Ineffable ꕥ Joost Klein ꕥ

47.

For the first time ever during a chase, Joost was in the passenger's seat.

Enzo was behind the wheel of his Porsche with his foot to the floor. One hand gripped the leather while the other remained on the gearstick. He tried to keep the transition between gears minimal, meaning he needed to swing wide around corners to avoid slowing down.

Joost kept his eye on the passing streets and hidden carparks. He looked for any sign of the Lancer that Aggu had fled in. It was strange to be the one on the lookout as opposed to the one driving. There was no one that he trusted more to keep to a schedule and safely do so than Enzo. It was why Joost knew that one of his oldest friends would be the one to replace him when everything was over.

'There!' Joost cried, pointing at the end of the road. Enzo's quick turn allowed the back of the Lancer to be caught in their headlights. The Mitsubishi turned to the right and Enzo floored the accelerator to catch up.

Joost gripped the gun in his lap. He wasn't sure how he was going to do it. Shoot-outs weren't usually his style, hence why the weapon had been untouched underneath his seat for months. But like Donnie had once said, racing was more his way of settling things.

But as Enzo approached the Lancer's bumper, Joost didn't care how he was going to kill Ski Aggu. He saw the reflective mask over his eyes in the rearview mirror. Enzo tailgated the car, only backing off to take a sharp corner. But before Aggu could put distance between them, Enzo was occupying his rearview once again.

Joost thought about giving Enzo some advice, but at his friend's silence and concentrated features, he realised that he didn't need to. Enzo was maneuvering the lanes perfectly. He braked when he needed to, anticipated Aggu's decisions, and never let the German have a moment's peace behind the wheel. Enzo was putting on the pressure and from the continuous looks to the rearview, Aggu was feeling it.

'Scheiße,' Aggu cursed. The headlights made him nervous. With a weight on his chest, Aggu attempted to lose the Porsche in another sharp turn. But as he hit the curb and swung onto a multi-lane street, the continued weight made it difficult to breathe.

The dufflebag sat in the passenger's seat but the contents had fallen to the back of his mind. He thought it was going to be easy to get back to Germany. Even though he was having to run the show on his lonesome, because everyone else had proven to be useless, Aggu knew how to slip through borders undetected.

He ripped the wheel to the side to avoid a median. The tires screeched as they lifted onto the left two, but before Aggu could correct them, the Porsche's bonnet was nudged underneath the airborne wheels.

There was nothing Aggu could do as the Lancer tipped on its side. Metal scraped against the tar and the wingmirror was destroyed. The speed at which the car was going made it lean even more to the left, sending it onto it's roof.

In the middle of the deserted street, the Lancer was a dented, upside-down mess. Car parts surrounded the chaos and marks of the crash were etched into the black of the road. Glass that had once been in the windows' panes were now shattered, sparkling in endless pieces of shards.

Groaning, Aggu's hand reached down to unclick his seatbelt. He put a hand to the roof, which became his floor, and used his other to heave himself out the window. His palm bloodied as the sharpened metal and remaining glass shards cut into his skin. He barely noticed as he twisted his body to fit through the space and flopped onto the road.

Aggu's head pounded and his limbs ached. The crash had thrown him around in his seat and glass had flown across whatever skin he had exposed. His mask had somehow remained over his eyes, but the thick band around the back of his head only increased the splitting pain in his skull.