Sins & Needles(83)

“I hope I wasn’t too,” he said. We ran through another red and then rocketed up the on-ramp and onto the highway heading northeast. It was the opposite way than we needed to go but all we needed to do was focus on being alive.

Once on the highway, Camden switched gears and accelerated even more. I was thrown back, never having driven the car over one hundred miles before. Jose took the speed with ease; in fact, the car seemed to thrive on it. We were fast, going so fast. Our saving grace was that the highway had barely any cars on it.

Unfortunately this meant the mustang wasn’t far behind either.

“How are we going to lose him?” I asked. Were we just going to speed forever until the city turned to desert? Then what?

“Don’t worry about it,” he said determinedly. The car went faster.

Then we saw it. Late night construction was looming up ahead, just after the intersection with I-515.

“Shit, shit, shiiiiit,” I swore. There was no way we could run over a bunch of construction workers. The Mustang was now the closest car behind us. I wondered if they’d be stupid enough to start shooting, then I remembered I had my gun in the back and wondered if I’d be stupid enough to start shooting back.

“Ellie,” Camden said, his hand hovering over the gearshift, his polished cufflinks glinting in the city lights. “Hold on. And don’t scream.”

My eyes went wide.

He slammed on the brakes suddenly and we immediately went into a spin over the burning smell of rubber. Round and round we went as the car spun toward the edge of the highway.

I screamed.

Somehow, before we hit the concrete barricade and flipped over to our fiery deaths, the car jammed to a stop and shot forward. I nearly hit my head on the dash and gripped it for dear life as the world still spun inside my head.

Now we were driving straight into oncoming traffic. And the first car in our path was the white Mustang.

As we headed toward it, Camden’s intent to clip the corner of the car, I stared at the man behind the wheel to get a look at who it was. Everything happened in a flash, in a blur, but time slowed down enough for me to get a glimpse. He was Caucasian with a shock of white blonde hair, someone I’d never seen before. He had a gun pointed at my face.

Suddenly Camden was leaning over me, shoving my head down below the dash. There was a distant explosion of glass before the windshield above us erupted. My head smashed into the glove compartment as our car made contact with the Mustang. There was a crunch and spinning tires, but it was just us, still going, cold wind and glass fragments flying over my head.

I felt Camden straighten up. “Keep your head down!” he yelled at me. Despite hitting the Mustang and having the window shot out, Jose kept going. My body went from side to side as he weaved through a maze of honking horns.

Finally I looked up. With no windshield, my hair was blown out of my updo, the glass going with it. We were driving through cars, all heading straight for us but slowing down as we approached.

“Are you okay?” he asked above the roar of the highway.

I looked at him wildly. His glasses were off, lying on his lap with a cracked lens. The wound on his lip where his dad had hit him days ago had been reopened and blood was trickling out. Other than that, and the adrenaline that was pumping through his eyes, he looked okay.

I looked behind me and saw nothing but a sea of red taillights.

“What happened to the Mustang?”

He shrugged and swung the car around a minivan that was honking like crazy and flashing its lights. “It flipped. That’s all I know. That’s all I care about. We have to get off this highway before a chopper picks us up.”

I guess heading the wrong way on I-15 was a newsworthy event.

“How did you learn to drive like that?” I asked in awe. “And don’t say it’s because of video games.”

He gave me a bloody grin. “Believe it or not, I almost became a cop after high school. Dad was so proud until I failed. The only thing I could pass was the driving test.”

“What about the shooting?”

“If I ever get a real life target, I’ll let you know.”

He took the next exit, and I couldn’t help but scream again as we headed the wrong way down an on-ramp. Soon we were flying across the meridian, and with a deft twist, he got the car on the right side of the road. We sped off down the street until the house and buildings emptied into undeveloped desert. We were safe, for now.





CHAPTER TWENTY





As Camden steered the car down the increasingly deserted side road, the realization of what had happened was starting to sink in.

“Pull over,” I groaned. I was going to be sick.

He kept driving. “I don’t want to stop, not yet.”