F Wilson - Sims

“Easy,” Patrick said, reaching across, finding her hand, squeezing it. “Easy.”

Romy couldn’t gauge the genuineness of the gesture, whether he really felt for her or was simply pressing his case to be roommates, but she didn’t pull away.

The interior of the car brightened. Romy glanced in her sideview mirror and saw that the car behind them was closer now, coming up fast. Patrick noticed it too.

“Looks like someone wants to pass,” he said.

She felt the BMW decelerate as Patrick eased up on the gas to allow the other car to go by. She looked out her window at the ravine beyond the guardrail and suddenly had a premonition.

“Don’t slow down!” she cried.

“Wha—?”

“Hit the gas! Don’t let it pass!”

Too late. The other car had gained too much momentum. It pulled alongside—Romy could see now that it was a big, heavy Chevy van—and then cut a hard right into the Beemer’s flank.

She screamed as the impact sent a shock of terror through her chest. Patrick cried out and the car swerved as he was knocked away from the steering wheel. Metal screeched, sparks flew as the steel guardrail ripped along the outside of her door, just inches away. Patrick grabbed the wheel, trying to regain control, but then the van hit them again, harder, and this time the Beemer climbed the guardrail, straddled it for an endless instant, then toppled over.

Romy’s window exploded inward, peppering her with safety glass as the car landed on its passenger side—she heard someone screaming and recognized the voice as her own. She hung upside down in her seatbelt as the Beemer rolled onto its roof, then over to the driver side where it slidbounced-rattled the rest of the way down a slope of softball-size chunks of granite. She felt as if she were trapped in some wild amusement park ride that had gone horribly wrong. Finally the car hit the bottom of the ravine and bounced back onto its wheels.

Battered, shaken, her heart pounding madly, she shook off the shock and looked at Patrick. He was a shadow slumped against the wheel—the airbag hadn’t deployed. She heard him groan and thought, We’re alive!

But this was no accident. Someone had tried to kill them!

And then she saw forms moving into the beam of the one remaining headlight, crouching shapes in dark jumpsuits, looking like commandos.

Realization stabbed into her brain: Already down here! Waiting for us! All planned! We were targeted to be knocked off the road at that point!

She found the door lock toggle, hit it. Locks wouldn’t do much good, but Patrick’s window, though cracked, was still intact. She leaned close to him.

“Don’t move!” she whispered in his ear.

He gave her a groggy look. “What?”

“Keep quiet and play dead!”

She pushed his head down so it was resting against the steering wheel, then slumped herself against him and watched through narrowed lids.

Three of them, moving quickly and cautiously, squinting in the light. Must have been waiting in the dark for a while. She thought she spotted a fourth figure hanging back at the edge of the glow.

She slipped her hand into her pocketbook, searching for something, anything she might use to protect herself. Her fingers closed around a metal cylinder, twice the length of a lipstick. Oh, yes. In the confusion she’d all but forgotten about that.

“Somebody kill those lights!” said the middle figure.

“Got it.”

One figure veered toward Patrick’s side of the car while the other two approached Romy’s. A hand snaked through her window. She steeled herself as fingers probed her throat.

“Got a pulse.”

“Great. Get her arm out here. I’ll shoot her up. Got that recorder ready?”

The third man was rattling Patrick’s door. “Hey, it’s locked. Find the switch over there.”

A hand fumbled along the inside of her door. Over the first man’s shoulder she saw the other lift an inoculator.

No!

She felt her fear nudging Raging Romy. Come on! she thought. Wake up! Where are you when I need you?

As soon as she heard the door locks trip open, she began spraying. Not a five- or ten-percent capsicum spray, but a concentrated stream of CS tear gas. The nearer of the two caught the full brunt of it. Clawing at his eyes, he cried out and lurched backward, knocking into his partner; Romy was moving too, pushing open her door and leaping out, arm extended, giving the inoculator man a faceful. He shouted and, arms across his face, turned and tried to run blind, but tripped and fell over the first guy.

Raging Romy was back.

“What the fuck?” she heard the third man say from Patrick’s side of the car. She turned and saw him start to move around toward her.

“Run, Patrick!” she screamed. “Run now!”

Before taking her own advice, she went to work on the two bastards on the ground, using her boots to hurt them where they lived, putting all the considerable strength of her legs and much of her body behind the kicks. Raging Romy wanted to give them more, take the time to do the job right so it would be a long, long while before they were able to try something like this again, but the third man had reached the front of the car and she had to run.

Patrick lay trembling against the steering wheel, trying to control his bladder, afraid he was going to be killed. The guy on his side of the car had just yanked the door open when all hell broke loose to Patrick’s right—shouts, cries, moans, and then Romy telling him to run. The guy outside his door was moving away and so Patrick kicked it the rest of the way open and did just that.

He didn’t pick a direction, he simply ran with everything he had. A quick glance over his shoulder showed no one in pursuit, and a slim figure, glints of light flashing from her glossy cleathre coat, fading into the night on the far side of the car. Romy. Thank God.

He ran on, still afraid for his life, but he had a chance now, and that left room enough in his panicked brain for questions: Who? Why? And room for shame. He was running instead of fighting. Even though he wasn’t a fighter, he felt he should be back there kicking multiple butts to defend Romy. Instead, she’d taken the lead and sprung them both. What kind of a woman had he become involved with?

At least they were running in opposite directions. That would split the opposition.

He spotted a large dark splotch ahead to his right—a tiny grove of trees, tall bushes maybe—and headed for it. He could stop there, get his bearings, and then try to make it back up to the road.

As he entered the grove he had a vague impression of a shadow hugging one of the dark tree trunks immediately to his right, but he kept pushing into the foliage.

“Not so fast, little man,” said a deep voice.

And then something rammed into his abdomen, a fist, plunging toward his spine, almost reaching it. As Patrick grunted in airless agony and doubled over, another fist slammed into the back of his neck, collapsing him to his knees. He retched.

“Got him!” the voice bellowed.

Through the red and black splotches flashing in his vision, Patrick was aware of a flashlight flicking on and off. A moment later he heard thumping footsteps approach.

“Ricker?” said the voice that belonged to the guy who’d opened his car door.

“Over here. Where’s Hoop and Cruz?”

As Patrick’s breathing eased and his head cleared, he glanced left and right: two pairs of identical black sneakers leading to black pants with elastic cuffs.

“Down. Bitch was playing possum. Maced them and took off. They’re getting their eyes back but—”

“Damn fuck better! Got to catch her before she gets to the road and stops a car!”

“That might be up to me and you—she did some real damage to their balls before she left.”