I gave him my location and the direction in which I was heading. “You better get here fast.”
“We’re on the way,” he said tersely.
The momentary relief I felt caused me to lose focus and I drove up over the curb, hitting a brown, wooden electric pole that seemed to come out of nowhere. The impact was shocking, causing me to fly forward and smack my head on the steering wheel. The momentum flung me back into my seat, and I blinked through tearing eyes at my now motionless car.
The airbags hadn’t deployed. That was a good thing, right? It meant the car wasn’t so bad off I couldn’t keep driving.
Trying to shake off the headache and nausea that was hitting me hard, I glanced out the windshield at the front side of my car. It was caved in. A busted mess. One of the headlights shattered and no longer worked and the engine was making an odd sort of wheezing sound.
“Max,” the man said through the phone, which had fallen into the passenger seat upon impact.
I scooped up the phone and held it to my ear. “I’m still here.”
“Tell me where it is,” he urged, desperation tingeing his tone.
I rolled my head to the side, looking out the window, and saw it. The black sedan sat idling not far away. The windows were so darkly tinted that seeing inside was impossible. But it didn’t matter who it was.
I knew who wanted me dead.
The passenger-side door opened and one black dress shoe stepped out, followed by the rest of a body of a man wearing a black suit. There was a gun in his hand.
Seeing that gun seemed to snap me back into reality and I jerked up, throwing the car into reverse. Sitting here was like inviting death.
“Max!” the man on the other line demanded.
I knew then I had to tell him. I couldn’t use my life as a bargaining chip for the truth. I knew this was dangerous when I signed on. I knew that this had been a possibility.
I never thought I’d fail.
I reversed quickly, the car dropping off the sidewalk with a bang. I threw the gear into drive and started to speed away just as the man and his gun reached me. A bullet tore through the back window, shattering the glass.
“Max! Goddamn it! Tell me!”
“It’s on its way.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he roared.
The bullets kept on coming, one of them puncturing the back tire. The entire vehicle sagged unevenly as the tire groaned and made a loud rudding sound. I wasn’t going to stop. I couldn’t.
I drove down the street, the rim sparking against the pavement, making it look like I was throwing some kind of firework out the back window.
“Help is on the way, Max,” the man promised, and I believed him. But I no longer thought they’d get here in time. “Please tell me where it is.”
I opened my mouth to tell him. To tell him exactly what he wanted to know.
But the words never got free.
The black sedan came out of nowhere, barreling into the back of my car, sending me into a tailspin across the pavement. I spun in great circles, like the car was on a pair of ice skates and this was some kind of show. And then I slammed into a fire hydrant.
The MKZ flipped and began to roll through the street, all the windows shattered, glass raining every which way. The phone flew out of my hand and my eyes no longer saw.
It’s true what they say.
Your life really does flash before your eyes right before you die.
Memories of being young, being carefree, flooded my head. I no longer felt the injuries that were hammering my body. I no longer felt the glass cutting into my skin or the tug and pull of a too-tight seatbelt.
I saw my first pet, my parents, my old baseball coach.
And then the car stopped flipping. It landed in a heap somewhere in the street. By then I heard sirens somewhere in the distance.
The screeching of tires had me blinking, blinking past the wet stickiness that was in my eyes. The men were still here, waiting to see if I would climb out of this wreck, waiting to see if they had to finish the job.
A face exactly like mine flashed into my thoughts. But it wasn’t me I was seeing. It was my brother. My twin. So alike yet so different.
I couldn’t die for nothing. I couldn’t let them get away with what they’d done.
I coughed, testing out my voice. “Get Tucker,” I said, my voice a mere whisper. That wasn’t good enough.
“Get Tucker!” I said, projecting the two words as far as I could. Pain lanced through my insides. Everything hurt… It hurt so much.
If that phone was still somewhere inside this car, if it was still working, then they heard me. They would know what to do.
If there was anyone who could finish this job, it was Tucker.
Suddenly, I regretted all the hours I spent working. All the time I let slip right by. When was the last time I’d seen my brother? A year? Two?
Even still, I knew he would come.
I just wouldn’t be here when he did.
The sharp smell of gasoline broke through my haze of pain and memories, and I started to struggle, to try and get myself free. I managed to get free of the seatbelt, and my body dropped into a heap onto the hood of the car. The driver’s side window was busted out and I reached for the opening, ready to give all my strength to pulling myself through.
When my head cleared the window, I blinked through the night, looking around for the guy with the gun. No one was there. Not even the dark sedan. They were on the other side of the wreckage. They didn’t see me trying to get free.
The sound of the sirens grew insistent and loud, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I knew they were very close by. Perhaps those hadn’t been my last minutes. Perhaps I really would get out of this.
Hope was like balm to my tattered body. I felt my dry, cracked lips break into a smile.
These assholes were going down. And I was getting a second chance. A second chance at life. I wasn’t going to work it away this time. This time I was going to live.
My torso cleared the wreckage and I stopped to gasp for breath.
A sudden burst of heat caught me off guard. Bright yellow and orange exploded into my vision. Before I could register any blistering pain, the explosion completely melted my body and turned it into ash.
There would be no second chance for me after all.
1
Tucker
My mouth felt like it was packed with cotton. You know that dry but slightly sticky feeling? My tongue moved and it brushed against the roof of my mouth and the cotton came with it.
I grunted and opened my eyes only to immediately shut them again. I wasn’t ready for morning. Shit, how much did I drink last night? My body was still heavy with sleep, my limbs not wanting to get up and cooperate.