She glared at him.
“I meant because I didn’t want to ruin my shirt!”
Grace maintained her focus.
He relented. “Okay, I guess I also wouldn’t have minded seeing you without it.”
She relaxed. “Well, unlike you, I have a tank top underneath, so I wouldn’t mind taking my own shirt off. However, I didn’t think of it. You did. That’s the important thing right now. Thank you for saving my truck.”
He patted the dashboard above the glove box. “She’s taking quite a beating, isn’t she?”
Grace sighed. “I’ve given up worrying about what my bosses are going to say when I bring this back to the depot. I figure I’ll be paying this off for the rest of my life. On a park ranger’s salary, it’s not an exaggeration.”
A couple of cars roared by on the highway, then the woman walked up to Asher’s window. “I don’t have much. I forgot I helped at a motorcycle accident a few weeks back. Haven’t replaced my supply.” She held up a small bundle of gauze bandages.
Asher took them. “Thank you.”
The woman looked across Asher’s spot and directly at Grace. “Are you all right, miss? I’ve been on the road long enough to ask questions when I see a young woman in a wrecked truck with two men,” she turned to Asher. “No offense.”
Grace smiled. “Oh, no. It’s nothing like that.” She stopped to think about it. How would she explain one of the men was previously a hitman sent to kill her? It was best to avoid such thoughts. “These two guys are my friends.”
An orange glow lit up the sky across the highway. The woman stopped looking at her and instead gazed at the attraction. Grace turned left, expecting the helicopter to have returned. However, the orange lance of tracer rounds fell from the sky far out on the nighttime grasslands. At first, it seemed as it if was a waste of bullets, but the zaps of light were aimed at one point.
Misha slammed the rear liftgate, pushing the heavy Lahti inside the truck. “We have to go!” he shouted, while walking around Asher’s side. When he climbed in, he added, “Nerio is using her minigun on the train engine. We have to get out there to shoot her from sky once and for all.”
Grace turned to find the woman standing with her mouth open. They looked at each other for a few seconds, before Grace spoke. “I promise you, I’m fine. These two men are protecting me. It would take too long to explain all that we’re doing, but thank you for the bandages. We might need them now more than ever.”
The trucker stood back from the window. “You’re going toward machine gun fire?”
“We have to,” Grace assured the lady.
Grace put it in gear. Once she was around the big rig, she put the hammer down.
“How bad is it?” she asked.
Misha was glued to the window, looking to the left. “We will not know until we get there, but attack is already over. She is leaving.”
“That can’t be good,” Asher added.
Kansas City, MO
Butch leaned over to talk to Ezra. It was obvious he didn’t want their new passenger, Kelly, to hear what was said. “I don’t think he’s armed, but maybe we should have a policy where we pat down anyone we bring on board.”
Ezra laughed quietly. “I’m with you. I believe what he said about someone following him, but I think there’s more to it. Stay sharp.” Louder, he added, “Please keep an eye on the water. If you see garbage out there, let me know so I can go around it.”
“Aye, aye,” Butch replied, only loud enough for those on the boat to hear.
They inched through the darkness, ever searching the far shore. Ezra was certain he saw flashlights bobbing after they’d gone a few hundred yards, but it could have also been car headlights far in the woods.
“Where are we taking you?” he asked Kelly, who remained seated against the rear bulkhead.
The man glanced up. “Not far. Upriver until you see the casino. It’s pretty much the last thing standing in these parts.”
“You said you came from your home. Where is that?”
Kelly sniffled loudly. “I live around. Drop me at the casino and I’ll get there.”
Ezra liked the guy less with each interaction. Was anything he said truthful?
After a short drive, they’d gotten around the searchlights on the far shore. He guessed they’d passed their old campsite and had added another quarter of a mile of river. He was beginning to feel better about their chain of events.
“Hey!” a man shouted from the near bank. A flashlight beam cut through the darkness until it found the boat. “I see you! Can you stop?” The man’s voice was loud and colored by desperation.
Ezra went into full alert mode. He’d gotten them so close to the left bank, someone could probably throw a rock and hit them. Even the darkness couldn’t hide them completely.
“Sorry!” he said forcefully, but not in a loud voice. At the same time, he gave the motor more gas.
“Bastard! Don’t go!” the man seethed. “Are you with TKM?”
Additional flashlights appeared on the near shore. Some were behind them, but many appeared in the trees on the bank ahead. Kelly popped his head up and down, getting more anxious as the number of beams converged on them. “Don’t stop,” he cautioned.
“Are these the gangs?” Ezra asked, wondering if it was the same on both shores of the river.
“All bad,” Kelly whined.
Another man shouted from the trees. “There’s a boat! They’re with TKM!”
Many people rallied to his words.
“We’re not with them,” Ezra replied, still unwilling to shout and attract more attention to himself. He
