“Dr. Dante, I need you to hold the wheel.”
“What? Why?”
“I’m going to need my hand for the gun.” Phillips let go of the steering wheel.
Reese grabbed it.
The second car pulled up along the driver’s side. In the passenger seat, a man with a pistol. Phillips grabbed her gun from the cupholder and fired through the window. The man in the passenger seat flew back. She fired again. The driver’s head smacked the door, and the car veered out of control. She returned the gun to the cupholder and took the wheel.
Reese sat back in his seat and tried to remember how to breathe.
The van rode up on their bumper, clipping the corner. Reese braced himself against the dash and door while the sedan went into a spin.
Phillips struggled to regain control.
The front right tire collided with a large rock, ripping the rubber off the wheel and snapping the axle. The front half of the car dropped onto the ground, and it carved out a rut of earth and stone before coming to a halt.
Phillips reached for her gun, but it had fallen onto the floorboard. Before Reese could retrieve it, four men wearing body armor and armed with assault rifles surrounded them.
One motioned at Phillips with the barrel of his weapon. “Get out of the car.”
“Keep calm, Dr. Dante.” Phillips opened her door and got out with her good arm raised and her bad one partially up.
A man yanked open the passenger door and grabbed Reese. He tried to jerk him from the front seat, but the seatbelt held him in place.
“Unbuckle it,” the man said.
Reese did, and the gunman pulled him from his seat and shoved him toward the van.
“Kill her. We’ve got what we came for.”
“You might want to reconsider,” Phillips said.
“And why is that?” The man in front of her raised his weapon.
She inclined her head in the direction of the van. “Because you can’t afford to waste the bullets.”
A mass of black fur vaulted over the roof of the van. And a deathtrap of razor teeth severed one gunman in half.
Somehoe Reese knew it was Johnathan.
The others turned on the Sarvari and opened fire.
Phillips grabbed Reese and shoved him toward the empty van. Bullets pinged off the rental car and chewed up the ground where Reese had stood.
Phillips pushed Reese inside. A barrage of weapons hung from racks attached to the walls.
“We can’t leave him.”
“We’re not. But you need to get out of the line of fire.” She shoved him into the back. Guns lined the inside of the van. “Hand me the PTR-19 and the clips.”
“The what?”
“Second row, third gun.”
Reese found it.
“Clips. Box underneath. Load it for me.”