You Never Know Who to Trust

Zu

The single bullet cut a path straight down the center of the minivan, exiting out through the windshield. For a moment, none of us did anything but stare at the hole and the spreading spiderweb of cracks radiating out from it.

“Holy sh—!” Liam threw the car into forward, slamming his foot down all the way on the gas. He seemed to have forgotten that we were in a Dodge Caravan and not a BMW, because it went from zero to sixty in what felt like thirty minutes. Zu almost went flying forward so I put my arm out to catch her. She quickly put her seatbelt on. Black Betty’s body began to shake, rattling from more than just the holes and cracks in the road.

I whirled around, searching for Rob’s SUV, but the car behind us was a bright red pickup truck, and the man leaning out of the passenger window of the truck, rifle in hand, was not Rob.

“I told you!” Chubs yelled. “I told you they were skip tracers!”

“Yes, you were right,” Liam yelled right back. “But could you try to be useful, too?”

He jerked the car left, just as the man fired off another shot. It must have gone wide, because it never hit the car, not that I could tell. He fired again, and that bullet had far better luck; it slammed into Black Betty’s bumper. We felt the hit like a brick to the back; every single 
of us let out a sharp gasp. In Chubs’s case, he moaned and crossed himself.

Zu was slouched down in her seat, her chest pressed against her knees. Her hood hid her face, but it couldn’t mask the way her entire body shook. I put a hand on her back, holding her down.

Another bang sounded behind us, but this time, it wasn’t a gunshot.

“What in the…” Liam risked a look back over his shoulder. “Are you kidding me?”

My heart fell like a stone into my stomach. The red truck jolted forward, and I saw the driver—a dark haired woman with glasses—tug the wheel to the side, trying to shake the truck free from the tan SUV that had rammed into it. I didn’t need to see who was driving it to know who that vehicle belonged to: Cate and Rob. But, then, who was in the pickup truck?

“It is her!” Chubs cried. “I told you! She found us!”

“Then who’s the guy with the gun?” Liam cried. “Her boyfriend?”

The man who had fired at us turned his attention to taking out the SUV behind him, twisting around in the window. He lasted half a breath. A gunshot from the SUV clipped him in the chest and sent an explosive spray of blood into the air. The crack of the next bullet sent the shooter’s lifeless body sliding out of the passenger window of the truck. The driver—the woman—didn’t so much as look back at him.

I watched the red truck finally break away from the SUV’s front bumper. With both of its back tires blown out, it swerved into the other lane, spinning out, until it came to a jolting stop on the shoulder of the highway.

“That’s one,” I heard Liam say. I turned back, fully expecting to see Rob’s gun trained on me through the blown-out back windshield of our van. Only, Rob was behind the wheel.

Cate was the one in the passenger seat, a rifle steady between her hands.

“Please, just let me go,” Ruby said, grabbing Liam’s shoulder. “I’ll go back with them. No one has to get hurt. Just keep Rose safe.”

“Yes!” Chubs said. “Pull over, let her out!”

“Both of you shut up!” Liam said, throwing Black Betty into the right lane and then back into the left. The SUV followed us, more than keeping up. I couldn’t tell if we had slowed down, or if they had somehow gunned it harder, because in the next breath, the SUV rammed into us, and not even the seat belts could keep us from jerking forward.