Braden
I ignore my racing pulse and grind my teeth. Fucking lights are getting closer. I can see the white coming through on my knuckles. Almost instinctively, I turn the steering wheel a little to the right.
My foot pushes on the accelerator. My eyes are fixed on the road ahead.
“Always keep your eyes on the road,” Bade, my very first driving instructor, taught me. “No matter what else, eyes dead ahead on the road.”
And I keep mine there now, best as I can. Occasionally, inevitably, they stray to the rear-view mirror.
I don’t like what I’m seeing.
What the fuck is going on?
Fucking bitch. How could she ruin everything like this?
Dark clouds unleash a wild storm inside me. I want to fucking punch someone. I slam the palm of my right hand on the steering wheel instead.
The road climbs a little, and I force my mind to stay on task. The needle of my speedometer is over two hundred clicks. At this speed, I can’t afford to make a mistake, even a minute one.
On autopilot, my right hand grabs the gear stick and shifts it down a notch. Tight hairpin coming up.
I’m taken back to a wild ride a few years ago. I took a buddy along this very road. We floated around each bend.
He spent his time clutching on to the side of his door yelling at me to slow down.
I laughed at him and only went faster. His panicked words of ‘I don’t want to die,’ now ring in my ears as though he were here now. Poor bastard died in a plane crash a few years ago.
Now, of course, I’m on my own and being chased by some fucking mad agent. This is no joy ride; on the contrary, it’s a matter of life and death. What the fuck was Jenna thinking?
Her betrayal hits me hard. A kick in the gut from a sumo wrestler would be less painful than this. I finally trusted a woman. Was fucking ready to have an actual relationship.
And this is how she repays me.
At breakneck speed, I traverse the road, taking each hairpin as it comes. Left, right, left.
I misjudge a corner, and one of my tires bites into the gravel. Instantly, the car spins. Quick as lightning, I counter the spin by turning the steering wheel the other direction.
Briefly, I see the edge of the road come toward me at great speed. I close my eyes. I don’t want to see the free-fall though the air. I’m sure I’ll go hundreds of feet before hitting the bottom.
Sure, I might be lucky and get caught by a tree along the way, but it’ll no doubt snap like a tooth pick with the speed my car is going.
I wonder if this will be end.
If it is…there’s still so much I wanted to achieve.
Determined not to die, I open my eyes again. With a furrowed brow, I take my foot off the accelerator and keep my hands on the steering wheel, holding it as far right as I can.
One, two, three, four…I count up to five. So far so good, I’m not flying through the air—not yet.
I breathe, and then I feel my tires find firm ground and the road again.
I breathe a little sigh of relief.
Jenna.
Mixed fucking emotions wash over me. If she’s betraying me, I should cut my losses now.
But she’s so fucking hot and sexy. So perfect.
I still want her, despite this fucked up shit.
Fuck.
Her eyes wide with shock haunt me. Is there more to the story? Am I jumping to the wrong conclusions?
When did life become so complicated?
I glance in the rear-view mirror and am about to breathe a sigh of relief when the lights pop up again out of nowhere. This fucker is obviously not going to give up.
Once I’m at the top, the real fun will begin, with the road winding down the other side with sharp, steep, killer bends.
The engine is purring as I put it through its paces. Fucking agent has one hell of a car, though, which is somehow creeping up on me. It’s designed to chase not just regular race cars, but upgraded race cars.
No doubt it’s equipped with the latest and greatest in engine power and whatever else fucking agent cars have.
I floor mine again and shoot forward.
A sharp left bend takes me by surprise. I hit the brakes and decelerate. Then as I’m through the bend, I put the pedal to the metal.
Those headlights disappear again as the agent obviously reaches the first of the lethal corners. I need to put distance between us without going over the edge.
I’m breathing hard now. I’m sure my pulse is going a million miles an hour. I’m panting hard and fast, and little beads of sweat roll down my forehead and into my eyes and down my check.
By now, my hands are gripping the steering wheel even tighter. I’m too focused to let go and wipe the sweat out of my face.
Any second, the fucker is going to catch up with me and run me off the road. I can feel him breathing down my neck. The fucking idiot is prepared to do anything―even kill me, by the looks of it.
Something slams into me. I’m not sure what’s happening.
A loud popping noise has me ducking instinctively. Briefly, I take my eyes off the road.
Fuck. The goddamn prick is shooting at me. I can see him holding a gun in his left hand out of the window. How the fuck is he driving this fast on this road and still aiming a gun?
Smack, thwack. Another bullet hits my car. Fucking mad bastard.
I curse. Go faster, fucking car.
I squint and stare straight ahead. The bottom of the road must be here soon. I’ve been going down this fucking road for what feels like fucking hours.
And then I see my chance.
There’s a left turn coming up, and if I take it nice and tight, he might not see what’s next. I go deep, pretending to still be going straight, before I turn sharply at the last second.
My tires squeal, and I spin a little out of control.
My timing is perfect. The agent’s unable to pull his car up in time. Instead of taking the corner, he keeps going straight ahead. At the speed we’re going, this doesn’t bode well for the bastard.
In fact, he’s going so fast, he barely gets the chance to hit his breaks. The car slams into a tree before he can do anything to stop it.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to see the impact.
But I hear it. Following the loud crash is a hissing and an eerie silence, except for the loud roar of my own engine. I glance back at the wreckage.
Steam is still rising from the hood of the car. I wait. I brace for more gunfire, but apart from the hissing and my engine, there’s no other sound.
I keep staring at the mess, which until a few minutes ago, had been a car. The dude must be dead. No one could survive a crash like that.
To my horror, I see lights crawling along the top of the zigzag of the road. Fuck, don’t tell me Jenna is following.
I decide before I do anything else that I need to check the status of this prick of an agent. If he needs help, I should give it to him, rat bastard or not. Slowly, I get out of the car and start to walk over to the mangled metal.
The front of the car is unrecognizable.
A knot forms in my gut. I’ve seen my fair share of blood and guts and wreckage, but this looks fucking awful.
The closer I get, the bigger the knot gets in my stomach.
I don’t need to check for a pulse or anything. I can tell from a few meters away that the man is brown bread dead.
His head is bent backwards in an unnatural way, and blood is trickling down his chin out of the right corner of his mouth.
There’s nothing I can do here.
I hesitate.
I may be tough, I may be a playboy, and some might think me a cold, heartless bastard, but seeing someone dead like this leaves its mark.
My breathing becomes fast and shallow. An overwhelming urge to puke overcomes me, and my legs feel like jelly. I shiver a little.
My eyes dart around as if looking for the dead guy’s spirit or ghost or some shit.
Fuck, this is bad. I shiver and cross my arms over my chest, but my shivering just worsens.
I hover on the spot.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
The world spins a little, and my skin starts to feel clammy. I know the symptoms, and I know I need to do something, but the thing is, I’m rooted to the ground.
It’s the headlights creeping down the hill that snap me out of my zombie state.
Stop fucking about, I tell myself and almost sprint back to my own car.