My eyes scan the room, searching for anything to fit the bill.
Nothing, but surely there’ll be a rock outside.
Sure, because that’s how your luck goes.
I lift the corner of the mattress, the only place not immediately visible from my vantage point. Nothing on my side, but I duck underneath, checking for something,anything,useful through the springs.
Nothing.
The leg. I could unscrew a leg and use that to break the windshield.
My mind plays out the idea, showing me whacking the wood against the reinforced safety glass. About as successful as the branch that Basil Fawlty once used to beat his car.
With no other options jumping to mind, I inspect the bed leg. The wood will be useless but there’s a large metal screw securing it to the rest of the frame.
The thick metal might do a better job but the closer I look the more I realise there’s no way I’m getting it apart. Not without a tool kit and a lot more strength than I have in my possession.
Giving it up as a poor joke, I stand back, surveying the room again with my hands on my hips.
The window.
I move across to it, the sash still partly out of place from my earlier escape attempt. On the grass outside is a stack of bricks, near the dislodged chimney I saw earlier. It’s placed within such easy reach that I suspect someone’s pranking me.
A brick through the passenger window. Reach in, unlock the door. Scramble across the seat, wiping safety glass out of the way. Grab the spare set of keys from the glove box.
My brain might still be thinking through the idea but my adrenaline spikes, apparently having decided we’re definitely doing this.
At the prison, there’ll be new hurdles, things I haven’t thought about. Later, there’ll be the very real threat of the Highway Rangers. Either I stay and let them kill me or I’ll have to go on the run, too.
Hey, maybe I’ll bump into Malakai along the way, and we can run off into the sunset like Bonnie and Clyde.
Sure. Run away with a sexy young murderer. Can’t see a flaw in that plan.
But for once I have an easy comeback for my dismissive internal narrator.
Because sure, Malakai is a murderer.
But so am I.
CHAPTERFIVE
KAI
Every passing minuteshreds my sanity a little more. Using Nadia’s phone was a risk, one I thought would pay off since there’s no other way to contact someone from here. Now, with no sign of Razek on his way, the entire enterprise feels like it’s about to sink.
I should have called it quits when the car went careening towards the van. Taking a hostage will add so much time to my sentence, I won’t see my child again until they’re well past my age.
The key word there isagain.If Razek doesn’t get his arse here soon, I won’t see my childat all.
A family is something I didn’t even know I wanted until Rachel told me she was pregnant. I’d been staying in her spare room, accepting free accommodation in exchange for flexing my muscles every time her abusive ex dropped by.
We weren’t together. Not like that. But one forgettable fumble on the couch later and voilà! She announced I was going to be a daddy.
In the interest of full disclosure, and maybe with a hefty pinch of spite, she also told her ex.
The fallout fromthatencounter tore my life apart, but with the pride of fatherhood warming my chest, I forgave her everything. The blood on my hands, the now ever-present insomnia.
Most of the defence I could have offered to the charges against me.
