After a minute, when he realized I had not left the room, Jason came back inside, closing the door forcefully behind him.

“We don’t have any time to sit around. Come on.” He tossed a pair of jeans and a t-shirt onto the bed.

I took the jeans and slipped them on. They were way too big for me, but it felt good to be putting on clothes, regardless of their size. As I slipped the t-shirt over my head, I inhaled his smell. A clean, masculine odor. It almost made me forget that I was confused and angry. Almost.

“I am not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell is going on.” I planted my newly covered backside on the bed and crossed my legs.

“I will tell you in the car. Let’s go.”

“No way. I am not moving an inch.”

He stood there for a few seconds, head down, hands on his hips. And then he took two quick steps toward me and lifted me off the bed. I was so shocked that, at first, I didn’t even struggle. We were outside, the morning sunlight paining my eyes, before I could react. I started kicking and thrashing, beating on Jason’s back with my fists, but to no effect. His grip on me was like a vise. He dumped me in the backseat and leapt into the driver’s seat. The car was already running, so he threw it into reverse and pulled back, spinning the front of the car around to face the exit. My body was pinned against the backseat as he slammed on the accelerator and peeled out of the parking lot.

I straightened myself up to a sitting position, bracing with my feet to avoid sliding around as Jason took corners at high speed.

“Jason,” I said, as calmly as I could. “Stop the car.”

No response from the front.

“Jason. You need to stop and explain what is going on. Right now.” I made my voice as stern as possible, but it had no effect.

He continued driving us south along Rainbow Boulevard. By the time we passed Flamingo, I had had enough.

“Jason, pull over now or I am getting out myself.”

I looked at him through the rearview mirror. I could see he was watching me. He clearly didn’t think I was serious. But I wasn’t going to allow myself to be kidnapped. At least with Kovalev, I had gone into it of my own free will.

I reached for the door handle and scooted over toward the passenger side. The door was locked. I flipped the lock and tried again. The door opened. The resistance from the wind made it heavy as hell. I glanced back at the rearview mirror and saw Jason’s face contort into a look of shock and terror. He slammed on the brakes and I flew forward against the front passenger seat. My shoulder exploded in pain. I heard car horns all around us as well as tires squealing.

We had come to a stop against the curb. The door was still partway open. I was crumpled in the footwell and struggling to get upright when Jason hopped into the backseat with me.

“Are you insane? What the hell were you thinking? Do you know what happens when you jump out of a moving car?”

“You weren’t answering my questions,” I said in as nonchalant a manner as I could manage given the fact that I was still pulling my self onto the seat. “I am not going one more foot in this car until you tell me what is going on.”

Jason let out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair.

“Ok. Ok. I wanted to get a little further out of town before we stopped, but if you are going to be jumping out of the car, I guess it can’t wait.” He paused for a moment. My heart was racing. I couldn’t come up with a scenario that made any sense, I just knew it was probably bad. Still, I wanted to know.

“I am taking you away from Kovalev. For good. You won’t ever have to see him again.” Jason’s face was a mix of worry and self-satisfaction. It quickly changed to surprise and confusion as he looked at me.

“Are you fucking mad? Do you have any idea what you’ve done? My…I…you idiot!” My voice rebounded off the windows and leather upholstery. Jason looked like he had been slapped in the face.

“I don’t understand. You were like a prisoner there. I thought you would be happy to be out.”

“No, you don’t understand. You don’t understand anything! Oh my god. He’s going to kill him.”

“Kill who? What are you talking about?” Jason’s words trailed off as his eyes whipped toward the rear window. I followed his gaze. There was a dark colored sedan that had pulled up behind us. I saw a couple of wide bodied men sitting in it. “Oh, shit.”

He dove forward, into the front seat, and restarted the car.

“Put your seat belt on!” he yelled as he put the car into gear.

I had just enough time to click the buckle before I was sinking into the seat back again as Jason accelerated onto the street. I glanced behind us to see the sedan leaving an acrid cloud of white smoke as it peeled out to follow us. The city outside was a blur, buildings and cars melding together from the speed.

A light popping sound behind us was immediately followed by the ping of a bullet hitting metal. I undid my seat belt and dove into the footwell. Another bullet shattered the rear window, showering me with little fragments of glass.

I hung on as Jason swung the car from lane to lane, driving around the other vehicles, trying to get separation from the one following us. We took a hard left, tossing me backward and landing me painfully in the other footwell, and headed east, toward the Strip and the freeway. The sedan was getting closer. It pulled up on our side, about a quarter of the way behind us.

“Shit, he’s trying to pit us,” Jason said, seemingly to himself. “Hold on,” he said to me.

Before I could react, he had slammed on the brakes, throwing me forward against the front passenger seat. The next moment, I was tossed back again as he stepped back on the gas. I heard the crunch of metal and looked up to see the sedan now in front of us. Jason had driven the front of our car against the back quarter of theirs. He jerked the steering wheel to the left and I watched as the sedan spun away and into the line of parked cars on the side of the street. We roared on down the street and then took a couple of turns, just to make sure we weren’t still being followed, I guess.

In a couple of minutes, we pulled onto the freeway onramp. I-15 South.

When I had finally caught my breath and my heart stopped pounding, I slipped forward and got into the front passenger seat. Jason looked sideways at me, but didn’t say anything.

“Take the exit for Silverado Ranch.”

“What? No. We need to keep going.”

“You need to take that exit and go a few blocks past South Point,” I said in a voice that I hoped was both calm and firm. “You created a big fucking problem, Jason. You have to help me fix it.”

He looked at me quizzically, but didn’t ask any further questions. Instead, he put on the turn signal and moved over into the right lane.

The guys in the sedan had shaken me, but also left me with a sense of resolve. Maybe it was the adrenaline and the excitement of escaping. Maybe it was the feeling of being out of that apartment with the road in front of me. When I was stuck in that apartment, I felt so lethargic. My will had atrophied from lack of use. The danger, the narrow escape, this whole situation had shaken something loose. I felt strength returning. I was transformed. When I was in that apartment, I felt as if I was already dead.

I didn’t want to go back to Kovalev. Even if Jason had dragged me into the car, I didn’t get the sense that he was trying to hold me the way that Kovalev was. Yea, he needed to explain himself better, to be sure. And I certainly didn’t trust him entirely. But I had the feeling that, once we were out of danger, that I could leave if I wanted. Those goons in the sedan demonstrated that Kovalev was never going to let me go. I wanted free of him, but I couldn’t jeopardize my father’s life in exchange. I needed to warn him.

Once my father was safely on his way out of town, I would deal with Jason. He had put me and my father at risk of death without thinking it through, without even knowing what he was getting into. He had shown up on a white horse with his helmet on backward.