Page 97 of Forever Dark
Another glance in the mirror showed the hatchback motionless at the culvert, one wheel spinning uselessly.She saw people getting out.They looked okay.
“Dispatch will get units there,” Selena said, hating every word.“We keep going.”
No answer for a second.
Then Connor said, “Understood.”
The black SUV and beige sedan had created enough confusion to regain position, but their spacing was sloppier now.The crash had rattled them.Selena used it.
She dropped two gears and shot past the beige sedan on a straight stretch where the road skimmed along open pasture.Its driver tried to squeeze her, but too late.Connor bullied the black SUV wide at the next bend, his larger vehicle forcing the issue with local knowledge and nerve.
Now there was only the bus.
Selena could see straight into the rear window, dark glass reflecting the sky.Connor’s SUV tucked close behind it.She pulled alongside on the left, then had to fall back when an oncoming feed truck blasted around a blind bend.
Connor came over the radio, calm in that way he got when things were moving too fast for panic.
“Next turnoff’s a county road.Barely more than a lane.If we can force him onto it, I can beat him at the crossroads.”
“Can you?”
“Remember I used to dirt bike here in my teens.”
A harsh breath left her.“You crashed more than once.”
Up ahead a weathered sign leaned beside a narrow road disappearing between trees and hills.
Connor said, “Now!”
Selena surged forward until her front bumper reached the bus’s driver window.The machine was huge up close, all vibrating panels and reflected light.She leaned on the horn and drove half a car-width into its lane, not enough to collide, enough to threaten.The bus drifted away from her by instinct.
The county road appeared and Croft’s driver, boxed between Selena and the ditch, took it rather than risk a head-on with Connor’s SUV pressing from behind.
The bus lumbered onto the smaller road, suspension rocking.
Selena followed hard.
Trees crowded close here.A small sidewalk narrowed to patched blacktop with no center line, twisting between steep banks and split-rail fences.The bus could not use its size anymore.It had to slow for every bend.
Connor disappeared from her mirror.
Good.
He had taken the shortcut.
The road climbed, curved left around a stand of sycamores, then dipped past an old red barn with half the roof gone.Selena stayed on the bus’s back corner, close enough now to see the driver’s silhouette through the windshield when the road straightened.
“Come on,” she whispered.
At the next rise the shortcut paid off.
Connor’s SUV shot into view from a lane on the right and swung broadside across the road ahead of the bus.Brakes screamed.The bus lurched.Selena stamped on her own pedal and stopped at an angle behind it, trapping the larger vehicle between them.
Dust drifted through the evening light.
Connor was already out of the SUV, weapon drawn, moving to the driver’s side of the bus with quick, sure steps.Selena came out of her car a heartbeat later, gun in hand, and advanced quickly.The ground felt solid under her boots.Her pulse was hard and clean now.No room left for anything but command.
“Driver!”Connor shouted.“Shut it down and open the door!”
