“What’s wrong?” Lola shifts at my tone, her feet sliding off the dash and planting on the floor as she immediately looks around for my phone.
“Not sure yet,” I murmur. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, like some kind of benevolent spirit dragged its ghostly touch across my skin. Goosebumps ripple down my spine, and foreboding sits heavy on the back of my tongue.
There’s this thing that happens right before a job goes sideways. You start narrating the escape routes in your head. Like your body knows what’s coming before you even see it—the way your tongue finds a chipped tooth, or your brain starts replaying old injuries when the weather shifts.
“Shit, it slipped between the seats.” She jams her arm into the narrow gap, her face contorting as her shoulder strains against the console.
“Give me yours then.” Urgency wraps around the command, drawing the consonants sharp.
“Fuck.” She yanks her arm free, unbuckles her seatbelt, and twists in her seat with a grunt. “It’s right there.”
The Mack truck barrels toward the intersection, its massive grille gleaming like teeth, no flicker of brake lights, no dip of the cab that would signal deceleration.
My grip tightens around the steering wheel and cold understanding settles into my chest. “Fuck. Get up here.”
“I almost have it,” she grunts out between harsh breaths.
“Now, Lola!” I yell, my voice dropping an octave as my jaw locks. I exhale once, hard, and my face goes slack, eyes narrowing to calculate distances and angles. The world sharpens into geometric patterns—velocity, trajectory, impact points. My pulse slows to a steady thrum despite the adrenaline flooding my system. This is the precipice, the moment before the fall, and there’s no map for what comes after the next breath.
Lola twists back into her seat. “What the fuck—” The words die in her throat as her eyes lock on the approaching truck. Her face drains of color.
“Seat belt. Now.” I reach behind her seat for my gun, the cold metal of the grip settling against my palm as I bring it to rest on my thigh.
She clicks her belt into place with a metallic snap, white-knuckled fingers wrapping around the handle above her window. But it’s not our car she needs to worry about.
The Mack truck blows through the stop sign, its red paint suddenly vivid as fresh blood against the bleached desert. Metal screams—a sound like the world being torn in half—as eighteen tons of steel slam into the armored truck’s side with enough force to rattle the fillings in my teeth. The entire vehicle jerks violently sideways, tires leaving thick black streaks across the sun-baked asphalt as momentum finally wins the fight against physics.
For one impossible second, the armored truck balances on two wheels, the weight of it hanging in the air like gravity forgot how to work, sunlight glinting off the undercarriage in a blinding flash. Then it rolls once, a slow-motion ballet of destruction. The reinforced shell slams against the pavement with a thunderous boom that vibrates up through the soles of my boots. Safety glass bursts outward in a glittering storm, diamond-like shards catching the desert sun before raining down on the highway.
“Bellamy,” Lola chokes out.
Bishop’s voice explodes in my earpiece, raw and guttural. “Rafe!” Then, lower, more urgent, “What the fuck is happening?”
I don’t answer because my fucking phone is muted. And even if it wasn’t, what the fuck is there to say?
Is this an accident? Or a motherfucking ambush?
The truck rolls again, this time in slow motion. Metal screams against concrete, each point of impact sending up orange sparks that die instantly in the desert air. The reinforced shell crumples at the corners like it’s made of aluminum foil instead of military-grade steel.
Dust erupts across the highway as the truck skids sideways, carving a trench through gravel and asphalt. The sound is like a thousand nails on a chalkboard, rising to a shriek before thevehicle crashes onto its side with a bone-rattling finality that sends vibrations up through the steering wheel and into my palms.
It feels like the worst kind of nightmare—the kind where your limbs are made of lead and your voice has been stolen. I’m forced to bear witness, my body stuck behind the wheel, unable to do absolutely anything but watch as physics finishes its brutal equation.
The rear doors of the armored truck tear open with a metallic shriek. Black plastic bins launch from the back, spinning across the highway. They hit the asphalt with a crack that splits them diagonally, their lids flying off. Red, blue, green, and black discs explode outward in a kaleidoscope burst.
Time slows. My pupils dilate, catching every detail like camera flashes. The dust hasn’t settled when a dark shape tumbles from the gaping rear doors.
Bellamy’s blonde hair catches the sun as she rolls. Her shoulder hits first, then her hip, her head snapping back on impact. She skids ten feet, limbs splayed like a broken doll, coming to rest among rainbow-colored chips.
The highway sounds fade as fear wraps its bony fist around my lungs.
“No.” Everything else fades as my gaze zeroes in on her. I’m too far away to see if her chest is moving. But I have to believe it is.
“Rafe!” Lola’s shrill warning cuts through the fog.
The world explodes back into real-time. The Mack truck swerves around the wreckage with practiced precision, tires kicking up dust clouds as it skids to a diagonal stop. The engine growls like a predator that’s cornered its prey.
My mouth turns to sandpaper. The truck’s windshield catches the sun, then clears enough to reveal a familiar silhouette that punches the air from my lungs. The bastard’sprobably riding the high of his life right now, pupils blown wide behind the wheel as eighteen tons of steel flipped an armored truck.
