“Three left,” I gasped.
Jo didn’t answer. He pushed the truck harder, the speedometer burying itself past seventy as we tore down the dirt track, rocks pinging off the undercarriage.
I risked a glance behind us and saw that the bikes had split up—Harley in the lead, the other two flanking him, their engines screaming as they gained ground.
I could see Harley’s face now, the white skull mask glowing in the moonlight. He looked at me, really looked, like he was reading the fear right off my skin.
He smiled, then gunned the throttle, closing the gap until he was almost even with the truck.
“Jo,” I said, but the warning was useless.
Harley lifted the chain again, this time aiming for the windshield. The first hit spiderwebbed the glass, the second opened a star-shaped hole right at Jo’s eye line.
Jo jerked the wheel, throwing Harley off balance, but the bastard hung on, one hand locked on the bar, the other swinging the chain in wild arcs.
One of the other bikes dropped back, but the last—some idiot with a mohawk and arms sleeved in bad ink—kept pace, engine snarling as he tried to box us in from the right.
Jo bared his teeth, then did the one thing I never expected: he eased off the gas, just enough to let the bikes close in.
“What are you—” I started, but Jo cut me off.
“Trust me.”
He hit the brakes, just for a second, and the truck slid into a controlled skid. Harley shot ahead, suddenly in front of us, and Jo floored it again, using the grill of the F-250 like a battering ram.
We hit the rear wheel of Harley’s bike dead center. The impact was a thunderclap, metal and plastic exploding, the skull helmet snapping backward as Harley tried to regain control.
But Jo didn’t let up.
He drove through the bike, sending it cartwheeling into the ditch, and then punched the gas, pulling us ahead of the wreckage. For a heartbeat, the world was silent. Then the sound of sirens, distant but coming closer, echoed down the road.
Jo let the truck coast, engine ticking as it cooled. He kept both hands on the wheel, breathing hard.
I stared at him, my whole body shaking.
“You okay?” he asked, voice soft for the first time all night.
I tried to answer, but my mouth was full of copper and my throat wouldn’t work.
He reached over, set his hand on my knee. “You did good,” he said. “Called for help, stayed with me. I’m proud of you.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. I pressed my face to the glass, watched the blue and red lights bounce down the road behind us, and let myself shake for a minute.
I could still see the road in my head, replaying the chase on an endless loop, every curve and near-miss bright with panic and the chemical taste of not-dying.
But I’d only managed three breaths before Jo said, “Down. Now,” and shoved my head hard enough that my forehead bounced off the dashboard.
The world exploded in a spray of tempered glass and hot air. The passenger window went first—shattered by a bullet, a brick, or maybe just the inevitable hand of fate.
I dropped to the floorboard, hands over my skull, knees jammed up against the glove box. A fragment of glass sliced through the back of my hand and stuck there, glittering, but I couldn’t feel it over the shock.
Jo was shouting, one hand braced on my shoulder, the other slamming the F-250 into a slide that fishtailed us across the gravel and straight into Harley’s path.
I heard the bikes behind us swerve, engines pitching up in a sick chorus, but Harley was too close. He aimed for the gap, but Jo was already there, using three tons of Detroit steel to sweep the road clean.
The impact was dull and wet. Harley’s bike bucked sideways, caught Jo’s bumper, and flipped up in a high arc before landing somewhere in the blackberries with a sound like a bowling ball going through a window.
For a second, everything went silent. Then the pain came back, sharp and hot, along with the metallic taste in my mouth.
