“Those people,” I moaned, touching the palm of my hand to my forehead. My eyes fil ed with tears, and I turned to face the front.
A few miles later, two large fire trucks, a pumper truck, and an ambulance raced toward us. all four vehicles ran hot, ful lights and sirens screaming, fading away as they passed. The ambulance trailed behind, but the second its back bumper was in line with ours, it flipped around.
“Jared?”
“I see it,” Jared said, grabbing his side arm from the seat. He reached over, pulling my seat belt tight, and then without slowing down, jerked the Tundra to the right, turning one hundred and eighty degrees until we were face to face with the black-eyed ambulance drivers. Jared held his Glock outside of the window and aimed, shooting at their tires. The ambulance fishtailed, and then Jared jerked the truck again until we were once again facing north, with the ambulance behind us.
The ambulance skidded, and then tumbled forward, final y cartwheeling across the road and into the field on the opposite side.
As I watched it seemed to happen in slow motion, but within seconds of seeing the emergency vehicles, Jared had taken out the ambulance’s front tires and righted the truck so we could go about our journey. My mind hadn’t quite caught up with the events, but my heart was ripping through my chest.
“I thought you said not to kill them!”
Jared put the gun back in the seat and peered into the rearview mirror. “I hope they’re not dead.”
He picked up his phone and held it to his ear. “Claire. They’re shel ing. I need backup.” He snapped the phone shut, and then pushed the phone under his thigh.
“Is she coming?”
He nodded once. “They all are. We just have to get to them.” The Tundra surged forward when Jared stomped on the gas. The speedometer climbed from seventy-five, to eighty-five, then ninety-five. The engine screamed a deafening soprano as Jared desperately tried to get us closer to his sister.
“Maybe we lost them,” I said, more to comfort myself than to convince my husband.
Jared reached his hand across the console and gripped it around mine. We were vulnerable, and he knew it. Any human we came across was a threat. Jared’s hand squeezed tighter, and all color left his face.
“I can’t decide if I should turn off the highway to a road that’s less traveled, or stay and cut down on time.”
“This particular stretch didn’t seem busy when we came through. Maybe We’ll get lucky. It’s the cities I’m worried about.”
We passed only a car or two over the next ten minutes. Every time I saw something in the distance, I tensed and waited. Each time the car would pass without so much as a wave, and the adrenaline would absorb back into my system. I was beginning to feel sick and dizzy after an hour, but I knew we couldn’t stop.
“They’re up to something,” Jared said. He was squinting, trying to focus as far out as he could to see any impending danger.
“How long before we meet Claire?”
“I don’t know when they left. I’m assuming right away. Considering the time of the cal and how fast Claire drives, I would say less than an hour.
Maybe half that.”
I nodded quickly, trying to make myself feel better. “Thirty minutes. We can hold on for thirty minutes. What could they possible throw at us that we couldn’t handle for that long?”
Jared didn’t speak for a solid minute while he studied the road ahead. When he final y focused on a tiny dot in the distance, his face fel , and his breath caught. “Oh, my God.”
I knew my human eyes wouldn’t have been able to make out the dark blur several miles ahead, but Bean gave me focus I might not otherwise have had. The long, dark blots on the road, dancing against the heat off the asphalt, barreled toward us.
It wasn’t until I tried to form a sentence that I realized my mouth was gaping open. “What do we do?”
Jared released my hand and reached under the seat. He offered me an extra handgun, and then put both hands on the wheel.
A caravan of Army vehicles, a Humvee, three Jeeps, and a large supply truck moved toward us at ful speed. The back of the truck reminded me of a covered wagon, only one covered with camouflaged tarp.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, breathless.
“They’re probably on their way to Fort Story,” Jared said.
“I don’t care where they’re going. This is why things have been so quiet, Jared. Hel knew about that caravan and planned to shel them the second they crossed our path. You have to leave the road.”
“They’l just fol ow.”
I sighed in frustration, and then looked down at my watch. “Maybe they aren’t armed.”
“That FMTV transport has an armored cab. It could obliterate the Tundra if I let it get close enough.”
I turned to him and tried a nervous smile. “Please don’t.”
Jared returned my smile, and then nodded, gripping the wheel. He pressed on the gas. I wasn’t sure what he had decided, but he had a plan. It was possible that the drivers of those trucks wouldn’t shel at all . We could pass them without a problem like we had the previous ten or so vehicles.
That, of course, was just empty hope. I could feel a strange burning deep inside my bones. Every one of those soldiers had already turned.
Chapter Fourteen
The Most Important Thing
The jeep passed first, and then the Humvees. I was just about to all ow myself hope when the transport truck jerked into our lane. Jared didn’t twitch; he just drove faster. The needle on the speedometer vibrated at one hundred miles per hour. I gripped the door handle so tight that my knuckles turned white under the pressure. I trusted that Jared had a plan, but at the same time, soaring down the road to meet an armored truck in a head on col ision didn’t sound like a good idea to me.
“Hang on, sweetheart,” Jared said, his voice low. “When I get out, take the wheel.”
“When you get out?” I said, instantly panicked.
In a move that was so smooth it seemed choreographed, Jared swerved to the right and jerked the wheel again in a nearly perfect half-circle around the Army truck. As the Tundra spun off the road, Jared opened the door and stepped out, shooting directly at the Army truck’s tires. I heard several popping noises, but I was focused on grabbing the wheel and getting my foot on the break. Although I was terrified, the move was effortless, and before I had time to be afraid, the Tundra had come to a stop on the shoulder.
I peeked over the steering wheel to see the truck skidded to a stop, all of its tires blown. Jared held one of the soldiers in the crook of his arm.
The soldier went limp, and Jared lowered him gently to the ground. I counted eleven men on the ground, all of them unconscious.
Jared’s eyes met mine, and then he looked behind him, noticing the other vehicles circling around. He took off in a sprint, pointing behind me. I turned to see two shiny dots in the distance. I squinted, focusing in on the objects, and made out a motorcycle and a black sports car. It was Claire’s Exige, traveling at a speed manageable only to Earth’s most badass Hybrid.
I turned the wheel and stomped on the gas, picking Jared up along the way. My foot was flush against the floorboard as we raced toward our family.
Jared had barely broken a sweat.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yes. The shel s don’t have the strength of demons because they don’t have the same hold on them that they do when they take the time to possess. I didn’t want to kill them, so I incapacitated them.”