Talia wanted to point out that leaving their swiss-cheese van was probably a good first step to getting of there, but Lennox was already behind the wheel and cranking the engine, eyes fixed on the scene outside the fragmented front windshield.
“I thought they’d find us if we turned on the lights,” Katrina said from her huddled position on the floor.
“Don’t worry about that,” Lennox said, raising his voice to be heard over all the gunfire around them. “I’m pretty sure they already know we’re here.”
Then Lennox hit the gas and Talia fell on her butt as he shoved their way past the SUV that had been trying to block their path. Seconds later, bullets hit the back of the van.
“Should I close the door?” Talia shouted, looking out the van’s side door at the parked cars along the sidewalk starting to blur as they began to build up speed.
“Not yet!” he shouted back, his focus fixed on the SUV behind them even as he shouted something in his radio about “catching up.”
Talia was about to ask what in the world that meant when a blur of movement outside the open door caught her attention. A split second later, a man came flying through it. She barely rolled out of the way as he landed right where she’d been, coming to a halt perched half atop Katrina. She let out a startled scream.
“Sorry I’m late,” Darwin yelled as he crawled off Katrina, making his way to the back doors of the van even as more bullets slammed into it. “I got a little hung up trying to get these people off your tail.”
Talia stared wide-eyed as Darwin kicked open the back doors and started shooting at the SUV behind them and closing in quick. The thought that they were racing down the streets of San Diego while being shot at struck her as positively unreal. But this was definitely happening.
“Hold on and keep your heads down! Left turn coming!” Lennox shouted from the driver’s seat just as he turned the van so sharply that Talia was almost pitched out the open side door.
“Might be a good time to close that door now,” he called out helpfully, throwing a casual glance at her over his shoulder like this was another ride at Legoland. If Talia ever wanted enough confirmation that Lennox and the other SEALs lived in adifferent world when it came to their perception of danger, this was it.
Kyla crawled over to help Talia slide the door closed, the two of them holding onto each other so they wouldn’t fall out the opening. The mere thought made Talia’s stomach heave.
“This is crazy,” she muttered, gasping in relief as the two of them finally got the door closed. “I’m not made for this kind of stuff.”
“Not many people are,” Kyla said. “Which is why we should be thankful for SEALs like Wes, Lennox, and the other guys.”
Talia opened her mouth to reply but the van suddenly jerked to the right and then slammed into something hard. The crash was a loud mix of crunching metal and breaking glass, sending her and everyone else in the back sliding across the debris littered floor to bounce off the back of the front seats.
Before she could figure out which way was up, Lennox was out of the vehicle and shooting at someone in front of them. At the same time, Darwin jumped out the back, firing several times at the SUV behind them before reaching into the van to grab the first person he could reach—Katrina.
“Everyone out of the van. Kyla, grab the hard drives!” Darwin shouted before he and Katrina disappeared into the night.
Talia would have freaked out if her body could have handled any more stimuli. As it was, she simply crawled toward the side door.
She couldn’t contain the scream that slipped out when the side door was suddenly jerked out of her hand, sliding back with a bang. She bit her tongue when she realized it was Lennox. He reached for her with one hand while holding his big scary rifle up with the other.
“Come on. The van is trashed,” he said, helping Talia out of the vehicle as they waited for Kyla, who was poking aroundinside the back somewhere. “Kirk and Wes will pick us up, but we need to get out of here before anyone else sees us.”
“Where are Colt and Simon?” Kyla asked as she clambered out of the van, a canvas messenger bag over her shoulder, probably holding the hard drives Darwin had mentioned.
As if in response, gunfire erupted from several blocks away, prompting a chuckle from Lennox. “They’re giving us time to get clear, so let’s not waste it.”
Talia was terrified of leaving the relative safety of the van but didn’t have a choice as Lennox tugged her hand. She glanced over her shoulder to see smoke roiling out from under the hood of the vehicle, a few flames visible through the heavily damaged grill.
The SUV that’d been chasing them was turned crossway in the street with the entire driver’s side smashed in and all the windows blown out. There were four people inside. None of them were moving.
Fortunately, Lennox distracted her from the scene by tossing something through the open door of the van then urging her and Kyla toward the nearest alley. Before she could ask what he’d thrown into the vehicle, there was a soft pop behind them followed by the crackle of fire. Talia looked back to see flames filling the back of the van. A part of her mind wondered if Kyla would get in trouble for not bringing the van back but then another thought occurred to her, one much more important.
“Where’s Katrina?” Talia yelled, looking around the dark alley in panic when she didn’t see her friend or Darwin anywhere. It had only been a few seconds since they’d slipped out the back of the van ahead of them.
“They’re heading to the extraction point by a slightly different route,” Lennox called out in a soft voice, letting go of her hand but motioning for her stay close. “Don’t worry, we’ll catch up to them soon enough.”
Of course, Talia worried anyway. But then she had to focus all her attention on keeping up, staying close to Lennox and Kyla as the alleys seemed to get darker and darker. It didn’t help that Lennox kept making what seemed to be random turns whenever he felt like it, reminding her of the night Keller had chased her near Anna’s apartment complex. The similarities almost caused her knees to give out.
As harrowing as running through the dark alleys was, it was when Lennox pulled them to a stop that was even more terrifying. The first time they knelt against a brick wall while he stared off into the darkness and Talia had no idea what was happening. The second time, when bullets clattered against the asphalt a couple feet away, she froze solid, vaguely aware that he was shooting at someone out there in the darkness—maybe several someones.
Talia would still be in the alley, too scared to move, if it hadn’t been for Lennox. Once the shooting stopped, he’d gotten her up and moving, practically carrying her as they continued fleeing through the darkness toward some destination unknown to her.
