“Just cool it,” I say.
“I said get in the fucking car!”the man shouts.
I back away enough that he moves hispistol toward me until it’s just outside the door. In a quick, desperate move, Istep aside and kick the door shut with my foot.
It slams against his wrist, forcingthe pistol out of his hand onto the asphalt beside the curb.
Jamison and Terry, down the streetnow, redirect and come running toward us.
The male attacker shoves the dooropen. I throw my body against it to keep it closed and kick the gun under thecar while retrieving my Sig Sauer from my holster.
The door on the other side of thecar opens and a round fires.
Terry falls in the distance, andas another round goes off, Jamison takes shelter in a nearby alley.
Before I have a chance to react,the door before me pushes open with a powerful thrust and throws me back ontothe sidewalk. As I recover, the male attacker lunges out of the backseat. I tryto aim my gun, but as he tackles me, my arm flies back.
Tad, who was clearly headingtoward me to assist, moves out of the gun’s path in case it goes off.
When I hit the ground, my attackerbashes my wrist against the pavement, forcing me to release my gun.
Tad heads for the gun, but just asquickly, the female attacker comes around the car, aiming her pistol at me.
“Nab it, and he gets it,” shesays.
Tad raises his hands into the airquickly.
The man crawls across the groundand grabs my gun. “Now,” he says, returning to the car and snatching his pistoloff the street. “Nice and easy. You’re gonna get into that car right now anddrive or you’re going to lose your fucking head. Got that?”
The man hurries to Tad.
“Now give me your fucking phones.”
He reaches into our pockets, takesour cells, and throws them down on the sidewalk. After he smashes them beneathhis heel, the woman approaches Tad and urges him into the backseat, where shesits beside him. The man directs me to the driver’s seat, where he forces me toremove the driver’s body. Despite my disgust, I pull him onto the curb and sitin the driver’s seat.
“Just keep driving until I tellyou to stop,” the man says as he sharpens his aim at my head.
He guides me through the nearbystreets, and all I can think is how I need to find a way to get Tad out of this,even if it costs me my life. The problem is, it just needs to cost me mine. NotTad’s. So I have to be really fucking careful how I play this.
I feel like an idiot. Like weshould have been more careful. Like we shouldn’t be here. But I know, in truth,there wasn’t much I could do to stop these bastards. Tad couldn’t stop livinghis life, and surely there were any number of ways they could have surprisedus.
We pull onto a street that runsalongside the backs of a series of older buildings. Shops and factories withbrick and concrete walls. Just a few streetlights on the street work, leavingthe place scattered with pockets of darkness.
“Here,” the man says. “Pull overon your right and park at this meter.”
At least the cops will have achance of finding us when they’re looking for this vehicle.
I pull up to the sidewalk beside afour-story building with barred windows. The brick walls are chipped andcracked.
Our captors urge us out of the carand onto the sidewalk. The man tosses his pistol into the backseat of the carwhile the woman gets into the driver’s seat. She drives the car to a parkinggarage on the far end of the building. So much for the cops finding ourvehicle. These guys aren’t dicking around. That they’ve planned this out makesour situation even more concerning.
Our other captor leads us throughan unlocked door—something I imagine he knew about before we reached ourdestination. We wait in a small lobby, I assume for his companion.
What little light enters throughthe barred windows casts across the small room. Tablet arm desks are stackedalong the wall beside us. On the opposite wall, a stairwell leads to the secondfloor.
The man keeps his gun on Tad, hisglance shifting between us. He looks like he’s waiting for me to make anothergo at an escape. And if he gives me the opportunity, I sure as fuck will takeit.
Another door on the wall adjacentto the wall of chairs opens and the woman steps in, aiming her pistol at me. Whoeverthese guys are, they’re clearly familiar with this place—either because it’ssomewhere they’ve spent time in their lives or because they scouted for thisplace and found that it was just right for their purposes.
