yell at Revik, eyes wide, tinged with more fear than anger.

When I looked over, Revik was staring at me. His narrow lips curled into a frown.

“What do we do now?” I said, loud above the wind from the holes shot in the back windows.

His eyes returned to the road.

I glanced back at the passenger side window and flinched back, seeing a truck driver staring down at me, a shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. His eyes looked manic, not quite at home, and I sensed more than saw the silver flicker of light that lived there.

Paralyzed for the barest breath, I only stared up at him, at his too-blue eyes and dirty brown hair. I took in the blue flannel shirt and reddish nose and mutton chop sideburns and realized I recognized him. It was the same man who’d yelled at us on the street, who yelled at Revik to get me out of the road. He didn’t look like he wanted to help me now, though.

He aimed the gun down at the hood of the GTX.

Before I could make a sound, Revik hit the brakes, slamming into the car behind us. He created enough space to slide the GTX behind the bigger rig, pulling us out of range of the crazy guy with the shotgun. Then he jammed his foot back on the accelerator, passing on the truck’s blind side, in the far right lane.

A few car lengths later, he found a clear patch of road. The driving smoothed, even as he jammed his foot down on the accelerator. I watched the blur of trees go by faster.

The GTX’s V-8 engine thrummed a soothing, low sound...

I snapped awake, panting.

Revik gripped the front of my uniform shirt in his fist. His other hand gripped the steering wheel even as he leaned over where I lay.

I was still frozen there, panting, when he slammed my back into the seat.

“What the—”

“You cannot sleep!” He barked the words, his accent thick. “You cannot sleep!”

His face flashed into the negative...

...and gold lines make up the bones, muscles and blood of his jaw. His eyes shine white, filled with clouds, darkly twisting movies. Shadows dart as Rooks rope him with silver threads. One throws a ball of spinning silver light.