Allie's War Episodes 1-4(42)

I swallowed back bile, trying to focus.
“They seemed nice,” I said. “Like nice people.”
He didn’t answer. A shot hit the back of the car with a loud plink and groan of metal. Revik leaned out again, firing at whoever was shooting at us.
His mind felt closed to me now, so I stared out the windshield, digging my nails into my palms every time drowsiness tried to overtake me, hoping like hell I didn’t kill us both. I was so focused on these two things in fact, staying awake and not crashing from the speed, that I barely noticed the second police car pull up alongside us.
I glanced over in time to see the officer in the driver’s seat reach for his sidearm. I sucked in a breath, ready to duck, but the man unholstered his weapon and held it out to Revik through the window, the handle pointed towards us.
I worried Revik had told him to shoot himself, but...
...the gun simply left his fingers.
It clattered to the road, bouncing behind us.
“Watch the road!” Revik snapped, glaring at me. “I am doing this! You drive!”
I turned back to the windshield.
But his anger had allowed me to feel him again, at least in part.
The gun was as far as he would get with that human; the Rooks already had control over the cop’s mind. The knowing of that fact reflected a bitterness in Revik that surprised me.
...bastard’s doing it on purpose, forcing me to kill as many as he can...
When he looked at me next, anger still hardened his features.
Swallowing, I nodded, trying to let him see that I understood.



We approached Seattle.
I glimpsed a skyline to my left, then flashes of buildings through a maze of overpasses dripping with dark green plants.
I recognized landmarks from being here with Jon, but couldn’t read signs with how fast we were going. I’d stopped looking at the speedometer by then, anyway.
Revik was doing something in that other place, so I couldn’t ask for his help to use his grid thing. I felt a few people point and stare at us as we passed. I also saw other vehicles hitting their turn signals and pulling over, moving out of the way of the line of cop cars screaming behind us, clearing the freeway for the chase.
I felt it when the third cop car ceased to be a pull toy between Revik and whoever else.
I felt Revik lose that battle, too, and felt him let go just before the cop accelerated, coming up on us blaring light and sound from his overhead siren. I glanced over in time to see the dark-skinned cop smile at Revik, making an odd flowing up and down gesture with one hand that had the flavor of a taunt.
Whatever it was, it definitely didn’t look human.
Then, whatever held the cop’s body let go, leaving the cop sweaty-faced, determined, and completely focused on the two of us. From his eyes, he fully believed we’d killed his whole family with baseball bats then lit his house on fire.
Revik turned to me, his pale eyes hard.
“Stop the car,” he growled.
I thought I’d heard him wrong. “What?”
Behind him, I saw the Seattle cop raise a shotgun.
Before I could react, Revik grabbed the wheel, jerking it sideways to slam into the cruiser. The cop dropped the shotgun, and I heard his partner yelling excitedly.
“Revik, jesus! What are you—”
“Take that exit! Now, Allie!”
He pointed and I veered, braking to slide across lanes.
I saw the truck driver in the blue flannel shirt, who was still, amazingly, behind us, begin the turn to follow. I glimpsed faces as other, noninvolved drivers reacted, too, their eyes widening in fear as they tried to get out of my way, instead coming even more dangerously close to hitting us.
By some miracle, I slid behind the Washington cop car, in front of a different trucker who honked madly at us.
Then we were past, wincing from the scrape of metal as the GTX grazed his grill.
Revik leaned out the window, firing at the Seattle cop from behind.
He blew out a rear tire with the first shot, smashed the back window with his second. He chambered another round and aimed again, blocking my side view when he climbed up to sit on the passenger side window.
The Seattle cop cut across multiple lanes and again I felt the difference; it was no longer a human driving, but one of those things with lightning-fast reflexes and 360 degree vision. I was forced to brake, saw Revik clutch the window frame as he lost his balance. The Seattle cop swerved, just making it onto the exit off-ramp behind us.
A sign flashed by, too fast for me to read clearly.
I glimpsed white words spelling “Mercer Island.”
Revik slid back in through the window, landing on the seat. When I looked over, his shoulder was bleeding again, a dark, spreading stain under his shirt.
“You are trained in basic firearms use?” he said.
“Right,” I said, loud over the wind and engine. “Dad taught me to shoot cans. I'm practically special forces.”