Chapter Twenty-one
Honey
“Uh, Carter. I thought you said this van was going to be icy fresh, or was that a lie?” I ask, wiping large beads of sweat from my forehead as we bake inside a rundown blue van while the police screech into the parking lot in front of the building.
“I paid ten grand to have this fucking thing reworked. Goddammit,” he exclaims, shifting gears again and slamming his foot into the gas pedal.
The van lurches forward, throwing my head against the tattered headrest and jumbling my guts as I feel dread start to creep through my insides. If Carter is worried, then I should be. He’s usually quite calm and collected in the face of danger.
“Not today, feds,” Henry mutters, cracking open one of the manual roll-down windows in the back and sticking the tip of his gun out of it.
The van screams down the side of the building, breaking out into the road and bouncing on four sagging tires as we hit the pavement hard. My ribs dig into my stomach as I’m jolted and thrown around the cabin, falling onto Amy, who immediately pushes me off as though I were an overexcited dog.
“Shit,” Carter says from the front, spinning the thin steering wheel in his hands with ferocious speed as we graze a civilian car creeping down the street.
The police have noticed us.
They hop back into their cars, ready to chase us down the claustrophobic roads lined with colorful shops and jaywalkers just begging to be spread across the cracked asphalt like bugs in the summer. I hope to god that we don’t hit any of them.
“Not today!” Henry yells, firing his gun out of the window at the white and blue police cars tailing us. He seems like he has cracked at the first threat of capture, but mafia folk are always bloodthirsty. It shouldn’t surprise me that Henry is the same. He just usually seems so rigid and calculated.
Amy pulls a long silver pistol from her jean shorts, the length of which makes me wonder how she even fit it in there in the first place. She points it out toward the back window, punching holes through the glass with large bullets.
My ears ring at the sound of gunfire in an enclosed space, but nobody else seems to mind it. Carter grips the steering wheel like he’ll fall into the abyss if he lets go, ignoring everything around us but the road ahead. That’s probably smart, given how little space the narrow African streets lend to our vehicle.
“Bunch of wimps,” Henry snarls as the police pull back, their harsh flashing lights shrinking behind us as they avoid a shootout in a crowded street.
It’s wise of them to do so, but I fear that we don’t have the horsepower to get us very far before they return in greater numbers. Carter bought the worst possible getaway vehicle, and I honestly wonder what the hell he was thinking when he purchased this pile of rubbish.
“Are they still on us?” he asks, snapping his head back as he slows down.
“They’re pulling back,” Henry replies, a smug look on his portly face.
“I still don’t understand how they found us, but at least there aren’t more of them. We would’ve been dead already,” Carter says, turning his head back toward the road.
I slide across Amy’s lap, pulling myself past the center console into the front seat beside Carter. I plop down on the tired chair and mash the A/C button, praying that even the smallest gust of cool air will seep out. Nothing happens.
“Where the hell did you get this car from?” I ask.
“Todd sold it to me,” he says, gritting his teeth in irritation.
“Who is Todd?” I ask, utterly confused.
“A black market dealer who is going to get a piece of my mind once we’re through with this,” Carter growls. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
“I’m going to roast in here,” I complain, frantically wheeling down the window for some fresh air. I’m met with the scorching fumes rising off the road from the white-hot sun, but at least it’s moving and not still like the air in the car. My sweat begins to dry as I poke my nose out the window.
“Uh, sir. Can you turn on the A/C?” Henry asks from the back.
I spin around in my seat. “I already tried that. Carter got us a van without any air conditioning.”
“Blame it on Todd,” Carter grumbles, shaking his head.
“Pull over and let me take a damn taxi,” Amy chimes in.
“Nobody is leaving this van until we get to the Kalahari Desert, unless they want to eat a bullet for breakfast. Do you got that?” Carter hisses.
Amy scoffs, falling back into her seat with her thin arms crossed over her chest.
The van grows quiet, save for the rattling wind from the open windows, swirling through the cabin and exiting out of the bullet holes in the back window. It’s hot, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s cramped, but at least we’re safe from the police. They could’ve gotten us back there, and our whole mission would’ve been for nothing.
I gaze out at the blur of colorful buildings and idle pedestrians, wondering what life would be like if I grew up here instead of the rolling hills and rose bushes of my father’s estate. I’ve been around the world, but I remain curious about new cultures and people that I come into contact with. The world is much denser than most people realize, rich with a slew of languages, religions, perspectives, and traditions. I pity those that aren’t fortunate enough to experience it all before they die.
I fish the camera out from my bookbag as the van hums along, and Amy and Henry exchange cautiously intimate glances at each other. It reminds me of the timid lust I felt for Carter that resulted in a night full of wonderful sexual exploration. I hope
