White Rabbit(59)
“What?” Hayden’s face practically turns purple.
“The color’s funny and the stamp ain’t right.” Bandana sounds deadly serious. Dropping the tablet into the bag again, he seals it up and tosses the cache back to Lyle. “I don’t know where Whitney got these, but it wasn’t our shipment.”
“You heard the man.” Lyle chucks the Ziploc at Hayden, who swats it away like a nuisance insect. “That junk didn’t come from us, so I guess I don’t owe you squat. Now, get the fuck outta here.”
Hayden’s chest starts to heave, his lips curling, and I can practically see the waves of heat distortion pouring from his eyes as he glares murderously at the complacent biker. “No, no, no—you do not play me like that! This is your merchandise, I got ripped off by your boys, and I want my damn money!”
“Go home to mommy and daddy, you little bitch,” Lyle snaps. “We’re done here.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done!” Hayden shouts, and in one swift motion, he reaches behind his back, yanks something free from the waistband of his shorts, and draws it level with Lyle’s head. “And we’re not done until I’ve got my money!”
It’s a gun. It is a fucking gun. And a half second later it has company when Ponytail draws a piece of his own—something enormous and nickel-plated—and thrusts it into the air at Hayden as though it were a sword. The armed biker shifts from foot to foot, so wired up that even his face starts twitching as he barks, “Watch it, motherfucker!”
“No, no, no.” Sebastian breathes frantically into my ear, his fingers digging into my arm. “Oh, hell no. Oh fuck, dude, this is our cue to fucking leave!”
He starts backward across the pavement, stepping as quickly as possible … and then he turns around and crashes directly into the oil drum behind him. The rebar scrapes and clangs in the belly of the metal bin, rattled by the impact, and the noise rumbles out with the deafening resonance of church bells in a graveyard. Sebastian glances up at me, eyes like the fat zeroes on a time bomb, and I feel the atmosphere drop.
“The fuck was that?” Bandana yelps.
“Is it the cops?” Ponytail demands, his voice pitched almost to a shriek. “Did you set us up, you rich-ass punk? Did you bring the cops here?”
And that’s when the first gunshot rips a hole in the night.
19
The report is loud and heart-stopping—a miniature thunderclap—and a burst of cold, primal adrenaline stokes my body. Simultaneous with the shocking bang, a hole erupts mysteriously in the thick plastic fencing to my left, and a fleshy, tearing sound sizzles through the vegetation to my right. I blink. He’s shooting at us.
It takes a fraction of a second to happen, and as much time again for us to process the fact that Ponytail is shooting at us, and then we’re off and running. Our feet pounding the asphalt, we sprint back up the length of the perimeter fence as more gunshots pop behind us. Glass shatters, people scream, bullets thump against metal, and my lungs burn as I veer after Sebastian, crashing through undergrowth and debris in a panicked retreat back to the abandoned service station.
I make it as far as the restroom outbuilding when another shot sounds, and the corner edge of the wall two feet in front of me explodes; concrete dust blasts from the fresh crater like a plume of volcanic ash, spraying into my eyes, blinding me. At the same moment, something sharp strikes my temple and I reel sideways, tumbling to the ground like a felled oak as the universe somersaults around me.
“Rufus!” Sebastian’s voice has to navigate entire solar systems to reach my ears, but I feel his hands almost immediately as he hauls me to my feet. My eyes are gritty and raw, and I try to force them open, but they won’t cooperate. Stumbling and gasping, I cling to Sebastian as we race crookedly across the gas station’s tiny lot back to the Jeep, chaos filling the air like feedback.
He shoves me up into the passenger seat as I blink hard, trying to squeeze the dust from my watering eyes. They sting, my lids like sandpaper, and the world around me is barely distinguishable—a reflection in a fogged mirror. There are more gunshots, a motorcycle engine growls furiously somewhere, and then the Jeep rocks side to side as Sebastian vaults into position behind the wheel and slams the door. “Buckle up!”
He floors the pedal, and the motor gives a congested cough before roaring abruptly to life. Lurching forward, we jump the curb and crash-land on the street, rising up onto two wheels as Sebastian swings the vehicle around, steering back the way we came.
He shoots across lanes, the strip mall streaking past like a lit-up space station crashing to earth, and we make a beeline for the highway. We’re almost there when another car overtakes us, flying so fast we might just as well be standing still; I recognize Hayden’s BMW a second before its rear bumper smashes out one of the Jeep’s headlights, my older brother careening in front of us and fishtailing up the on-ramp to Route 2. Startled, Sebastian swerves, missing the turn; instead, he punches the gas and shoots beneath the overpass just as sirens began to squall in the distance. A sweaty mile later, he corners sharply into a residential neighborhood, jerking to a stop beneath a streetlamp. The night is almost deafeningly quiet now; no one seems to have followed us.
“Rufus?” Sebastian is staring at me, eyes wild, the gold flecks in his irises burning like caution lights. “Rufe, are you okay?”