In no time, we were back on the road, but they’d gotten quite a lead on us. I cursed myself for not turning around the second I realized she wasn’t behind me. Now between gas stops and traffic, they were a good thirty to forty-five minutes ahead of us.
As I watched the movement of Jasmine’s phone, I prayed like I’d never prayed before. To a God I barely believed in and to the gods of my mother. The stone around my neck seemed to heat against my skin as I did, though I convinced myself it was my imagination.
When it stopped outside of Minneapolis, I experienced anticipation that we were nearly there. I motioned to Angel that they had stopped, and he nodded his understanding. The closer we got, the harder I prayed that we got there in time and the hotter the stone was against my chest. We pulled off the interstate and stopped a few blocks away at a fast-food restaurant.
“What do you want to do?” I asked Angel, antsy to reach them.
“I need to call Venom to give him a quick update, then I say we go up on foot. They’ll hear our bikes if they haven’t already,” he said. Though I knew we needed to keep Venom in the loop, I was on edge at having to wait. Thankfully, the call was brief.
“We good?” I asked him as I grabbed my phone off the bracket on my bike.
“Yep, let’s go,” Angel took the lead, but we hadn’t gotten a block when the phone started moving again.
“Shit! Fall back! They’re moving again!” Not waiting, I raced back to my bike, shoving my phone back on the holder and starting the motor. The little blue beacon was coming back toward us.
As it passed where we were, there were two vehicles. A silver SUV with tinted windows, and a black Mercedes with the same. We waited until they were a block or so away where we could see them, but they were far enough ahead before we pulled out.
The car went straight, and the SUV got back on the interstate.
Anxiety like I’d never experienced hit me as I tried to decide which one to follow. At the last minute, I motioned for Angel to go right, because the blue dot caught up and was merging onto the interstate.
Staying at a safe distance so as to not draw suspicion, we followed them for about an hour. Ghost and Phoenix got off the interstate to fuel up. It wasn’t much later when they drew up behind us. Then Angel and I got off to do the same.
“Why don’t we just try to stop them?” I demanded as I rushed to get the pump ready.
“You want to risk them hurting your girls?” Angel replied, and though I hated the helplessness, I knew he was right.
“Where the fuck do you think they’re going?” I asked as the gas reached the top and I slammed the nozzle back in the pump.
“No clue. Let’s go.”
It seemed like the quickest pitstop known to man as we put the gas caps back on, hit the throttle, and roared out of the lot. We caught up to Ghost and Phoenix and rode behind them. Since we could see the silver SUV further up the road, tracking Jasmine’s phone wasn’t as important. Didn’t mean I shut it off. As long as I could see that blue dot, I had faith that I’d catch up to that SUV and get my woman and my daughter back.
By the time the vehicle pulled off the interstate, we had been driving for about five and a half hours, had stopped to fill up one more time, and we were near Duluth, Minnesota. We skirted the city and continued north. My hands were cramping, and I released the handgrips one at a time to flex and stimulate the blood flow.
We had to drop much farther back and rely on my tracking app, because the traffic out that far was nearly non-existent. If we had kept the vehicle in our sights, they would’ve also spotted us.
After crossing over Island Lake, the blue dot left the main road. I signaled my brothers to slow down as we approached where they had turned. It had stopped and wasn’t moving any longer. What we were met with blew my fucking mind.
“What the fuck?” I heard Ghost exclaim.
The road literally ended with a thick covering of bushes that seemed to grow right over the dirt drive.
“Shit. Let’s go,” Phoenix sad as he turned his bike around on the narrow road and left. Not too far down the road, he pulled off into a roadside rest area.
“What the fuck was that about? We needed to figure out how they got around those bushes!” I shouted at him.
“There were cameras,” Ghost nonchalantly said as he sat on his bike watching me.
“Fuck. How did I not notice that?” I grumbled as I raked my fingers through my hair. My nerves were frayed, and it was like spiders crawling under my skin.
“Because you’re being driven by emotion right now and not your head,” Phoenix said as he pulled out a joint and snapped his fingers to light it. The flame seemed to bounce off his fingertips to the end of the white paper until it lit. He took a deep drag and handed it to me. “Take a hit and calm down.”
I took two before handing it off to Ghost.
“I’m not gonna sit here getting high when my family is in there somewhere.” I motioned down the asphalt toward the turnoff.
“Didn’t say we were, but we need to think and have a solid plan before we go barging in there and getyour familyanduskilled.” Phoenix said.