Hellbent

Keeping the needle pegged at the speed limit, Evan drove a circuitous route to the nearest freeway and ran past four exits before hopping off and shooting west through an increasingly rural tangle of desolate back roads. Gray clouds pervaded the sky, heavy with the promise of rain. Sure enough, a few drops tapped the roof, quickening to a rat-a-tat, ushering dusk into full night. Decreased visibility was good; it went both ways. Local law enforcement had undoubtedly already issued a Be On the Lookout for the Cadillac.

He had to change vehicles, but first he needed to get a good distance between himself and the men who’d raided the apartment compound. Then he would regroup, determine what the package was, and deal with the problem in the trunk and the myriad questions that came with it.

He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, settled his shoulders. He blew out a breath, opened his eyes, and reset himself, assessing everything as if he were confronting it for the first time.

Jack’s dying message.

A package.

An address.

A girl who was an Orphan — or at the very least Orphan-trained.

Who was hostile.

But not allied with the crew of men, led by another seeming Orphan, who had raided the apartment complex in pursuit of her, the package, or Evan himself.

A crew that had Van Sciver’s fingerprints all over it.

Which left a whole lot of questions and very few answers.

The rain thrummed and thrummed. The girl in the trunk banged a few times, shouted something unintelligible. The windshield wipers groaned and thumped.

First order of business was to do a quick equipment appraisal.

Evan’s scuffed knuckles, a fetching post-fight shade of eggplant, ledged the steering wheel. His nose was freshly broken, leaking a trickle of crimson. Nothing bad, more a shifting along old fault lines.

He inspected his nose in the rearview, then reached up and snapped it back into place.

The Cadillac’s alignment pulled to the right, threatening to dump him into the rain-filled roadside ditch. The seat springs poked into the backs of his thighs, and the fabric, dotted with cigarette scorch marks, reeked of menthol. The dome light housed a bare, burned-out bulb, the brake disks made a noise like an asphyxiating chicken, and the left rear brake light was out.

He should have stolen a better car.

Rain dumped down. That was Portland for you. Or — if he was being precise — a country road outside Hillsboro.

Big drops turned the roof into a tin drum. Water sluiced across the windshield, rooster-tailed from the tires.

He sledded around a bend, passing a billboard. A moment later smeared red-and-blue lights illuminated the Caddy’s rear window.

A cop.

The broken brake light.

That was inconvenient.

Especially on this car, since a BOLO had likely been issued. The cop would be running the plate number now if he hadn’t already.

Evan blew out a breath. Leaned harder into the gas pedal.

Here came the sirens. The headlights grew larger.

Evan could see the silhouette of the officer behind the wheel. So much like a shooting target — head and chest, all critical mass.

Hillsboro prided itself on being one of the safest cities in the Pacific Northwest. Evan hoped to keep it that way.

As he popped the brakes and jerked the wheel, the heap of a car rocked on its shocks, fanning onto an intersecting road.

Two more cop cars swept in behind him from the opposite direction.

Evan sighed.

Three patrol cars lit up like Christmas, sirens screaming, spreading out across both lanes and closing in.

That was when the thumping from the trunk grew more pronounced.

He checked the wheel, loose enough to jog two inches in either direction with no effect on the steering. He was going to have to attempt tactical driving maneuvers in a car that should not be highway-approved.

Evan had spent a portion of the summer of his fifteenth year on a specialized course in the sticks of Virginia with Jack in the passenger seat keeping one hand on the wheel, steering him through everything from evasive driving to acceleration techniques in challenging traction environments.

Just another kid out with his old man, learning to drive.

In their final conversation, he’d told Jack, I wouldn’t trade knowing you for anything. He felt it now not as a sentiment but as a warmth in his chest. He was glad he’d gotten the words out.

The Cadillac backfired. The motor sounded like it had a marble loose in it. Evan grimaced.

All right, Jack. Let’s do this together.

He started to alternate brake and gas, playing with the pursuing cruisers, forcing them to alter their lineup. At last one separated from the pack, moving bullishly to the fore.

Evan held the wheel steady, luring the lead car closer.

A crackly loudspeaker pierced the rain. “Pull over immediately! Repeat: Pull to the side of the road!”

Evan called back to the girl in the trunk, “You might want to brace yourself.”

The girl shouted, “Great!”

He unholstered his ARES.