I try to push up quickly, knowing I can’t flee and my best chance is to launch myself at him, but then a gunshot cracks the air, and something punches the back of my leg toward the outside of my thigh. It knocks me to the ground.
Instinctively, I touch the area, feeling like I got hit with a baseball bat, but my hand comes away wet with blood and I realize the psycho just shot me.
Mejia pounces before I can attempt to stand, jerking me upward by my arm. I hiss from the pain in my leg, but that’s actually reassuring. It feels superficial, like a million tiny nerve endings in my skin and fascia have been seared by the bullet’s path. The amount of blood is nominal as I look down, and I realize the son of a bitch barely grazed me. I put weight on my leg, and it’s strong.
I don’t think Mejia deliberately gave me only a scratch. I think he’s just a terrible shot.
Mejia’s hand goes to my head. He grabs a hunk of my hair in his fist and puts his gun to the back of my head.
“Get in the car,” he screams, even as the helicopter lowers. I wonder if they put someone in the chopper with Benji who can take a shot at Mejia, but nothing happens so I guess not, or they don’t have clear aim.
“Get in the car!” Mejia yells again, using his grip on my hair to force me toward the Rover. I’m still reeling from the very real possibility that Ladd is dead, and I’m sapped of strength from my furious assault on Mejia earlier and dizzy from his punch to my head. While the bullet wound isn’t serious, it drains the last of my fight.
He easily manhandles me to the driver’s door and shoves me inside the car. He jabs me in the neck with the gun, ordering me to crawl over the console to the passenger seat. My leg throbs as I struggle to do as he commands, because I have no doubt that if I do not, he will shoot me and make a run for it. At least if I go and he has the promise of a future to fulfill his revenge, I can stay alive a little longer.
I look up at the house and see flashing lights from gunfire and flash-bangs. Mejia enters the car and pulls the driver’s door shut, and it cuts off most of the exterior noise. The helicopter is still overhead, and as Mejia puts the Rover in reverse, I lean forward in my seat and look up through the windshield. It’s too dark to see detail, but the spotlight is still shining on us.
Mejia peels out of the driveway onto the road, slams the car into drive, and shoots forward with a squeal of tires. He rockets down the dark road, but I can hear the helicopter following us. I can see the striations of light the beam makes in the roadway before us and to the sides of the car as we speed along.
But to Mejia’s benefit, the road enters a heavily forested area where the trees are dense and overgrown on either side. There’s no way the helicopter will be able to stay on us with any accuracy. We pass by several side roads, so I know at any time, Mejia can turn away from the path we’re on.
Benji isn’t going to be able to track me from above.
I’m not worried, however.
Bebe was smart enough to implant a tracker in the heel of my boot so I won’t be lost to Jameson, and I know Mejia isn’t smart enough to consider such a thing.
It’s little consolation as I look over at Mejia. He’s muttering and cursing, his breath coming in heaving pants. He’s lost it, and I wouldn’t put it past him to drive us headfirst into a tree.
He glances over at me, baring his teeth, and a dribble of saliva appears in the corner of his mouth. He hisses, “You’re fucking dead. Dead, do you hear me?”
I don’t reply, not sure what will infuriate him more. I know nothing will soothe, so I remain silent.
That seems to enrage him, and I’m practically thrown out of my seat as he hits the brakes and takes a hard right onto a dirt road. The Rover fishtails and for a moment seems as if it’s going to tip before it rights itself.
We hit a pothole, bounce viciously, but Mejia guns the engine. He drives for about a quarter of a mile into a darker-than-dark forest with no buildings or houses. It’s desolate and uninhabited.
He laughs with glee as he slams on the brakes and puts the car in park.
His hand is back in my hair and he’s got the driver’s door open and he’s dragging me across the console and out of the vehicle. He lets me fall to the ground, and pain shoots through my shoulder as I land on it. It hurts worse than the bullet wound to my leg.