They have a plan. Whoever’s leading them, has a plan.
Is that you out there calling the shots, Josh? Is that you doing Kate’s bidding?
She looked down at her watch: 10:16 A.M.
It felt like evening already. The temperature had lessened noticeably when they stepped out of the farmhouse this morning. It was hovering around seventy degrees at the moment, pleasant enough that she almost didn’t realize for the first time in a long time that she wasn’t sweating profusely under her clothes while standing out in the open.
According to the map they carried with them, they were already halfway to Lake Charles. It would take another hour of driving at a decent rate of speed to get there. From there, the town of Salvani wasn’t far off. Once they made it past that, it was south toward Song Island. Smooth sailing.
Because everything up to this point has been smooth sailing so far, right?
Danny leaned against the driver side door and looked across the hood at her. “How’re you holding up, kid?”
“I’m still standing,” she said. “You?”
“Got me a busted face, with a busted nose, and a busted leg. Other than that, I feel super duper awesome.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Danny was looking past her at the girls. Annie had walked over to join Milly behind the sedan, while Claire was standing watch with that shotgun of hers and looking back down the highway, as if she, too, expected someone to appear in pursuit of them at any moment.
“Where are they, Danny?” Gaby asked. “They had trucks. Maybe more, stashed behind those buildings. But they just let us go. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Danny said. “Maybe because they got what they wanted.”
“Will.”
“Yeah.”
“That would make sense, if she’s the one pulling the strings like you thought.”
“Oh, it’s her, all right,” Danny said with absolute certainty. “I told him never to pick up the psychos. They have separation issues. Plus, he shot her. That tends to sour a relationship, which is why I always try to avoid shooting my girlfriends.”
Gaby smiled. It came out easily that time, and Danny looked pleased with himself as a result.
I guess we both needed that.
“Come on,” Danny said, “let’s keep truckin’. Mother always said not to look a gift horse in the mouth. If we can get to Song Island by three or four, I’ll be a happy little boy with bells on his feet.”
“Should we radio ahead? Tell them we’re coming?”
Danny shook his head. “Not yet.”
“We should tell them we’re coming.”
“We will, when we’re closer, but…not yet.”
“Why—”
“I don’t know what to tell her,” he said, and climbed back into the Titan without another word.
Lara. Danny was talking about Lara. As much as they both believed that Will would be fine, that as long as he was breathing he would find them (Maybe even beat us to Song Island), a part of Danny had doubts.
But she didn’t.
Did she?
“Girls!” Gaby called. “Let’s go!”
Milly and Annie headed back, clinging to one another and looking like mother and daughter. Claire stayed behind until the two had passed her, then she turned and jogged over.
“Next stop, Song Island?” Milly asked, looking brighter than she had all day. Or maybe that was just the sun shining in her face.
“Next stop, Song Island,” Gaby nodded.
“Sweet,” Claire said. “I’m going to drink cold water until I barf.”
The part of her that had been trained by Will and Danny, and that had been surviving out here by herself without them, knew that they weren’t going to reach Salvani without encountering resistance. The nineteen-year-old in her that was barely a year removed from her senior year of high school was holding out hope that it was a possibility.
She should have known better.
The first shot hadn’t finished its echo before the bullet punched through the front grill of the Nissan and Danny jammed on the brake. The truck swerved slightly, Danny fighting the steering wheel for control, face contorted into a tight grimace. He finally managed to stop the vehicle, freezing it in place across the two-lane highway, the nose barely a foot from ramming into the concrete divider.
That allowed Gaby to look out her glassless window and up the road at two nondescript trucks parked about fifty yards from them. They had looked like all the other derelict vehicles they had passed since Route 13, with nothing about them standing out. Which was why Danny had almost driven right up to them when the first shot shattered the calm midday air.
Except these cars weren’t abandoned, because there was a man peering back at her from behind a scope, the long barrel of his rifle leaning over the hood of the parked white Ford truck. The other vehicle was some kind of Chevy, and it sat along the shoulder. She thought she caught a glimpse of another figure moving around on the other side of its windows.
A flicker of movement drew her attention, and she didn’t have to turn very far to see a third man moving on the other side of the concrete divider, jogging up the highway toward them. The man’s head was bobbing up and down as he attempted to stay as low as possible, but he was doing a very poor job of it.
She twisted in her seat and shouted, “Get out the other side! Now now now!”
Then she was turning back around, opening her car door, and lunging out before she even realized what she was doing.
The other side, you idiot! Go out the other side!
Too late. Her M4 rifle was clutched tightly in her hands, though she didn’t remember when she had picked it up from where it had fallen during Danny’s chaotic struggle to regain control of the vehicle. As soon as her foot landed on the hard highway floor, she expected to pay for her dumb decision. When she heard the crack! of the rifle, instead of feeling pain in her chest, there was a buzzing sensation right next to her right ear. The bullet sailed past her and hit the roof of the car behind her before ricocheting into the air.
Two more shots rang out as she darted toward the back of the Nissan, the ping! ping! coming from behind her. She swore she could smell metal against metal. Maybe that was just her imagination, though she didn’t stop to ponder it. Instead, she grabbed at the top of the truck bed and used it to slingshot herself around the corner until she saw the back bumper and kept running until she was on the other side.
She was happy to see that Danny was on the highway and pulling Milly out after him with one hand, the other holding his beat-up M4A1. Claire and Annie were already huddled against the truck, using it as a shield.
“You okay?” Claire asked when Gaby crouched down next to her.
Hey, that’s my job, Gaby thought, but it took her a few seconds to stop her racing heartbeat long enough to respond. “I’m good. You?”
“I don’t think I was hit.”
She looked past Claire at Danny, who was depositing Milly next to Annie. “Danny…”
“I saw two,” he said.
“I saw three.”
“Where?”
“On the other side of the divider—”
“Check.”
“—behind the white truck—”
“Double check.”
“And behind the red Chevy.”