I look in the rear-view mirror and I see a big truck a few miles behind us.
“It's them.” I recognize it immediately, it's the master's truck, gold plated and with gold details, it's hard to forget.
Without wasting a second, Bruno wakes Sarah up and starts giving me directions.
“Dante, floor it, we need to shake them.”
My foot hits the gas hard and fast, putting the pedal to the metal.
Bruno entrusts Amira with the child to keep him safe. She hides the little one between the back seats.
Both Bruno and Sarah lean out their respective windows and position themselves directly facing at the massive truck behind us.
As I see it getting closer and closer to us, my sense of helplessness increasingly grows.
They open fire at us, and the first shot goes through the rear window and hits the roof of the car right before the windshield.
“Amira! Get down!” I shout as I shift gears in an attempt to go faster.
I cover Amira with my hand, and she covers Ben in an awkward position.
“Sarah, don’t lean out that far, you’re gonna rip your stitches, damn it!” shouts Bruno at his future wife's recklessness.
She has her body outside the window, holding on only with her legs. I don't understand how the wound allows her to have that flexibility, but I am infinitely grateful for it.
“Yes!” shouts Bruno.
I look at the mirror and I can see one of the wheels of the tailing truck gets punctured and loses pressure, making them lose control. When the truck goes off-road and steers away from our rear view, there are two more trucks behind us and I’m guessing they have the same mission. Kill us.
I skillfully start passing the cars that appear on the road in front of me despite being in the middle of the desert, obstacles keep appearing.
“Shit! I'm out of ammo!” shouts Sarah as she gets back into her seat.
“I’m out too! Fuck!” Bruno says.
One truck tries to pass us on our left and I block them steering into their lane, but as I do that the second truck speeds up and goes right, momentarily unable to pass us because of another car blocking his path.
The driver looks at us and gives us a sinister smile, showing us his ugly yellow teeth.
“Drive into him! Push him to the side!” Bruno says.
“Are you crazy!? You want me to crash into them!?”
“If you don’t do that and they go in front of us, they will box us in, and we are dead!”
Fuck! This is a gamble, what should I do!?
BANG! BANG!
Two shots are fired from inside our van, but who fired them? They both said their weapons were empty.
“Nice shot, Amira!” Sarah says.
Amira?
I look at her and see she’s trembling while holding the gun Zahir had given Bruno back in the compound.
The sound of tires skidding to my right brings my attention back to their truck. The man at the wheel is dead and the out-of-control truck drives into and hits us. I briefly lose control and counter steer to correct, then right before their truck hits us again I accelerate and steer away. Their truck continues its path. The other van truck behind us hits it dead center in a T-Bone crash, totaling both vehicles.
They can’t follow us anymore.
“Well done, Dante,” Bruno says and pats my shoulder. “Oh, and Amira…” Amira looks at him “That was a helluva shot.”
She smiles nervously.
I’m proud of her, she saved us just now.
I guess we’re going to have to keep saving each other from now on.
