The Fall(27)

“How good of a shot are you?” I cracked open the passenger’s side door, beyond pissed I was going to have to make this f*cking call. “And I don’t want to hear women-can-do-anything-men-can-do shit. I’m talking about real shooting, moving targets.”

“I’m a cop, of course—”

“Not what I f*cking asked,” I snapped back, already wasting more time than I would have liked. “I’m looking for precision and speed, not hitting cardboard targets on range.”

“Yes. I can shoot,” she said confidently, her back straightening in conviction as she moved to the open passenger’s side door and sliding into the seat.

“Don’t make me regret this.” I slammed the door behind her.

Putting her at the wheel wasn’t an option. Without recon, I had no idea what we were dealing with out there. I needed to be able to get us out of here alive and put some distance between us while keeping my head on a swivel. This was going to go beyond defensive driving. If I kept pressure on them with my gun as well, I’d guarantee you one of those areas would suffer. Too big a risk. So I was going to have to hope she could at the very least apply some heat. Returning fire, the lesser of the two evils.

“You shoot, I’ll drive.” I climbed into the driver’s side of my Camaro, my forty-five kept at an easy reach on the center consol. If it came to the crunch, I’d have to bring some of my own noise.

“Buckle in. I don’t want you messing up my windshield if I need to stop suddenly.” I fastened my own seat belt as she was locked in, my hand hitting the ignition a second later.

The V8 roared in the dark—my headlights and interior staying off until we put some distance between us—as the garage door slowly rose behind us. The f*cker was taking too long, my foot slamming on the accelerator the second I thought we could clear it.

“Fuck.” My jaw locked as the top of the door scraped against the roof of the car, my judgment off by a quarter inch as I reversed out.

Not that screwing up the paint job on my ride was an issue considering as soon as rubber had breached the back alley, a bullet hit my rear side window, blowing a hole into it. The bastard went right through the other side, shattering the glass as we fishtailed in the narrow space.

It was too f*cking close and we needed to get gone.

“Give me some cover, Sofia.” I gritted my teeth, throwing it into gear as my boot punched the gas, needing to get out of this alley in a f*cking hurry. “I don’t care if it’s a squirrel, if it moves, f*cking shoot it.”

She nodded, her body twisting in the seat as much as the nylon strip across her chest would let her. Her nine fired a couple of rounds out of the holes we’d been provided, my back windows history as all glass left in the door frames shook loose with the vibrations as we moved.

“Left side,” she hollered, squeezing the trigger as bullets from our friends ate into my back left panel.

“Motherf*cker.” I wrenched the wheel to the right narrowly missing traffic, the ass of my car needing a second before it got on the same page as we slid sideways onto the main road.

And either the trigger-happy * was mobile or he had a friend. The minute we passed a streetlight I was able to identify an Audi A8 was on our tail redlining as we both left rubber on asphalt.

“Get them off my ass.” I punched it, weaving in and out of lanes as I avoided collecting a car or two as a hood ornament. My feet worked overtime, alternating between gas and the brakes as I took another hard right hoping to get us some clear road in front of us.

“I’m trying.” Sofia struggled to get the angle for a decent shot. Unless she could dislocate a shoulder and still maintain enough muscle control to pull the trigger, she wasn’t going to be much help.

“This is f*cking bullshit.” The A8 did its best to shadow me despite me using every single one of those ponies underneath my hood.

There was only one vehicle between us, a silver Yukon that I’d cut off when I pulled out in front of it. It wasn’t ideal, but the truck gave us a tiny buffer, the GMC’s ass giving me some cover.

My buffer didn’t last long, with the Yukon wising up and swerving into the next lane, which unfortunately meant it caught a stray bullet—either Sofia’s or the cocksucker’s—the driver locking up its brakes and skidding out of control.

Two ton of metal torqued onto its side, sparks flying as the screeching metal cab made contact with the road. Not what I’d planned but one hell of an improvise as the Yukon slid across two lanes of traffic until it hit a guardrail.

“Oh my god!” Sofia screamed, the crash happening so fast. “Are they okay? Did I just kill someone?”

“Get your shit together; they are not your problem right now,” I shouted back, my eyes glued to the road as I overtook a couple of cars. Lucky for them the little incident with the truck had momentarily induced a cease-fire. The Audi driver probably using all their effort to stay upright while playing dodge ball with the GMC.

“We’ve got company.” Sofia pointed to a blur of flashing lights in the rearview, the sirens getting louder.

“Awesome, because I needed more of a challenge tonight.” I slammed on the brakes and skidded around a bend, smoke rising from the tires as they gripped hard.

No doubt the cops were already calling it in which meant that in a few minutes we were going to be biting off a little more than we could chew.