“No, get back on the highway.”
“I’m going to run in?—”
“I said, get back on the highway.Now, Amelia.”
Her eyes met mine briefly in the rearview mirror. She knew from my tone that I was being serious, and for the first time since we met, she didn’t challenge me.
“OK.” She started the engine and peered back at me for a moment.
“Just go. Now!”
“I am!” She threw the car in drive and took off. “What’s going on, Oliver?” I could hear the panic in her voice.
“Just drive. I’ll tell you later,” I said, twisting to look behind us. Just as she made the left-handed turn out of the parking lot, two guys walked out of the gas station. One of them pointed in our direction, and they both took off in a sprint, running toward the Black SUV.
“Fuck.” I cursed.
“What is going on?” she asked, getting onto the highway as she picked up speed.
“We’re being followed.”
“Followed? By who?”
“My boss’s henchmen,” I replied, annoyed with myself. I should have stayed awake, kept an eye out. Instead, I let my guard down.
“What the hell does that mean?” she yelled, her blue eyes bouncing back and forth between the road and the mirror to look at me.
“I told you that I stole cars and sold them.”
She nodded.
“Well, the car I was in when you ran me off the road was a car that I had stolen and was delivering to my boss. He wantedthatcar. I’m guessing that when I didn’t deliver, he started looking. He probably came across reports of a stolen car found wrecked and abandoned. He probably thinks that I’m backing out of our deal, so he sent them after me.”
“Well, that’s just great, Oliver! And when were you going to tell me about all this?”
I turned and looked behind us, and didn’t see them yet.
“When I had to,” I answered. I turned back toward her. “We have to lose them.”
“You’re kidding. How are we going to do that, genius?”
I ignored her snarky comment so I could focus and put a plan together.
"Here’s what we’re going to do. As long as they don’t catch up, get off on the next exit. We have a much better chance at losing them on back roads that twist and turn rather than being stuck on the interstate that’s a straight fucking line.”
She glared at me. “Is that why you were on the backroad when I ran into you?”
“I’ve been doing this a while.”
She shook her head. “I can’t fucking believe you.”
I rolled my eyes, but then trained on the road behind us. It was a busy time of day, so there were plenty of vehicles on the road. I saw a couple of black SUVs, but they were so far away that I couldn’t tell which one was theirs.
“Get off here,” I ordered, and she did exactly what she was told.
“Take as many turns as you can. Drive fast, but not too fast. We need to get away from them, but we don’t want to go so fast that it causes other people to look at us either. Just keep your eyes on the road and listen to me. Got it?”
“Yes,” her voice wobbled, but she did exactly as I told her to.
