Veneration of Dreams // Ransom Drysdale

four // the fast and the fearful

Head in hands, Katarina stared at Ransom in numb shock.

A second later she floored it.

As the gate opened, Katarina navigated out of the parking lot and through the exit, sparing a glance at her rear view mirror when she found the strenth to do so. The lack of police on the road raised her spirits but it hardly mellowed the impact of Ransom's uneasy expression. He didn't seem angry or like he enjoyed this which was good but his shaky grip on the sidebar was a source of great concern. Especially, considering his other hand held a gun to her head.

"Speedy Gonzalez...huh, guess I was right." He said, breaking the silence. 

Katarina's only response was a sigh when she felt the tension in his arm relax. Slowly, he withdrew the gun and she felt a little more at peace when it fell into his lap but the sound of sirens counteracted her joy. When she returned her gaze to the windscreen, she found two cars gliding behind them and an empty blackness ahead.

The town of Whitegate was relatively small, located in the literal, "middle of nowhere" except for a major highway which connected it to the city. There was nowhere to hide here but over there... Chewing on her lower lip, she took a sharp right turn, smashing through a paddock fence.

They reconnected onto the M9 before the first coherent word of protest was out of Ransom's mouth. Emphasis on coherent.

"You don't like speed do you?" She asked, regretting it the second his head snapped toward her. For a second, she feared he might do something rash but he only huffed in annoyance.

"Phone." He ordered, slightly breathless.

Wordlessly, Katarina knocked open the front compartment and pulled out an old flip phone. The device was one long antennae away from looking like an alien contraption and Ransom was far from impressed but he accepted it anyway. It was better than nothing, provided it worked.

"That's my dad's. I could never bring myself to throw it out. There's no GPS in it, he had just about everything uninstalled." Katarina explained despite his silence. Speaking, even if it was one sided, took her attention away from the honking horns and skidding tires of the present. The sound acted as a beacon to the officers and she fought to extract every ounce of speed from their car as they careened between vans and trucks, clipping several.

Ransom looked up on the third scrape, narrowing his eyes on a set of orange lights marking a tunnel to their left. Jumping forward, he wrenched the wheel to the side, swerving into the opening at the last possible second. Katarina barely had the time to scream as he grabbed her shoulder and turned her head toward him, shaking the thought that had he been a little late, he would have flipped the car.

"Slow down, take the left-most lane, cut the lights when I tell you." Ransom said.

To her own disgust, she nodded like a bobblehead. Not that she had any other choice. Under his directions, she released the accelerator and flicked the headlight dial to the left but when their car descended into darkness, so did the vehicles around them. All of them. Katarina slammed the breaks when the traffic slowed, horrified to find the other vehicles mirroring her action. Looking around, she thought she recognised the car in front of them but put it down to the bad lighting, except, Ransom saw it too.

As a weight fell in their stomachs, the pair realised the entire tunnel was filled with cars that looked like hers. Exactly, like hers, right down to the dent in the trunk.

"How did you do this?" Katarina whispered. She swivelled around in her seat, craning her neck to see the cars further ahead and behind them.

Ransom hesitated.

"This...isn't me." He said, slowly, and Katarina took a long breath. Her mind raced.

"Okay, clearly, someone's looking out for you, right, so you don't need me. You don't need a hostage, I- You can let me go." She pleaded, startled by the roar around her as every car in the vicinity revved its engine. It was a sign that they needed to go. He needed to go.

"No." He replied.

Katarina nearly laughed, her throat tightening, "No?"

"You want answers, don't you?" He snapped, "You want to know why Maroni tried to shoot you. You want to know what was in that video you fought so hard to find. You probably even want to know what the hell is going on here. I can tell you do, Kat, and I have the resources to help. I have the money, the connections. Work with me here and you will find out everything you have ever wanted to know. Even, this stuff about your dad."

Katarina's heart skipped a beat.

"What the hell do you know about my dad?" She snapped, reeling toward him.

"I know he died under mysterious circumstances early this year and you can't accept the bullshit explanation the police gave you. I also think Maroni had something to do with it.

In front of him, she scoffed but behind her back, her fingers trembled on the door handle.

"You would know about bullshit." She mumbled beneath her breath, sounding indifferent.

Ransom smiled thinly. He didn't want to use his gun but if she tried something stupid, he wouldn't let hesitation get the best of him either.

"Listen to me very carefully-"

He said but Katarina was already trying the door. By the time she got it open there wasn't much that could stop her. Except for a stray bullet.

a/n

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