I don’t care about the speed limit.
The black truck stays with me.Headlights filling my cab.Marin is wedged between the seat and the dash, knees pulled up, head down.I can hear her breathing—fast, controlled—with the focused calm of a woman who’s been in crisis before and knows that noise doesn’t help.
I accelerate into the curve.The truck leans.Tires scream.Marin slides over and grabs my leg to steady herself—her fingers digging into my thigh hard enough to leave marks.
The black pickup takes the curve too fast.I hear it before I see it—the skid, the correction that comes too late, the sound of tires leaving asphalt for gravel for air.Headlights sweeping the tree line sideways.Then a crash.Metal and wood and something final.
I don’t stop.I ease off the gas.Check the rearview.The headlights behind us are pointing at the sky, one of them flickering.They hit the drainage ditch.Or the trees.Or both.
Half a mile down, I pull onto a side road.No sign.No gate.Just a gap in the tree line Emily used to run on Sunday mornings.I pull behind a stand of pines and cut the engine.
Darkness.Total.
“Marin.”
No answer.I flip on the overhead light.
“Marin.”
She pushes herself into the seat.Slowly.Glass falls off her shoulders like snow.There’s a cut on her forehead—small, clean, already beading red.Her hands are shaking.Her whole body is shaking.But her eyes are steady and dry and locked on me with an intensity that has nothing to do with fear.
“Who,” she says, “the fuck was that?”
I hold up my knuckles.
“The job site injury that wasn’t a job site injury.”
I nod.“Those are the people.”
“Those people just shot at us, Luke.They shot at your truck.They shot at me.I have glass in my hair and blood on my face and I am sitting on a dirt road in the dark?—”
“I know.”
“Youknow?”
“I know.And I’ll explain.Everything.”I reach across and touch the cut on her forehead.Gently.With my thumb.She goes still.“But right now I need to know you’re okay.”
“No, I’m not okay.Why are they trying to run us off the road?And why do you sound like this happens to you regularly?”
“It doesn’t happen regularly.”
“Your window is gone, Luke.”
“I’ll get a new one.”
She pulls out her phone.I cut the light.She turns to look at me.In the dark I can only see the outline of her—the shape of her jaw, the reflection of something in her eyes that might be fear or might be fury or might be both.
“You have enemies,” she says as though it isn’t obvious.
“I have complications.”
“Complications don’t fire shots at you.”
I don’t answer.I’m listening.The road is quiet.They’re gone.For now.
“I’ll explain,” I say.“Over dinner.”
“You’re still thinking about dinner?”
