I see a farm house up on the right and jab his back.
“PULL OVER NOW!”
He veers sharply off the road, kicking up a cloud of dust as we fly behind a quaint brown house.
Crap, the dust cloud! I'm praying for a strong wind to blow it away when the sound of roaring engines explodes behind us and we go toppling off the bike.
14
Cross
I COME AROUND lying on my back, staring at the moon, which has a triple halo that smears and stretches in time with my pulse. I blink a few times to clear my vision and realize my mouth is stuffed with grass and dirt. There's something hot and wet on my lips. Damn. I bring my shaking hand up to wipe at a hot smear of blood.
I roll over, push up on my elbow, and look around the junk-strewn, dirt lawn, but I don't see her. “Merri!” I'm on my feet fast enough to make my head spin, striding toward the house. There's not a light inside it anywhere; everything is quiet. Where the hell is she?
“Merri!”
She hits me from behind. Hits me so hard she knocks me down, and I realize as we land in a heap of tangled limbs that the buzzing sound I thought was ringing in my ears is really the cartel catching up to us.
I see their headlights and Meredith jerks me toward the back porch.
“Come on,” she hisses. “Hurry!”
I glance at the Mach, dusty and scuffed-up, lying on its side beside the porch stairs, and I wish I could run and grab it, push it up the stairs and out of sight—but I can't. Not with one hand.
Merri jerks me along behind her, leading me through a sea of broken children's toys and rusted car parts, and I wonder what the odds are that she knows the people who live here. I've got my mouth open to ask her what the plan is when she drops to her knees on the wooden porch. As the motors roar closer to us, she lifts a hatch door. I'm thinking it's not even big enough for a dog to climb inside when she jabs me in the abs with her elbow.
“Get in there!”
“You first.”
I watch her ass disappear into the darkness and see her hand jut out. “Come on!” she hisses.
I'm not sure I can fit, but I'm leaner than I used to be, and anyway, it sounds like our pursuers are in the driveway now, so I don't have much choice. I go in feet first, giving Merri a front-seat view of my ass. When I'm in up to my armpits, I feel her arms yank around my waist and I topple back against her. She mutters something.
“Sorry,” I hiss.
I'm clawing at the boards that make up part of the porch and also our little shelter’s walls, trying to take some of my weight off her, when I hear a car's motor yards away.
Motherfuck. I pull the gun out of my pants with my right hand. I feel Merri move behind me and I want to tell her I've got this, but I'm too afraid to break the silence.
The motor dies. It sounds like just one car. The rest of the cartel has driven on; once their noise fades, a deathly quiet settles. Then I hear a man's voice. He sounds winded. I figure he's excited about spotting my bike, but instead I realize he's talking into a phone.
“Yes, he is really dead. Yes.” There's a brief pause, during which I hear the click of a cigarette lighter. With the gun still in my hand, I train my eyes on the boards to my right, the part of the porch that separates us from our pursuer, but I can’t see him. Can only hear him. “Yes, we are hunting them like dogs.” Another pause. The man laughs. I smell cigarette smoke. “I don't know about the clinic. It's supposed to be the Virgin's place.”
I'm going cross-eyed trying to look through the boards when all of a sudden, I feel Meredith's body shaking against mine. I wish so badly that I could reach my arm back and hold her hand—or something—but it would be stupid to let go of the gun. I turn my body slightly sideways, trying to lean into her, but it doesn't work. We're too cramped. I can't move.
Damnit, she's starting to cry. I can hear her small, wet breaths.
“I got to do a walk around this house,” the guy is saying. Pause. “Oh, you want to blow me instead? How about I come over as soon as I’m done here and bring some of my tar?” Another pause. Merri's body is shaking so much now I decide to tuck the gun into my boot. “Then we plot how we will get the power.” The man laughs as I turn, with effort, to face Meredith.