“You’re both safe now.”Mila pulled back, extricating herself from the woman’s arms.“I must use the bathroom.”That ruse had worked once before.
“The toilet is over behind the houses.”The woman pointed.
Relief filled Mila.“Thank you.”
She hurried down the side of the nearby longhouse, hearing a shout behind her.She glanced back.Patar was jogging towards her.
Mila ran around the corner of the house and almost ran into Damien.“Keep going,” he murmured.
Thank God.She kept running, heading for the toilet building.When she reached the door, she looked back.
Patar raced into view and Damien grabbed him in a choke hold.In seconds the man was slumped on the ground.
Quickly Damien tied his arms and legs.
Mila jogged back.“He’ll yell when he wakes.”
Damien nodded.“Let’s go before he does.”He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards her moped which had keys in the ignition.
“You stole it!”
He grinned.“Yeah.I recognised it was yours and found the keys inside.”
He’d been busy while she’d been playing her part.
She jumped on behind Damien and gripped tight.
The acceleration of the bike wasn’t great at the best of times, but with two people on it, it was glacial.
As they rode past Patar, he stirred and yelled.A couple of people looked over and frowned.
“Faster!”
“I’m trying.”
The engine screamed as Damien opened the throttle and they picked up speed, bumping over the rough dirt ground.They bounced up onto the bitumen and a man darted to his left, heading to a car, while another ran to where Patar was shouting instructions.
Shit.
Fajar’s mother pulled Fajar and his sibling into the square right in front of the four-wheel drive.She grinned at Mila as the man honked his horn.
Mila exhaled.It would slow him for a moment.
“The road to the other village is about a kilometre away,” she yelled to Damien.
He nodded.
It wouldn’t take long for the man to catch up with them and they needed to be off the main road by then.
The small wheels of the bike didn’t give them a lot of grip and the twisty, bumpy road was a death trap.
She clung tighter to Damien and scanned the road ahead of them, searching for the track.
The roar of an engine behind them told her Fajar’s family were no longer an obstacle.
“There!”She pointed to the track.It was a significant decline, and she squeezed Damien as he steered the bike down it.
The bumps rattled her brain.
