“Help!” a voice rings out from the back of the truck.
All at once the horrifying noises grow softer and softer, until they disappear altogether.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I turn and crawl out of the truck’s back window to find out what is going on. In the not so far away distance, what looks like another IOUSC vehicle is swiftly catching up to us. I climb the rest of the way out of the back window as a bullet flies past my head.
“Get down,” I shout, as I pull my AK-47 up to take aim, bracing myself against the back of the cab of the truck.
To my left, Dia crawls through the window to the cab of the truck for safety. Her sniffles float through the air as she moves into the cab.
Shawn and Zac are both positioned on one knee at the tailgate with their guns, bullets blazing. Between us, I can see Magi and Samantha huddled over something, but I can’t make out what they are doing. To my right, Leah and Cara huddle together as close to the floor of the bed as they can.
Eventually Shawn, Zac, and I become in sync with our shots, rotating every third of a second to maximize our power and cover more area. It amazes me how well we all work together even without words.
With every bullet that flies at their vehicle, you would think that at least one of our shots would make contact, but it appears they are bouncing off the exterior of their truck rather than puncturing it. Jake picks up speed in hopes to keep enough distance from the vehicle, but whoever is shooting back at us, is concealed enough we don’t have a chance of making it out of this if we don’t think of something soon.
“Any ideas?” I shout into the window, while crouching down out of range.
“What about a roundabout?” Jake asks.
“No.” I shout, “not a chance.”
We had learned about roundabouts at The Force. We had laughed that day thinking none of us would ever be in the position to have to execute one.
“I’ll do it,” Eli responds.
“I don’t remember, what’s a roundabout?” Mar asks worried.
“Do you think you can?” Jake grunts at Eli, ignoring Mar’s question altogether.
“Without a doubt,” my brother responds.
“What’s a roundabout?” Mar repeats herself.
“You don’t want to know,” I say with a cringe. “Just get in the floorboard with Dia and hold on.”
They both dive down into the floorboard, Mar covering Dia with her body.
I turn back around to face the scene before me.
“Update,” Shawn grunts in my direction while firing his colt defense assault rifle at the oncoming vehicle.
“Jake’s attempting a roundabout,” I sigh.
“Who’s at point?” Zac asks, never turning to look at me.
“Eli,” I gulp.
“Okay,” Shawn rallies all attention. “Down for roundabout.”
Samantha looks up at me like I have lost my mind.
“What’s a roundabout?” Cara whispers.
“Insanity,” Leah whispers back. “Just hold on.”
“Ready,” I holler in the window.
I crouch down, dropping my gun to my side, allowing myself to anchor to anything I can find.
At the exact moment that I grab ahold of Leah’s arm, and the window frame, Jake slams the breaks on in the truck, allowing it to spin more easily in the road. In front of me, Samantha and Magi brace themselves over what has been the center of their focus. The truck spins on its wheels to where our passenger side is nearly lined up with the side of the vehicle that pursues us. This vehicle does not belong to IOUSC.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the passenger door fly open, allowing Eli to stand straddling the small ledge on the door and the seat of the truck. He hesitates a millimeter of a second to center himself in this near to death experience.
“Pull,” he yells, and in one swift, yet accurate motion, Eli pops the pin of one of Cara’s grenades and aims for the other vehicle’s gas tank. The grenade immediately contacts the truck while we spin past the vehicle and come to a stop yards away from the explosion.
The heat radiates from the blast so that it is easily felt at the distance we are from it. The gas causes an explosion, but the flames quickly dissipate in the dry heat of the day.
All at once, everyone jumps from the truck, cheering and laughing, except for Magi and Samantha who stay put in the back of the truck, still hovered over something.
“What’s wrong?” Cara asks in the direction of the ladies in the truck.
Samantha stands up to reveal what she and Magi had been focusing their attention on.
I gasp when I see him lying there lifeless. Why had I not remembered Robert being in the truck. I can place everyone and what they were doing during the fight, but not him.
Why not?
“He was hit with one of the first shots,” Magi says, with a frown on her face.
“Is he dead?” I ask, with a tear in my eye.
“No, not yet.” Samantha frowns.
“It hit him in the chest,” Magi says. “He won’t be with us for long.”
“Liz… Eli…” Our father’s voice gurgles out from the back of the truck. “Come,” he breaths, “here.”
Magi and Samantha hop out of the truck, allowing room for Eli and me to come up. Dia was just a baby when he left so she does not remember him as our father.
“Come closer,” he wheezes.
“You don’t have to talk,” Eli says softly.
“Yes, I do,” he whispers. “My pocket… Reach in my pocket.”
Eli reaches into Robert’s
