To the Stars (Thatch #2)(91)

“One . . . two . . .” I watched the SUV closely, then shouted, “Shit!” as I slammed on the brakes.

We hadn’t even come to a full stop when I saw Collin’s airbag deploy, and I took off again.

“That wasn’t three,” Harlow choked out, and I glanced over to see her entire body shaking and tears streaming down her face.

“I’m sorry.” I brushed her hair back from her face and looked her over quickly before paying attention to the road again. I tapped on my phone when it rang, and put it on speaker. “Yeah?”

“Whatever the f*ck that was, it hurt like a bitch!” Deacon yelled. “But he’s already driving.”

“Are you okay?” I asked, and glanced into the mirror. My stomach fell and fear flooded my veins when I saw the misshapen front of the BMW coming up not far in the distance. “Shit.”

“Yeah, we were getting ready to try a pit on him whenever that last thing just happened. We’re coming, but he’s f*ckin’ fast, man.”

“I know,” I groaned as Collin got closer. “I’m almost to the city. If I can get there, he’ll back off. He won’t do anything in public.”

I could see Harlow nodding as she sobbed.

“It’s gonna be okay, Harlow. We’ve got this.” Deacon tried to sound encouraging for her, but I could tell through the phone that he was in pain.

I tried to coax my truck to go a little faster, but it wasn’t happening, and Collin was almost to us. “Come on, come on, come on,” I mumbled, and only felt the tiniest bit of relief when we started getting into civilization. Deacon was still trying to calm Harlow, and Collin was going faster than ever—despite having smashed into the back of my truck.

He knew he was about to lose his opportunity.

I glanced down to my speedometer, 118 mph, and we were finally seeing cars now. Collin and I wove in and out of them. Horns were honked and cars swerved out of the way, but I didn’t slow down. When I got on another stretch where there were no cars, I allowed myself to feel some small bit of hope.

“We’re almost there, Low.”

We had three, maybe four minutes before we got to a place where the traffic would be too heavy to continue at high speed. And while I was betting Collin would stop then, I had also thought earlier that he would’ve stopped as soon as we got around other cars, and he hadn’t.

Collin pulled up directly behind us again, but this time he drifted to the right, and I did a double take when I saw him leaning out of the driver’s window.

“What in the f*ck,” I whispered as my eyes darted between the road and my rearview mirror. “What is—” I broke off suddenly, and felt sick when I saw why he was risking leaning out. “Shit,” I hissed, and started using the entire road to drive, hoping it would make it harder for him. “Don’t look back!” I yelled when I saw Harlow turn. “Just keep talking to Deacon, Low. Close your eyes and talk to Deacon,” I begged.

Harlow was right. He’d snapped.

Harlow screamed when Collin shot his gun, and I shouted another curse but didn’t stop driving. Another shot rang out, and Harlow started whimpering incoherent words. I’d barely registered the third shot before my truck swerved from where he’d hit the rear right tire. I didn’t stop, but it gave Collin the perfect amount of time to line up for another shot—and hit the front right tire. My truck swerved across the entire road as the first tire Collin had hit shredded from how fast I’d been going. I clipped the front of the car Collin was driving as we swerved, and shot my arm out in front of Harlow’s chest when I felt my truck start to defy gravity.

She grabbed on to me, and it somehow felt like I had all the time in the world to turn my head to look at her—and yet, no time at all—as my truck started flipping.

The last thing I remember was looking into her panicked blue eyes before the airbags went off.

Harlow

Present Day—Richland

MY EYES SLOWLY cracked open, and at first all I saw was white and started to panic. But then slowly I heard noises—like people shouting—smelled something acrid, and realized the white thing in front of me was squishy.

I looked to the left and a sob burst from my chest when I saw Knox sitting there, unresponsive. I hurried to unbuckle my seat belt so I could try to climb over the center console to get to him, and had just gotten it undone when the passenger door was ripped open.

Someone grabbed at me, and at first I thought it must’ve been someone coming to check on us, but I should’ve known who it was by the way his hands gripped at me possessively—should’ve known he wouldn’t stop.

“No!” I shouted, and tried to get away from him, not that there was anywhere else I could go in the truck. But if he was trying to pull me out of it, I wanted to stay in there, and I wanted to stay with Knox. “No! Knox! Knox, wake up!” I screamed, and kicked at Collin as he pulled me from the cab of the truck.

“I have a feeling this belongs to you.” Collin tossed my secret cell phone into the truck, then turned us both away. “Walk,” Collin demanded. His voice was the same as it was last night. Soft, bored, detached, but still held power.

“Let me go!” I yelled, and thrashed against him.

Cars had stopped on the freeway; people were out of their cars and watching us—some had their phones pointed at us, and some were talking on them. But Collin didn’t care, because he wasn’t Collin anymore, and he wasn’t my monster.