I glance at the clock. “We have a few hours.”
“How much gas do you have?”
“An hour or so?”
“Not enough.”
“It’s not like I was planning on running tonight, man.”
“None of us were.”
He flinches as I hit a bump.
“We should have waited until after your hand surgery.”
“We should have left the second I found out my father was onto us.”
I watch the headlights at our rear, no longer pretending that they’re hiding.
“What are the chances we could take on whoever is following us?”
“If I knew who he sent, I could answer that. Two of his guys are ex special ops, and there’s no way we could take even one of those guys on. But most of his security are just big guys with small brains that my father likes to have on staff to boss around and make him feel like a genius. One of those guys we could take. Fuck, we could probably lose one of those guys in a convenience store with a single door.”
I choke on a panicked laugh. “How do we find out who we’re dealing with?”
“We need light.”
I drive us back to Dinkytown, the minutes clicking down on the clock a neon reminder of how fucked this could get.
But the lights here are bright at night—the campus is lit up like a Christmas tree in the name of student safety. “What are the chances your dad knows we’re running now?”
“Fifty-fifty. Maybe we just forgot some shit and have to go home and grab it. Maybe we were just going for a joy-ride.”
“A joy-ride in my mid-grade SUV? After ten on a Sunday night?”
“If we’re dealing with one of the dumb ones, he won’t want to be wrong. Honestly, whoever is following us won’t want to risk being wrong. My father doesn’t deal with incompetence well.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” I joke.
“Repeated.”
Damn. I always knew there was more to Trips’ dislike of his father than met the eye, but that single word tells me more than anything else he’s let drop in the past three plus years combined.
“Got the scars to prove it?” I ask, keeping my tone light, even if my gut’s twisted in knots.
“Got the tattoos to cover them. How well do you know the campus tunnels?”
I’ll have to revisit that comment some other time. “I’m not an expert, but I’ve used them on and off over the years, especially when it’s cold like this.”
“I’ve always driven.”
“You want to lose them in the tunnels? Isn’t that a risk? A confined area on foot? Especially with a special ops guy? You only have one hand, man.”
“Can you throw a punch?”
“I have three big brothers, but I’m no fighter.”
“So scrappy if need be?”
