The hens went nuts, flapping around the van. Ty cried out, only half awake.

“What are they doing?” Jason asked. “I can’t see them in my mirror. The hens are in the way.”

Lotty looked in her side mirror as all three men jumped into the Acura. “They just got in their car. They’re coming.” She had trouble forming the words. Her heart pounded in her throat, making it difficult to breathe.

Jason took a hard right onto another dirt road. He sped down the road until it forked and he took another right, but as they turned, Lotty caught a flash of blue in the distance racing toward them. The dirt road turned into asphalt and two more turns brought them to the main road. It was too rural here to find anywhere to hide. There were no other vehicles to help them conceal themselves, no businesses or houses, but at least the roads were curvy and surrounded by trees.

“I’m calling 9-1-1.” Lotty said with a shaky voice. She lifted off the seat slightly so she could grab her phone out of her pocket. She fumbled with it before dropping it onto the seat.

Jason continued checking his rearview mirror. “Wait, Lotty. I don’t know. Brent filed those missing persons reports on us. If we show up anywhere, it will be news in Walden and we don’t know who to trust.”

“I don’t think that matters now since the people to fear are right behind us.”

“True.” Jason held the gas pedal down to the floor. “Okay, call 9-1-1. Just tell them we’re being followed and shot at.”

Lotty made the call. Though service was spotty and it took three tries, she explained what was happening. The operator told her there was a patrol car about five miles down the road before the call dropped again.

She smacked the phone against her leg in frustration. “I lost her again,” Lotty told him. “We have to make it five miles down the road.”

“Five miles? They’re less than a quarter mile behind me. I don’t know if we can stay ahead that long.” Jason looked from the dash to the rearview mirror.

Lotty craned her neck to look at the speedometer. The needle was holding firm at just over one hundred. Jason barely slowed down as he approached a curve and Lotty’s stomach churned. She took a deep, calming breath that didn’t seem to actually calm. “I’m going to call the Granthams and see if they’re okay.” Her first two calls failed. She watched in her mirror until she saw sunlight reflecting off a windshield in the distance. It did seem like the little car was gaining on them. She tried the call again and this time it rang through, but no one answered. She tried both Nikki’s and Brent’s cells with no luck. “I can’t get them.”

Jason took another corner too fast. Lotty closed her eyes and held her stomach. She wondered if she should unbuckle the boys and have them huddle on the floor, out of the line of any potential bullets. However, with the curves in the road and Jason’s speed, it didn’t seem less dangerous. She glanced back at Ty and Aiden, still sleeping, and terrifying scenarios involving them crowded her mind. She hated that her babies had been brought into this.

“Why don’t you try to call the Walden Police Station and see if Brent’s there?” Jason suggested.

Lotty found the number and pushed send. A secretary answered and told her Brent had been gone for a couple of hours. He’d gone to lunch and hadn’t been back. She relayed the news to Jason, who acknowledged it with a sigh. “That can’t be good,” he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel with his already white knuckles. “He never skips out on work.”

The wail of the sirens in the distance was the sweetest sound to ever touch Lotty’s ears. However, the time between hearing the sound and actually seeing the patrol car top the hill in front of them seemed an eternity. Jason slowed slightly as the van met the cop car. The cops sped on and flipped a U-turn to wait in the median until the blue Acura raced past. Lotty turned around in her seat so she could see clearly. What if the car didn’t stop for the cops? She had visions of a car chase with several cop cars and helicopters as the Acura continued to pursue their Honda. She heaved a sigh of relief as the blue car slowed down and pulled to the shoulder. 

As Jason drove away, Lotty watched the driver get out with his hands up. Before she could process what was happening, a man jumped out of the backseat of the Acura and shot the policeman.

“Go faster, Jason,” Lotty screamed. Please, go faster.” She fidgeted with the lock button, trying to lock all the doors, but her shaking fingers kept missing it.

“I’m going. What is it?”

“Go faster.” She sank down in her seat. “They, that man.” She stopped when she saw a wide-eyed Ty staring at her from the back. “Why won’t the doors lock?” she yelled, pushing the button harder even though she knew it wouldn’t help. Exasperated, she rubbed her hands over her face before turning toward Jason and mouthing, “They shot him.”

“What? Who?” Jason pushed the pedal to the floor again as the blood drained from his face.

“One of those men shot the officer.” Lotty opened her eyes wide to try to clear the blurry images from her mind, but it didn’t help. Over and over, she replayed the scene in her head and watched the dark-haired man shoot the approaching policeman and the policeman slump to the ground. She heard Jason speaking, but she felt like she was under water. His words were far off and garbled. 

She rubbed her eyes until she saw bright spots and wiped sweat off her forehead before glancing at the mirror again.

“They’re out of view now, but I’m sure they won’t be far behind,” Jason said. “I think our best bet is to take a side road and hope we get out of view before they catch up.”

Lotty pulled her phone back out, and with shaky fingers, called 9-1-1 again. “I just talked to you,” she cried into the phone. “We saw that patrol car, but...” Her voice disappeared as she tried to get the words out. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “But a man in the Acura shot one the officers.” She tried to explain the location of the cop car and the woman said more help was already on the way.

The tires screeched as Jason threw on the brakes and made a sharp turn onto a small gravel road. The cover the trees provided helped ease Lotty’s fears. The van wound down the road and Jason made several turns. After ten minutes had passed without any sign of the blue car, Jason suggested Lotty use her phone to find the nearest gas station since the gas light was blinking furiously. She spent the next fifteen minutes directing him through the maze of backroads until they reached a row of five buildings, the last one a gas station. They cautiously observed the twenty mile per hour speed limit as they drove through the tiny town. Three men and a small boy stood in front of the building labeled “mercantile” and four sets of eyes watched the van with curiosity. Lotty waved as Jason continued past a church and pulled up next to a gas pump. The outdated pump didn’t have a credit card reader so Jason went inside to pay.

With the engine off, both boys were wide awake and watching Lotty with trepidation, sensing her nervousness. She offered a forced smile and began singing You Are My Sunshine, which was Aiden’s favorite. He beamed and relaxed into his seat.

Jason returned and, with a sense of urgency, began unbuckling Aiden. “I found us a different vehicle. Let’s go.”

“A diff—wait, what?” Lotty took the hen Jason placed in her arms, but stared at him. He motioned for Ty to hurry and then looked at Lotty to see why she hadn’t gotten out yet. “We’re leaving the van?” she asked.

“Yes, but we have to hurry.” He grabbed the backpack they’d had with them on the hike. Everything else was still back at the campsite. “I gave a kid in there my watch and all the cash I had with me, not quite two hundred dollars, and he let us borrow his nineteen-eighty-something Ford pickup. I promised we’d return it by next week.” 

Lotty grabbed Princess Sophia, who looked like a statue sitting motionless on the floor, and Bea, who was already in her arms, and hurried out of the van.

Jason led them around back to a rusty truck which looked like it had probably been green in its prime. He strapped Aiden’s car seat into the bench seat.

“There are only three seats?” Lotty asked.

Jason reached into the back and pulled down a jump seat. “No. Ty can sit back here along with the hens.” He helped Ty in and took the hens out of Lotty’s arms. “I have to drive the van somewhere away from here so we don’t get anyone in this town hurt. Then I’ll jump in with you. You can manage a stick shift for a couple of miles, right?”

“Uh,” was her only response as she bit her lip. Jason had taught her how to drive a manual when they were dating, but she hadn’t done it since they’d bought the van.

He grabbed her hand. “You got it,” he said much more positively than she knew he felt. He pointed to the clutch and tried to quickly jog her memory with a thirty second refresher course on driving a stick.

When she felt slightly less nauseated about the idea, he handed her the keys.

“Just follow me. I’ll park the van a few miles from here and then we can all head home tog—” He stopped talking mid-sentence and grew visibly pale. “Lotty, go. Get out of here. I’ll meet you in, ah, how about Kellogg?”

“Kellogg?” That was at least one hundred miles away, probably more. She wasn’t even sure if she could drive this thing two miles. She followed his gaze toward the road and saw a flash of blue in the distance.

“Meet me at that Olive Garden we saw there,” he said, slamming her door shut. He leaned through the open window and kissed her. Too quickly, he pulled away. “If I’m not there in three hours, leave without me. Find Nikki and Brent. Oh, and shut off your phone.” He slapped the side of the truck and yelled, “Go,” before he sprinted around the side of the gas station and out of sight.

Lotty prayed the front of the gas station and the van were hidden from the blue car for at least another minute so Jason could get the van away from this place. She knew those men would shoot anyone they thought was standing in their way. Every part of her ached to follow Jason, to be with him even if it meant putting herself in danger. But he was trusting her to keep the boys safe.

Hands shaking, she powered down her phone. Is that how those men had found them? Tracking phones? If so, why hadn’t they tracked them the first day when they’d hiked up to the waterfall and checked their messages?

She turned the key in the ignition as her hands shook and her heart punched against her ribs. She wanted to race out of there, but was afraid she would draw unwanted attention to the old truck.  A worn gray baseball cap in the passenger seat caught her attention. She tucked her hair up inside of it and placed it on her head and pulled her sunglasses over her eyes. Easing slowly off the clutch, she eked forward.

Resisting the urge to slam down the gas pedal, she inched toward the front of the gas station, so slowly that she killed the engine to the truck. As she turned the key again, a blur of blue sped through the otherwise quiet town. Her heart in her throat, she forgot what she was doing and stared. A slight celebratory feeling rose in her chest as the car turned away from the gas station and down a side road. The feeling passed as quickly as it had come when she realized Jason and the van were headed down the same road.