“That won’t work,” he insisted, eyeing the back of the transport vehicle as I raced towards it.
“I’ve done this a thousand times,” I replied dismissively. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a thousand. And maybe the one time I’d done it, it had been a DHL truck and not a prison transport vehicle with reinforced everything. And maybe that time things had gone more than a little wrong. But I still held firm to this plan. Not that it was a plan – it was more of an impulsive decision which I was sticking to until death.
“You need to cut it off,” Mateo demanded, grabbing the wheel and trying to force it to the right, making the car swerve violently.
I punched him in the jaw and righted it again. “I’m ramming it,” I snapped.
“I should have known you would fuck this up, you bastardo loco.”
I ignored that shit in favour of pressing my foot to the floor and with a snarl from the engine, we flew forward and slammed into the back of the transport vehicle, the crash of metal and jolt of the impact sending adrenaline rushing through my veins.
We fell back and I cursed as the door remained shut, one great big bastard turning his head to look at us with his brow furrowing from the back of the thing where he’d been locked up in some sort of cage, long, white hair spilling all around his face as he watched us.
He didn’t so much as flinch as I slammed into the back of the bus once again, and I whooped as they veered left and right, the driver clearly getting all kinds of spooked by my attack.
“You need to cut it off,” Mateo hissed again as we were forced back again, the bus’s rear doors remaining closed and the front of my car looking seriously worse for wear. Luckily, I had long since figured out exactly how hard you had to crash a car to set off the air bags. It wasn’t an exact art, but I pretty much had it down – I didn’t need those fuckers going bang in my face in a situation like this and I didn’t need anything tryna save my cursed life while I was working either. I already knew the Devil didn’t want me and I wasn’t inclined to rely on any judgement aside from his on the situation.
“This will work,” I said, ignoring Mateo as the road took several sharp turns, the hills rising up around us as we closed in on the river ahead.
“No, it won’t!”
“It will.” I drove the car into the back of the bus again and I was thrown forward in my seat by the impact as I hit it harder that time.
Mateo cursed and smacked me, trying to grab the wheel and force me to go around yet again but I jerked it back, taking a hand from it to slap his fancy, freshly shaved face. Who did he think he was anyway? Don Fancy Face? Some kinda cartel somebody? That was bullshit and we both knew it – he was my little bitch and nothing more, and he never would be again unless I deigned it so.
The car hit the bus once more, but the fucking doors remained resolutely closed and the front of the Jeep began to release a little stream of smoke. Or steam. I wasn’t sure which, but I was fairly certain that wasn’t a good sign.
“You’re making me fuck this up,” I growled, knowing that it was Mateo who was cursing me in the endeavour with his sour attitude ruining the ambiance.
“You’re the one who is going to destroy the car trying to batter down the fucking doors like an idiota. You need to drive it off the road!” Mateo shoved the wheel hard to the right as I put my foot down again and I cursed him as we sped out onto the bridge which crossed the river, jerking the wheel to the left once more as I slammed my knuckles into his jaw before grabbing a fistful of his ebony hair and cracking his face against the dashboard.
Mateo snarled at me like the beast he was, slamming an elbow down into my cock and I swear my balls leapt all the way up into my lungs as the burning in my new piercing blazed a path of pure fire from tip to base. I damn near blacked out from it. I tasted brimstone as I closed in on hell and wheezed like a football with a hole stabbed in the side of it.
I released Mateo who shoved the wheel to the right once more, his big fucking foot stamping down on mine as he forced me to accelerate, and I hissed out a breath laced with curses as I tried to blink away the pain.
The wail of the police sirens suddenly blasted through my skull, the flash of red and blue from the open road on the far side of the bridge calling me back from the abyss, and I roared a furious challenge at Mateo as I saw the end approaching. We were almost out of time and I refused to let this be it for my little psycho no matter what it cost me.
I gripped the wheel in both hands and ripped it to the left just as the nose of the Jeep began to pass the transport vehicle.
The crunch of metal and squeal of tyres against tarmac filled the air as the fucking thing was forced into a tailspin and my lips parted as I slammed my foot down on the brakes, the back end of the Jeep skidding out and the world rotating around us. The airbags exploded in our faces, keeping me in the car despite my lack of seatbelt.
Glass shattered, screams filled the air and an angry Mexican yelled ‘I told you so!’ as I grabbed the fucking door and held on for dear life while we spun in wild circles, and there was nothing left which made a whole lot of sense anymore.
But Ava’s screams were gone, so there was that. No, I couldn’t hear the hopeless pleas from the past anymore. Because I was fully engaged in the present and I swear I heard a scream which drowned out all other sounds of carnage as Brooklyn screamed in panic from somewhere all too close and all too far away at once.
“Hellfire!”
She needed me. She fucking needed me, and I refused to fail her the way I had Ava ten long years ago.
The car smacked into the barrier at the edge of the bridge and I hit my head on the window as it bounced down onto its wheels, blood trickling from my temple to the corner of my mouth as the airbag slowly deflated and the world beyond the shattered windscreen came into focus once more.
“Shit,” I muttered as I spotted the destroyed railing on the far side of the bridge, the enormous splash confirming the location of the transport vehicle as the screams from the people inside it filled the air and it began to sink.
“Are you happy now?” Mateo snarled, shoving the airbag away from him as he glared at me with this indignant kind of rage which made me want to slap him.
“Ecstatic,” I replied, hunting for my gun in the door pocket and grinning as I found it still lodged there. “That was my plan all along.”
“Liar,” he hissed, but we didn’t have time to get into that as the howl of the police sirens and the blinding glare of the red and blue lights assaulted our eyes, announcing the arrival of the local sheriff and his band of helpful Harrys.
There was some yelling for us to get outa the car with our hands raised but the two of us ignored that shit, scrambling through the wreckage and dropping down among the shattered glass which lined the road as we took cover behind it, hiding from the police.
The screams from the sinking transport vehicle set my heart pounding to a frantic beat, but as I tried to make a run for the edge of the bridge to dive in after my Spider, a shot whizzed past me and forced me back into cover.
“Drop you weapons and come out with your hands raised!” a woman called and I fired a warning shot back in their direction as I swore beneath my breath, needing them to stay the fuck away from us while we found a way out of here.
“Shit,” I hissed, my back pressed to the wreckage of my car as I turned to look at Mateo. “Any bright ideas coming to ya now?”
He narrowed his eyes on me and looked around as the police returned fire and we were forced to stay where we were, the prisoners’ screams filling me with dread as time worked against us once more.
“I have one,” he said, looking at the gas tank with the Devil in his eyes. “But it’s as estúpido as it is brilliant.”
“Well, I’m all for estúpido,” I said vehemently. “So let’s give it a shot.”