Play Nice

by Gemma Halliday

  At seventy miles per hour, the impact caused the car to lurch forward, Dade clutching the wheel to keep the car from swerving out of their lane. He swore under his breath, eyes darting to the mirror.

  “What the hell was that?”

  The headlights hung back, putting a couple of car lengths of distance between them, then Anna watched in horror as they surged forward again.

  This time Dade was watching, too, ready for them. He sped up in response, flooring the accelerator.

  Anna held onto the side of the door, bracing herself for impact against the dash with her other hand.

  The car behind them sped up to match Dade’s velocity, the sound of its engine working overtime, an ominous accompaniment to the headlights bearing down on them. The other driver gunned his engine, jumping forward, and rammed into their bumper again, this time hard enough to whip Anna’s head forward. Instant pain shot through her neck, the muscles there involuntarily cramping on her. She felt Lenny slide into the back of her seat, falling to the floor. He barked loudly, a sharp protest to his condition but a reassuring sign that he was okay.

  Dade clenched his jaw, eyes intent on the road ahead, both hands holding the wheel in a death grip.

  “Hold on,” he instructed. He raced forward, pushing the car to its limit. Anna watched the speedometer climb past seventy, hitting eighty, ninety. The car began to shake, Lenny whining in the backseat as he cowered close to the floorboards.

  The headlights hung back for a moment, creating a falsely comforting vision before pulling closer again, the driver behind them matching Dade’s speed mile for mile.

  He was coming in for another go.

  Dade’s gaze ping-ponged between the road ahead of him and the headlights of the car behind, quickly crawling up their back. Anna felt him ease off the accelerator, letting their pursuer move in closer.

  Anna glanced across the cab, hoping Dade knew what he was doing as she watched the headlights catch up to them, moving in closer and closer until she was bracing herself against the dash for impact again.

  Dade waited until the other car was almost touching them, headlights filling the cab, lighting it up like daylight.

  Then Dade swerved to the left and slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop on the median in the center of the freeway. Anna watched as the car behind sailed past in the lane to their right.

  She sucked in a breath as she got a good look at the driver.

  It was the guy with the pickup from the gas station.

  So much for innocent farmworker.

  You should know by now. No one is innocent, Anya.

  She watched the pickup slow, pulling onto the right shoulder, its brake lights an angry, glowing red ahead of them.

  Anna held her breath as the pickup stopped. But no one got out. Nothing moved. It just sat there.

  Waiting.

  He knew they had to pass him. He was waiting them out. Ready, no doubt, with weapon in hand for his target to drive past his window, giving him a perfect shot.

  Dade’s breath came hard and fast in the silent cab, his eyes glued to the pickup’s taillights. Anna could feel her heart pounding, matching the same pace.

  “Now what?” she breathed.

  Dade squared his jaw, the muscles in his neck so tense she could see veins pulse with adrenaline there.

  “We play his game.”

  Dade put the SUV in gear, checked the rearview for other cars. Seeing none, he pulled his M9 from his waistband, holding it in one hand as he clutched the wheel with the other.

  “Stay down,” he commanded, pulling the car into the left lane.

  Anna complied, ducking low in her seat.

  The pickup was parked about a hundred yards ahead of him. Dade wasted no time, laying on the accelerator, quickly gaining speed. Aiming his headlights at the back of the pickup.

  The driver was ready for them, engine revving, taillights dulling, as he eased off the brakes in anticipation of another race.

  Dade didn’t ease up, pulling almost parallel to the other car before yelling, “Down now!” He pointed his gun directly at Anna’s head.

  She dove for the floor just as he pulled the trigger, two shots aimed straight out the passenger-side window at the pickup.

  Almost simultaneously, the pickup driver fired as well, one shot pinging off the metal door, another shattering the side mirror as the SUV surged past him.

  The pickup driver’s tires skidded as he pulled onto the road behind them, quickly gaining speed.

  More shots ripped through the air, shattering the back window, shards of glass flying through the car. Anna turned away, instinctively covering her face with one arm.

  “Take the wheel,” Dade yelled at her, twisting around in his seat to return fire.

  Two shots splintered the pickup’s windshield, the car swerving. But it quickly recovered, signaling the driver was unharmed.

  Ahead was an exit, leading right, through more farmland. “Get off,” Dade instructed.

  Anna did, swerving sharply right, jostling Dade forward, sending the next of his shots wild. She ran the red light at the intersection, quickly pulling onto the one-lane road heading west. It was dark now, streetlights nonexistent this far out from the City. Up ahead she could see a building of some sort, though it was dark, too, likely abandoned at this hour.

  The pickup followed her off the freeway, continuing to shadow them, shots bouncing off the back bumper of the SUV as the driver continued to target them. If she had to guess, she’d say the driver was aiming for their tires.

  Dade ducked into the cab to avoid a shot that glanced off the side of the SUV, taking a chunk of black paint with it. Anna swerved left, running up on the dried grass at the side of the road before gaining control again.

  They passed the lone building, and Anna saw it was an abandoned gas station. The windows were boarded up, though the prices reflected on the sign still standing at the road indicated it hadn’t been long ago that the economy had forced its owners out of business.

  “Turn around,” Dade said, watching the building go by. “Go back.”

  Anna scarcely had time to turn the wheel before she felt Dade’s foot on the brakes, tires spinning as they flipped around one hundred and eighty degrees.

  The pickup sailed past, shots hitting the driver’s side of the car with shattering dents. Anna craned her head around, watching out the now nonexistent back window as the driver applied the brakes, spinning his car opposite with the same force Dade had.

  It idled for only a moment before the driver accelerated again, heading straight toward them.

  Anna reached over the console with her right foot, moving to stomp on their accelerator.

  “Wait,” Dade said, stopping her.

  His eyes were on the rearview, watching the pickup approach.

  “Just wait.”

  Anna bit her lip, turned around in her seat again. Her heartbeat sped up in time with the acceleration of the pickup, bearing down on them. Lenny whined in the back, too scared or nervous to bark, picking up on her feelings as she watched the headlights grow closer, glowing right at them.

  “Dade…”

  “Wait! Just wait for it.”

  The car was just feet away from them now. Seconds from impact.

  “Dade!” Anna repeated, hating the panic in her voice.

  “Wait,” he commanded. “And … now!”

  She stomped on the accelerator with all she had as Dade pulled the wheel sharply left and shot his torso out the driver’s side window.

  He fired off three quick rounds right through the hole where the pickup’s windshield had been. The SUV swerved left, jumping out of the pickup’s path.

  It didn’t change course, didn’t swerve, didn’t turn, just kept accelerating forward.

  As it shot past, Anna caught a glimpse of the driver, slumped over the wheel.

  Dade’s aim hadn’t failed.

  The pickup continued to accelerate right past Anna and Dade. In a straight line, directly
toward the gas station.

  Anna watched as the pickup bounced off a garbage can, ramming straight into one of the gas pumps as it came to a final stop.

  For a moment the only sound was the hard panting of their breath in the cab.

  For a moment.

  Then an explosion rocketed through the silence, the pickup jumping in the air, a plume of fiery red and blue bursting out from beneath it, engulfing the car, the pump, the entire gas station.

  Anna ducked down, covering her face as instant heat burned her cheeks. A moment later she heard metal debris rain down on the roof of Dade’s SUV.

  They sat in stunned silence for a full minute, staring at the place where the truck had just been, before Dade sprang into action.

  He slid back into the driver’s seat, quickly putting the car into gear. He shot forward, navigating around the fire, back toward the freeway. Caution about going over the speed limit was a thing of the past as he put distance between them and the wreckage as quickly as he could.

  He was just screeching onto the freeway on-ramp again when Anna heard sirens wailing in the distance. Not surprising since Anna was pretty sure that the fire could be seen from three towns over. She waited until the sound faded behind them before breaking the silence.

  “He’s dead,” Anna said quietly.

  While she knew it was kill or be killed, the idea of someone she had just been talking to suddenly not being there was still unnerving.

  Dade nodded. “Yeah.” He looked in the rearview where a tall plume of smoke could still be seen. “Very dead.”

  “You shot him?”

  “Probably.”

  His jaw was tight, the angles there hard. His emotions—if he felt any at all—were totally unreadable.

  “He won’t ever give up, will he?” Anna asked.

  Dade glanced her way.

  “Petrovich,” she clarified. “He sent that man after me. He knew where we’d be. He knows every move I make.”

  “Calm down,” Dade said quietly.

  She realized her voice had been rising as she spoke, her breath coming faster. She closed her mouth, willing herself to take a deep breath in and out.

  “He knows what my car looks like,” Dade said. “He’s got his people watching for it. It was probably dumb luck that guy spotted us.”

  Anna nodded. Right. That made sense.

  “Besides,” Dade continued, shooting a look her way, “we can’t be sure it was Petrovich.”

  “Who else would it be?”

  He paused a moment before answering. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve defaulted on my job.”

  She glanced his way. “I had noticed that.”

  “And my employer was none too happy about it.”

  Anna watched his features closely in the shadows. “Why?” she asked.

  “Why was he pissed? Take a wild guess.”

  “No. I mean why did you quit?”

  He blinked in the darkness, eyes straight ahead on the road. “I changed my mind.”

  She nodded, knowing that was about all she was going to get out of him for now. “Thanks,” she said quietly, trying hard to cover any emotion in her own voice.

  He turned to look at her.

  “For changing your mind,” she added.

  He held her gaze a moment, then nodded in acknowledgment before turning back to the road.

  “Any time.”

  CHAPTER 19

  It was late by the time they got back to the City, the lights of the buildings in the distance twinkling like tiny fireflies as they crossed the Bay Bridge. The air was cool, fog rolling in from the ocean, the crisp, salt-scented wind chilling Anna’s cheeks through the SUV’s perpetually open windows.

  They’d agree that a motel wasn’t safe, that the fewer people who saw them the better. They had no idea how wide Petrovich’s network extended—or who Dade’s employer might have on the take—and they’d both had enough gunfire for one evening. Instead, Dade pulled into an abandoned drive-in movie theater and parked near the boarded-up concession stand.

  Overgrown bushes flanked the asphalt, four large, dormant white screens rising up from the wildlife like giant ghosts in the night. It was quiet, like a forgotten patch of earth hidden away in the middle of the city.

  Anna got out and stretched, fed Lenny their last handful of dog chow before walking him around the grounds. When she got back to the car she saw that Dade had pushed the backseats of the SUV down, flattening them into a makeshift bed in the back. A sleeping bag lay over the seats, unzipped into a flat blanket big enough for two. Dade sat on the left side, his laptop out on his lap, eyes concentrated on the screen.

  “What are you doing?” Anna asked, unlatching Lenny’s lead. He hopped into the car and immediately curled into a ball on the front seat, looking as drained as Anna felt.

  “Trying to track down my employer.”

  Anna climbed into the back, gingerly slipping beneath the sleeping bag, careful not to touch Dade as she did. It felt oddly intimate lying down next to him, and she didn’t want to get any closer than she had to.

  “How?” she asked.

  “I was hired through a third party. If I can get to him, I can get to whoever hired us both.”

  “So who is the third party?”

  His eyes met hers for a second, then quickly looked away. “I don’t have a name, just a telephone number.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “So, you took the job without knowing anything about the people hiring you?”

  “Look, I don’t usually care who hires me. The reason they want a target neutralized doesn’t matter. I take a job based on the target. The reasons behind the hire mean nothing to me.”

  Anna couldn’t help but notice his language. Target. Neutralize. He was impersonalizing the people he killed. She wondered if it was deliberate or an unconscious act of self-preservation.

  “Don’t you ever get tired?” she asked.

  “I’m getting tired now,” he answered the edge still present in his voice.

  “No, I mean of this. Running.”

  There was a pause. “I’m not running, Anna.”

  “That’s a lie. Anyone who lives this life is always running. There’s always someone at your back, looking over your shoulder, just around the corner. Tell me you don’t sleep with your gun at your side and one eye open?”

  Again with the pause.

  Then, “You’re right.”

  Anna closed her eyes, and leaned her head back on the seats. She inhaled deeply the scents of leather and damp salty air. “I just thought … I thought I could start over. That maybe one day I could sleep. I mean really sleep, deeply, calmly, without that ever-present fear of what would happen when I woke up.”

  She heard him close his laptop, plunging them both into sudden darkness in the back of the car.

  “You can’t go back,” he answered.

  “I know.” She nodded. “I know that now. But … but where do I go forward from here?”

  She wasn’t sure why, but her voice cracked. She hadn’t meant it to. She hadn’t meant to get deep or emotional at all. Especially not with Dade. She bit her lip hard, willing the sob in her throat to subside, not to escape.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Dammit, he’d heard her. She took a second, feeling tears heat behind her eyes.

  “Yes.”

  “Liar.”

  The sob popped out.

  She shut her eyes tight to stave off tears.

  In the darkness, she heard Dade shift, the polyester of the sleeping bag crackling as his body moved closer to hers. In a moment, his arm was around her. She didn’t want comfort. She didn’t want to get close. But she couldn’t help pressing her face to his chest all the same, the warmth like a beacon to her.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks, wetting his shirt, she was sure, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t pull away. He just held her. His arms that had seemed like fighting against steel only yesterday were now a welcomed strength, holding
the good in, holding the bad at bay.

  And so she clung to him. Her arms going around his solid torso, holding on for dear life.

  His hand went to her hair, stroking it back from her forehead. “Hey. It’s okay,” he whispered to her.

  She nodded. But the tears flowed down her cheeks just the same.

  “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  She gulped, tried to take a deep breath to still her throat. She nodded again. “I know,” she sniffed, even though the promise was as hollow as her tears felt. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he quickly told her.

  “I hate crying.”

  “Me, too.”

  She choked back a laugh. “Sorry,” she whispered again. She pulled away. Even as warm and wonderful as his body felt, she forced herself to pull back.

  His hand went to her hair again. “Hey, really, it’s okay. I cry.”

  She scoffed. “Really?”

  Only he didn’t laugh. Just nodded.

  “When?”

  “When I got back from Afghanistan. Hell, I cried every night for a while.”

  She had a hard time picturing that. And the disbelief must have shown on her face as he added, “Everyone I knew was dead, Anna. The whole squad.”

  “What happened?” she asked softly.

  She half expected him to clam up again, but instead he lay his head down on the seats, facing her.

  “Ambush. We were bringing supplies to troops at an outpost along the Pakistani trade route. We were attacked. By the time backup came, five of us were pulled from the mess. Five that hadn’t been killed immediately. By the next morning, only four were left. As I lay in the hospital bed I watched them die around me, slowly, from infections, internal bleeding, wounds too severe to be repaired. Each morning I would wake up and refuse to open my eyes. Draw it out as long as possible before I had to face who had gone in the night. And when I was the only one left, each night I went to sleep sure that I would be gone by morning. For two weeks I did this, expecting each morning to wake up dead. Then I was discharged and sent home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly. She didn’t know what to say. Comfort was something she didn’t really know how to give. She’d been too long away from people, she realized. Too long making sure she kept her distance that even now, in the intimate confines of their makeshift bed, his face inches away from her, hearing words she was pretty sure he’d never spoken to anyone else, she wasn’t sure how to receive the closeness. “I’m so sorry,” she said again.