The car’s tires fought to catch at the road, but the truck’s hit was enough to push Quinn to the side. A couple of cement trucks momentarily filled Quinn’s peripheral vision, and he fought down the panic clamping his jaw. Breathing in deeply, he shoved aside all of the noise and scary shit his mind was coming up with and focused on the car instead. Yanking the wheel would only spin him about, slamming the low Audi under the bulbous mixer, shearing off the car’s roof. Pushing into the spin, Quinn counted off a few seconds, then eased into the gas, forcing the Audi back into the lane by holding its weight firm with a punishing grasp of the steering wheel. His shoulder ached from maneuvering the car out of its turn, but the Audi snapped forward, taking the pressure off of his arm.
Rain splattered the Audi’s windshield, a sudden burst of drops barely thick enough to turn on the wipers, but Quinn kept his window cracked, counting on the street rattle to clue him in on the truck’s noisy progress. The street tightened, dropping a lane as another construction project swallowed up one from the right. A dip in the road lifted the Audi up off the asphalt for a moment. Then it landed softly. The truck didn’t fare as well.
Quinn didn’t have to watch to know the heavy vehicle hit hard. The crunch of the truck’s undercarriage hitting the street was loud enough to rattle his teeth. Then a booming noise shook the air, bouncing back and forth between the tightly packed buildings until Quinn’s ears buzzed with the sound.
He risked a quick look, trying to weave around a bus pulling over to a stop. Behind him, the truck continued to wobble forward, sparks flying up from its front wheel well as pieces of torn tire flopped about an exposed rim. The Audi’s rear seemed to be holding up well. A far sight better than the truck’s front end.
Quinn heard sirens cutting through the traffic noise, but any thought of stopping flew out the Audi’s open window when the truck lurched forward, hemming him in. He dove to the side, sliding the Audi out of the truck’s next jerking lunge. Off-balance and uneven, the truck’s popped tire hit a swell in the blacktop and tilted it toward Quinn’s lane.
Its tall sides drew up against the R8, casting a long shadow over the windshield and blocking off the scant light filtering down between Fremont’s packed buildings. He wasn’t going to make it to the next intersection without another hit, possibly one hard enough to cripple the Audi, and even if he was able to avoid the truck, the street took a hard right after Market, dangerously thickening the traffic.
The light turned red on Mission, and the world went dark. Quinn glanced up to see the truck’s weight give in to gravity, tipping over, its beaten white steel sides looming over him. Slamming on his brakes, he locked the Audi up, pulling it sideways and out from under the toppling truck’s way.
Smoke poured out from the Audi’s tires, choking Quinn. Its acrid sting brought water to his eyes, and he tried to blink it away, but nothing helped. He felt the truck hit the street, a shock wave of screaming metal slamming hard into the blacktop, and then a barrage of sirens overwhelmed him. Sitting sideways in the middle of the road, the Audi continued to idle, battered to hell but apparently ready for another round. Someone shouted nearby, and as the smoke cleared, Quinn saw the Muni bus he’d passed heading straight for him, its front rack bristling with bicycles. He caught a momentary flash of the bus driver’s horrified face, then heard screeching brakes as he tightened into a ball to brace for impact.
A second later, the only thing Quinn heard was his panicked breathing and the rapid trot of his heart racing hard enough to clear a tall fence if it had to. The world was lost under the whooshing sound of his blood pounding in his ears, and Quinn blinked, his lashes catching on his jacket’s soft leather.
“Hey, you okay?” The voice could have come from God for all he knew, but Quinn seriously doubted God sounded like a stoner from Haight. He peeled his arm out from around his face, then peered out of the Audi’s window, straight into the business end of the Muni bus, the nut on a bike tire only a few inches away from the car’s tinted glass. Slowly turning his head to the right, he found the source of the worried voice, a long-haired man dressed in a food-stained chef’s coat, his fingers clenched around a partially chopped handful of kale.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Quinn stuttered, snagging his teeth on his tongue. “Fecking hell and shite.”
The sirens were a waterfall of noise pouring down over his head. Then as quickly as they’d swelled up from the street noise, they fell silent. The chatter of voices around the Audi and the bus faded, quieted by authoritarian growls ordering everyone to back away from the street. The chef disappeared, replaced by a craggy-faced veteran in patrol blues.
“You okay, sir?” The scowl on the cop’s face was epic but tempered by concern in his warm brown eyes. “Can you move? Do you need medical assistance?”