“Again?” Scott asked. “How many is that today?”
“Don’t stop to count now,” I said, fumbling for my seatbelt. “I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself when you should be fleeing for your life.”
“Do you…ever…” Kurt was talking from in front of me, but his voice was a rasp. “Just…get serious…for a minute?” I released my seatbelt and leaned forward, looking over the seat, which was tilted at a funny angle. Kurt was arched forward, pinned against the dash, and blood was running out of his mouth. His airbag had deployed but had already deflated, looking like a used white t-shirt that hung from above the glove box, and he was mashed against it.
“Never,” I said, and clicked the release for his seatbelt. There was smoke in the air, a chemical aroma that made me want to gag. And something else, too, as I turned my head to look at Zack. “Are you okay?”
“Who, me?” He shook his head, and slapped at his airbag, which was still inflated. “My car just got hit by rocket fire on a rural Wisconsin highway. I’m pretty damned far from okay.” His hands ran along the length of his body, as though he were checking for injuries. “But I think I’m uninjured, for the most part.” He kicked his door open and started to get out.
“I am also fine,” I heard Andromeda say behind me. “But the one behind me did not fare quite so well.” I looked back at Andromeda, wondering what she meant by that. Her sandy hair looked different than when I had met her, now that it was dry. She wore a tourist T-shirt that we had bought in Eagle River that had the name of the town etched on it along with a picturesque landscape reflective of that area of the northwoods, along with sweat pants.
I realized after a moment what she meant, and I cringed. “Scott, check on Reed.” I saw the blond man nod, and then lean over the seat to get to Reed, who had been sitting in the hatchback when we flipped.
“Not good,” Scott said as I tried to open my door and failed. “He’s hurt pretty bad.”
I breathed a curse, then kicked the door open, breaking it free of its hinges and sending it skidding across the pavement. I heard a noise in the distance, over the crackling of the flames that were beginning to grow under the hood of the car, a slow, steady, repetitive noise that sounded like the humming of tires against pavement when you’re in a car driving down the highway.
I knew, though, when I stepped out of the car, that it wasn’t that. The cadence was too high; it was cycling far too fast to be anything of that sort. It was something else, something that spun at a much faster rate than tires, something that was disturbing the air around it rather than beating against unrelenting asphalt. A helicopter overflew us, one of the old Hueys like the ones from Vietnam war movies, and it settled into a slow descent only a hundred yards in front of us.
The highway we had been on had two lanes, with woods running along either side past the small ditches that were placed below the sides of the road to catch runoff. There were buildings a mile behind us, a small town built on the highway, and there were a few mailboxes spaced out on the shoulder. One was only fifty feet from where I stood. “Mailboxes mean houses,” I said under my breath.
“They are no safe haven,” Andromeda said, slipping out of the car behind me to take up position at my side.
“We need to get these guys out of here,” I told her as I watched the helicopter continue its descent; the only thing slowing it was the power lines that ran along either side of the road. “Any house will do for now; at least it’s cover.”
Scott came around the crumpled side of the car, Reed on his back in a fireman’s carry. He passed the side where black paint was so streaked with gray scratches that the steel peeked out from underneath. It looked like it had been keyed by the most pissed-off ex-girlfriend ever. “They’ve got RPGs and no reluctance to use them; I expect they’ll blow the roof off a house in short order.”
I looked at him for only a second as I ripped Kurt’s door off. “Are you sure you should be moving him like this?”
Scott tried to shrug, a vain effort given Reed was draped over his shoulders. “Move them or leave them for the guys with guns and rockets.”
“They will not show mercy,” Andromeda said. “They have none in them.” Her brown eyes were distant, and I followed them along a line to the helicopter, which had landed and was starting to deploy men in black, at least six of them, their dark outfits making them look like ninjas, covered from head to toe as they were. Cars were backing up behind the helicopter, a small traffic jam forming thanks to their deployment.