Playing Jacks

xi. Life's a Race, part 2

She’s shaken- that much is obvious.  Sitting in the passenger’s seat, Sophie has tucked her hands between her legs and stares out the side window.  If she would let him touch her, take her hand in his, he’s certain that it would be shaking.  Hunger and exhaustion do nothing to improve her ability to cope- so it would be unwise to say anything.

Glancing into the rearview mirror with a frown, Jacks spies their tail again. 

“Have you ever wondered if you were so far gone . . . if you’d made so many poor choices . . . that there was no way back?” Sophie asks, her wistful voice quiet with introspection.

“There’s a way back,” Jacks asserts, his determination making his voice hard.

Sophie leans against the glass, her eyes riveted on the passing asphalt. “Maybe your choices weren’t as stupid as mine.”

“Plenty stupid,” Jacks admits, the edge still very present in his voice. “But there’s a way back.”

The cab grows quiet and Jacks’ eyes leap from the road ahead to the cars behind and back again, gauging their threat.

“Jacks, I think we’re being followed,” Sophie tells him in a low voice- calmer than he’d expected.

“I know,” he answers.  As a point of fact, there are two- but there’s no reason to mention that fact.  Reaching over, he pulls her hand away from its nest to lace it into his own. “Can you trust me?”

Sophie turns those devastating chocolate brown eyes on him, worry in her features. “Jacks, you should probably jump out of this car at the next light.  Run and don’t look back,” she tries to laugh, but it’s a weak, wavering sound.

The car slows to a stop at a light and Jacks turns to caress Sophie’s cheek. “No surrender.  No retreat.  We’re getting that flash drive.”

She visibly swallows her fear and gives him a bit of a nod.

Jacks snaps open his phone and mashes a button before lifting it to his ear.  Pulling onto the interstate, Jacks heads towards a thick knot of roads that splinter and merge- a crazy interstate maze made all the more complex by the obstacles moving alongside them at over seventy miles per hour.

“Bernini, get off my tail.  I know what you want and you’ll get it- but not this way,” Jacks growls. He listens to the man on the other end for a minute. “You know I want it, but I can’t give you what I don’t have.  It’s coming- just not yet.  So back off.”  Jacks eyes lift to the rear view mirror and back to the thickening traffic. “Yeah, I know.  Don’t worry, we’ll shake him.”  He frowns at whatever the man on the other end says and heaves a sigh. “Yeah, that’d work.  I . . . I guess I’ll owe you.”

Disconnecting the phone, Jacks eyes slide to Sophie. “Hang on, kitten.  This is going to get rough.”

The old station wagon weaves into spaces between cars that only existed in theory, making their horns blare obnoxiously.  Watching the tail in the glossy tan sedan- not much different than most of the cars on the road-  Sophie braces herself against the inertia that throws her against the car door and her restraints.  It speeds to pass the cars it has carefully kept between them until it falls into their blind spot, just on their right.  Another car, one she hadn’t picked out, speeds to their tail.  On their left, a large tractor-trailer lumbers forward and boxes them in.  Sophie feels the press of claustrophobia.  There’s no where to go.

“Jacks,” Sophie squeaks in warning.  A gun has appeared from the darkly tinted window.

Slamming the breaks, Jacks greets their pursuers with their rear bumper.  The impact throws them both, but the seatbelt catches them roughly, burning Sophie’s neck.  Then Jacks punches the accelerator, leaving the dark sedan swerving and struggling to regain its proper orientation.  Meanwhile, Jacks disappears into thick clumps of traffic, under an intersection, across four lanes of traffic and into Atlanta’s downtown maze.