Chapter Forty-Nine
Nathan
I turned around only to find the gunmen closer than I expected. Fifteen feet away, stuck behind a pair of field workers, the man in the dark suit met my stare. He reached for his suit coat, a subtle threat, but I knew he wouldn’t shoot in the bus terminal. Too many people, too many cameras.
They had shot at us before but that was meant to scare us. He was under orders to bring me in alive.
Whatever deal I had made with the cartel was important enough for them to hunt me down. Maybe I had yet to deliver on my end, and they would let me live until then.
There was no guarantee that professional courtesy extended to Bree. I shielded her with my body but the men knew she was there.
“Get ready to run,” I told her through gritted teeth.
I felt Bree’s nervous hands fluttering at my waist. She was ready. It didn’t matter that she had tried, just minutes ago, to get as far away from me as possible. Bree and I were still in this together, and she trusted me.
“Now!”
I waited a beat, just to make sure Bree went toward the ticket counter as we had discussed. She lunged in that direction and leaped forward, aimed at distracting the closest gunman.
The other man in a dark suit was blocking the front doors and could only watch with wide eyes as Bree charged toward the emergency exit.
I prayed there weren’t any other cartel men outside. The alarm from the emergency exit sounded, and chaos erupted in the bus terminal. Everyone was on their feet, and I ducked low to follow Bree out the door.
“Wait a second! You can’t!” The bored employee at the ticket counter was yelling futile warnings out the open door.
Outside, Bree was spinning in a panicked circle. I grabbed her arm and swung her toward the back parking lot. We sprinted through the parked cars and out onto the street where I had left our used car in an illegal spot. I had known going in that I wouldn’t be at the bus terminal for long, and now I was glad we had a straight shot out of there.
“Get in,” I told Bree.
She hesitated on the curb. “Nathan, I’m sorry. I don’t think I can do this,” she cried.
“Get in the car or they will shoot you.” I yanked the door open and pushed her inside the old car.
Bree pushed back. “Nathan, I’m serious!”
“Bree, please, I’m begging you. I can’t keep you safe if we don’t get out of here now,” I said.
She let me slam her car door closed but only because the two gunmen were sprinting across the parking lot toward us. A confused crowd filtered out of the bus station behind them but the witnesses did not stop the cartel men from pulling out their guns.
I vaulted over the hood of the used car and jumped into the driver’s seat. “Hang on.”
We peeled out onto the city street just as a shiny black sedan screeched around the corner. It stopped to pick up the two running gunmen, but only long enough for me to speed down the block.
Bree watched in the side mirror, her mouth open in horror. “They’re chasing us!”
The black sedan sped up, and I made a split-second decision. I slammed on the brakes and whipped the car into a narrow alley. The sedan was going too fast and squealed to a stop far past the mouth of the alley. By the time they backed up, we were out the other side and zig-zagging through the city side streets.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Bree hung on to the handle above the car door and braced her feet on the dashboard.
I skidded us around another tight corner to a trio of angry car horns. “Enough to know we’re heading toward the highway.”
“But don’t they know that, too?” Bree asked.
“Maybe there’s just the one car,” I said.
“Yeah, that one!” Bree shrieked.
The shiny black sedan popped out of a side street and narrowly missed our back fender. I jammed my foot down on the gas but they gained on us quickly. When I looked up again, the gunmen were leaning out of the car windows, gun barrels pointed at our tires.
I yanked the steering wheel to the right and bumped up on the empty sidewalk. Bree shrieked again but held on as we came back onto the street and zig-zagged to avoid the gunshots.
“They’re shooting at us.” Bree grabbed our burner cell phone from the cup holder. “Should I call the police?”
“Too late,” I said.
Two police squad cars sat nose to nose, blocking the entry ramp to the highway. I let my foot off the gas and looked for a new direction.
“Why are they waving at us?” Bree asked.
I looked back to the police officers and saw they were making frantic signs with their hands. “I think they are telling us to get out of the way,” I said.
A gunshot pinged off our back bumper.
“Then do it!” Bree said.
I cranked the steering wheel all the way to the right and skidded past the police officers. Once we were out of the way, the officers hunkered down behind their squad cars and opened fire on the sedan pursuing us.
“I don’t think they know we’re the target,” I said. Still, I sped up and turned us down another side street, getting as much distance from the confrontation as possible.
“We need to get out of this car,” Bree said.
I would have kissed her if I could have let go of the wheel. Instead, I white-knuckled us through another tight alley and found a crowded strip mall parking lot. We swung into the parking spot still going too fast, and I slammed on the brakes.
Bree waited until I turned the car off before she pried her fingers off the handle above the car door.
“Try to act casual,” I said.
A strangled giggle escaped Bree’s lips as she cracked her car door and slipped out. We made our way across the parking lot, heading in the opposite direction of all the shoppers. Far on the other end of the parking lot was a dry culvert, and we scrambled down the edge and out of sight.
“Shh,” Bree said before I could speak.
We walked quickly along the culvert in silence, listening to the distant pops of gunfire. There were no more squealing tires or revving engines coming up behind us too quickly. Just the soft sound of our shoes crunching gravel at the bottom of the concrete culvert.
The sound of a police helicopter made us both pause. Gunfire still popped back and forth but the whirling chopper drowned it out.
“Quick, up the bank. Walk as close to the hedges as you can,” I said.
Bree scrambled up and ducked into a small opening in one of the hedges. Behind the culvert was a row of houses, blocked by an on-going row of scraggly hedges. Still, they were enough to shield us from the helicopter and from any nosy neighbors.
We edged our way along until we came to a split-rail fence. Beyond it was a long stretch of empty lot where the culvert made a sharp turn and led back to the city. We turned in the opposite direction and struck out across the field.
“Won’t they see us?” Bree looked up at the buzzing helicopter only a few miles away.
“We’re still not more interesting than a car full of armed men,” I said.
She almost smiled.
When we reached an overgrown shrub, I caught her hand. “Thank you.”
“For running away and getting you shot at again?” Bree asked.
I chuckled. “For sticking with me. You can still turn back, if you want.”
Bree looked at the direction we were heading. There was nothing but another fence and a far trio of warehouses. “Where would I go?”
“Albuquerque?”
Her smile was a relief. Bree squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry I panicked. I didn’t know what to think and I got scared.”
“Please, Bree, you have to believe I’m not a bad man.” The pressure in my chest made the words come out in a strained voice.
“I know.” Bree laid a hand on my chest. “Just promise me that you’ll try to be a good man. No matter what happened, you can change.”
I nodded and cleared my throat. “I need you to keep me to that. You’re the only one who can save me, Bree.”
She laughed. “I don’t know about saving you but I can tell you one thing for sure.”
“What?” I asked.
Bree gestured to the way we’d just come. “There’s no one following us now.”
I grinned and took her hand. “Good. Then no one will see us slip into that junked-out bus over there.”
“That rusty thing? It’s probably full of trash. Why are you smiling?” Bree asked.
I kissed the back of her hand. “Because you’re with me.”
Her smile was strained but still in place. Bree let me keep her hand entwined in mine but she didn’t say anything more. I thought about everything she had given up and everything she had put up with since she joined me on the road.
It felt like a punch in the gut. Bree deserved the world and all I could give her was a decent place to hide until the police helicopters and bullets stopped flying.
I squeezed her hand again. How could I ever tell her how much she meant to me?