The dark, leafless, ghostly trees rushed past on either side of her.
The road was nothing but a straight shot.
To where?
She didn’t know.
Her pulse was racing, seemingly as fast as her truck.
Her heart was pounding.
Both hands gripped the wheel tightly.
Her body felt freezing cold, on edge, and shaky.
The situation couldn’t have been crazier.
Her dead father was on the ground far behind her, just left randomly on the frozen earth, like a piece of trash.
At least two vehicles pursued her. And for what reason?
None, as far as she could tell. Except that they wanted to terrorize her. They wanted to hurt her. Either kill or worse.
Her mind drifted back to the events from earlier that day, when the man had attempted to take her body from her, when he’d attempted to push her soul into the dirt and grind it down into nothing. She couldn’t help thinking of it, the thoughts just surfaced there, despite the intensity and immediacy of the situation around her. She knew the thoughts and memories weren’t helping. But there was nothing she could do about it.
“Careful!” he shouted, his voice loud, practically right in her ear.
“What?” she shouted, not seeing anything out of the ordinary.
Or had she been too distracted by her thoughts?
There it was.
Shit.
Right in front of her.
But she saw it too late.
25
Beef
“Get ’em!” shouted Jax, next to him.
“I’m pushing it, dude!”
“Come on, Beef!”
“I told you, dude!” screamed Beef, slamming his elbow into Jax’s face.
That was the way things were with their crew. They ran together, fought together, fought each other.
When there was a disagreement, when someone was annoying, violence was the preferred method of settling all the scores.
Violence was the easiest. Violence was the best.
But it wasn’t like they’d ever discussed it. It was just how they were.
They were a group of guys that had just sort of drifted together over the years. They’d met at skate parks, downhill skiing sites, and in parking lots where people gathered to show off their modded, lifted, and souped-up vehicles.
Beef and Jax had gotten along well from the beginning. They saw the world the same way. They knew they needed to take what they wanted, because no one was going to give them a thing.
They’d both grown up in the foster care system. They’d both been shuttled from house to house. They’d both been victims of foster parents who didn’t really want them there, but needed the money. They’d both suffered terrible abuse, physical, mental, and emotional.
When Beef hit eighteen, he’d been out on the streets without so much as a cent to his name.
Jax had been luckier, shacking up with an older woman he’d met who helped fund his projects and interests.
It had taken Beef five years to get on his feet financially, working odd jobs and eventually drifting into selling drugs. It had been the quickest way to make a buck. And he’d started earning good money, enough money to let him pursue the things that interested him, like extreme sports, good vehicles, and generally just plenty of fun.
But even when his life had been going well, when he’d had the money to pursue his expensive extreme-sports hobbies, when he’d been surrounded by friends and women, when he’d been high nearly all the time, there had always been something missing.
He’d never wanted to admit it to himself, but there was always that hole in him. And it had always been there. No amount of adventures or drugs could fill it.
The only thing that came close to filling it was violence. Fighting. Smashing heads. Danger. Getting hurt. It all came close. Close to making him feel like he’d received the love and care he’d needed to receive in childhood but never had.
Beef was messed up.
And he was okay with that.
When the lights had gone out, he’d known what was up. He’d known it was his time to shine. He’d been out with his buddies and they’d started in immediately.
First, they just beat people up. Smashed some heads. Punched some lights out.
Then they’d progressed.
Quickly, things had gotten out of hand. Which was just the way Beef had wanted them.
“They’re going to get away!” shouted Jax.
Beef raised his elbow up again. “What’d I tell you?”
“You going to hit me again, dude? Strike all you want. I dare you.”
With his gas floored, his eyes on the truck ahead of them, Beef struck his best friend in the face with his elbow once again.
But Jax was ready for him, catching Beef’s thick wrist with both his hands.
They were both strong. Very strong, working out continuously, pushing themselves to failure in the gym every chance they got. They both knew you couldn’t be weak if you wanted to lead this kind of extreme lifestyle.
“You came at me, bro!” shouted Jax. “And I’ll take you down.”
Jax was wrenching Beef’s wrist at a weird angle. The pain was intense.
But Beef could deal with pain.
He kept his foot on the pedal. Kept his other hand on the wheel.
“I can take it, bro!”
“Can you, bro?”
The engine was roaring.
Up ahead, the truck suddenly cut a sharp left.
In the void the truck left, Beef’s headlights caught on the metal railing.
“Shit!” he shouted, swinging the wheel to the left as best he could and as fast as he could.
But Jax didn’t release his right wrist.
For Jax, this was all part of the game. All part of the fun. See what they could survive. See how far they could push each other. See what they could tolerate.
And it was the same for Beef. He wrenched himself against Jax’s hold as hard as he could. But there was no getting out of the grip.
Beef swung the wheel hard as he shouted in pain. His wrist snapped. He could feel something breaking.
The surprise turn was too sharp. Too sharp especially for a one-handed driver to accommodate.
Beef’s SUV slammed partially into the guardrail. Beef had gotten the front out of the way, but the back slammed horribly into the railing.
Everything shook. The impact was tremendous.
It seemed as if everything now were in slow motion. Beef saw Jax’s head flying sideways, his body moving like a rag doll.
Jax released Beef’s busted and broken wrist involuntarily.
Beef himself went flying, his neck and head snapping sideways.
Next thing he knew, everything had sped up.
The impact happened, his body hitting hard against the side of the car.
It was all over in a flash.
His eyes closed for a moment, then opened again.
The inside of his SUV was a mess. Everything had scattered everywhere.
Jax’s unmoving body was pressed up against him.
They hadn’t been wearing seatbelts.
“Jax?”
No answer.
No sound of breathing.
He might be dead.
Could Beef move?
He tried.
Yeah, he could move.
And so he moved, somehow wrenching open the door and stumbling out onto the pavement.
As he climbed out of the SUV, Jax’s body fell partially out of it.
“Jax?”
No movement.
No sign of life.
Whatever.
Phil’s pickup was coming at him now, the lights blazing through the darkness.
Beef wore only a tank top, as he always did, no matter the weather.
He stood there, right in the middle of the road, holding out his hand, palm forward.
Phil slammed on the brakes, his battered pickup slid
ing to a stop, the tires squealing, the stench of burning rubber rising into the night.
“What happened, bro?”
“Jax is toast.”
“Bummer.”
“Let me in.”
“Go around.”
“No, let me drive.”
“It’s my truck.”
“I don’t give a shit. Move over or I’ll kick your ass.”
Beef was mad. He needed to avenge Jax’s death. He needed to catch up to the runaway truck now more than ever.
Before, he’d just wanted some fun.
Now, he wanted revenge.
He was boiling over with anger.
“I’m not moving over for no one,” snarled Phil.
Phil was about to drive off, looking now through the windshield, his engine revving, his truck jumping forward just a little.
But Beef acted before he did, reaching through the open window and seizing his friend Phil around the neck with a single strong hand.
“Move over,” he snarled. “Or you’re going to regret it.” To make his point, he squeezed. Hard.
Phil tried to choke out a reply, but that didn’t work. He tried to nod, but that didn’t work either. But Beef got the drift.
Phil acquiesced, sliding over, popping the door open.
Beef got behind the wheel, seizing it with his big, rough, muscled hands.
He didn’t waste any time. He jammed the truck into drive and gunned the engine.
In Beef’s waistband was his .45 revolver. In his pocket was a five-inch folding blade. Strapped to his ankle, there was a six-inch fixed blade made of good steel.
“What’s the plan?” croaked out Phil, looking over meekly from the passenger seat.
“Revenge,” was all Beef said.
This has started out as fun.
But this was something else now.
He’d pursue those two to the ends of the Earth, if that was what it took. Jax would have wanted it that way.
As he often did, when he was driving fast, Beef closed his eyes for several seconds, keeping his foot pressed to the pedal, keeping his hands steady on the wheel. The feeling of losing control, the feeling of uncertainty, gave him some comfort.
In his mind’s eye, he saw, as he always did, crystal clear images of his first set of foster parents. He saw them as clearly as a movie. His foster mother was there at the kitchen table, injecting heroin into her veins, while his foster father slowly removed his belt from his pants, slowly advancing on Beef, raising his belt in a threatening way.
Beef had been beaten more times than he could count.
“Beef!”
Beef opened his eyes.
He turned the wheel just in time, avoiding an oncoming car, whose horn blared long and loud in the dark night.
“Shit, man! Don’t pull that closed-eyes shit on me!
Phil slammed his fist hard into Beef’s neck.
The pain was somehow comforting.
Beef didn’t retaliate.
He didn’t even look over. He just kept his eyes fixed ahead on the vehicle that he wouldn’t let leave his sights.
The world had done him harm. Great harm. Sure, he’d had his fun. But he was messed up and he knew it.
Now it was time to get back at the world. It didn’t matter to him if the people weren’t the same. He just wanted to hurt people. Hurt the world.
And now was his chance.
The gloves were off. The system was down.
No one would be able to do anything about it.
26
Meg
“They’re gaining on us. Drive faster!”
“I’m trying!”
Meg wasn’t familiar with the road they were on. This was one of those roads that was well removed from her old stomping grounds. She didn’t even know which direction she was driving in. All she knew was that she was headed into a more remote area.
It was a twisty road, with tremendously sharp curves that snuck up on her out of nowhere.
It was the sort of road where thirty would have been a safe maximum speed.
There seemed to be no houses out here. Or at least none that she could see.
She passed one or two vehicles coming in the opposite direction. She saw their lights but not their drivers. They were just flashes of light in the night as they passed and nothing more.
No one was out here.
No one was going to help her.
This stranger in the passenger seat was hurt. Something was wrong with him.
He was doing all he could. And he wasn’t attacking her. That was about all she could hope for.
“Faster! What about that don’t you understand?”
She hit sixty, the truck hurtling horribly around one curve and then the next.
“I can’t!” she screamed out in frustration as a monster curve approached rapidly.
She slammed on the brakes, downshifting, grinding the clutch in her haste to keep the Tacoma from hurtling off the road.
“They’re gaining on us! Each time you slow down, they’re gaining!”
“What am I supposed to do? Drive off the road?”
“It’s a truck, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a clear path!”
He was silent. She was right. She couldn’t go hurtling off the road. They’d hit something. Nothing would have been more stupid.
So she kept repeating the pattern, getting the truck going as fast as she could while keeping it on the road around the little turns, then slamming on the brakes when a serious turn came up.
Each time she slowed down, the vehicle behind them somehow gained on them, as if they didn’t need to slow down.
But even given how fast she was driving, it seemed like a miracle that they stayed on the road.
“They’re close,” the stranger in the passenger seat was saying. “Real close.”
“Can you see them?”
“Just the headlights. Did you really kill your dad?”
“Of course not.”
“I believe you now.”
“Finally, I guess.”
“Hey, what was I supposed to think?”
“Not everyone’s a murderer, you know.”
“Some people are. Who killed your dad?”
“Neighbors. Long story.”
“The neighbors? See, everyone is a murderer.”
“Not everyone.”
“Wouldn’t you kill, if you had to?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Same.”
Silence for a few moments. Just the sounds of the tires squealing as she took a turn much too fast. The sound of the engine. The suspension bumping up and down, the chassis of the truck swaying wildly.
“What do you think they want?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t answer, because there was no answer.
“What do we do?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
It was a strange sort of conversation, made up of short, stunted sentences. After all, it was almost impossible to think of the right words as Meg drove the truck wildly through the curves.
The road was only getting tougher to navigate, curvier, more intense.
Suddenly, there were headlights coming at her. Bright ones.
Were they in the other lane? No, it didn’t seem so. The lights were coming right at her.
She was hurtling down the road at about fifty-five miles an hour. Far too fast for the narrow little road. And far too fast to sustain a head-on collision.
“Watch out!”
“I see it!” she snapped.
But she was almost paralyzed. Doing just the same thing as before. Hands on the wheel, foot on the gas.
“Get in the other lane!”
She listened, jerking hard on the wheel, her truck swerving into the opposite lane. Now, she was hurtling down the road on the wrong side, and the driver coming at her was doing exactly the same thing.
Moments later, the oncoming vehicle
passed her, only missing her truck by a few inches. The truck shook with the wind of the passing vehicle.
“Close!”
She didn’t respond, instead looking in her rearview mirror, hoping that the wrong-lane vehicle would run right into her pursuers.
But no such luck.
In the mirror, she was able to see the headlights behind her switching lanes. Those headlights kept coming. Steadily. Never ceasing.
“Look!” He only got out the first word of what must have been a longer sentence.
Her eyes were already headed back to the windshield.
More headlights.
Another pair coming right at her.
She was still driving in the wrong lane.
She swung the wheel hard, pulling the truck back into the correct lane.
In a flash, the truck was out of control. She’d pulled too hard on the wheel.
It was over as fast as it happened. The oncoming vehicle had rushed past, its headlights gone, and Meg’s Tacoma was somehow off the road and facing the wrong way.
The headlights were still coming at them.
The truck had stalled out.
The stranger next to her was urging her. “Come on. Go! Go!”
It was useless. But there was no time to snap at him. No time to tell him anything.
Her foot was on the clutch, her hand on the key.
She went to crank it, but nothing happened, her foot sloppily sliding off the clutch pedal and slamming uselessly into the flooring.
She was clumsy from the nerves, from the intensity of the situation. Her dad had made her practice, long ago when she was a kid, dialing 911 after doing sprints in the yard. The hormonal response to the exercise had made her hands shaky and clumsy enough that hitting the correct buttons on that uncharged phone was extremely difficult.
When she used to go the range in New Mexico, she’d sometimes practice doing push-ups and body weight squats in high-repetition sets
Since she knew what was happening, she made herself breathe.
And tried again.
Foot on the clutch.
Hand on the key.
This time, everything was coordinated. It worked. The engine cranked to life.
“He’s coming.”
Looking up, she suddenly saw the headlights.
They were very close.
Constant Danger (Book 1): Fight The Darkness Page 20
