He was crossing the room now, going to the other side, opposite the door.
“I’ll throw something,” Dani whispered into my ear. “When he shoots at it, shoot at him.” She felt around quietly on the floor. “Got something,” she breathed again into my ear. “Get ready.”
She threw something to the left. Gavin’s shadow spun around, a loud crack as he took another shot. I aimed for his shadow, pulled the trigger, heard a yell, then the sounds of him falling, the clatter of crates being pulled down. I didn’t know how badly we’d hurt him, but we got to our feet and ran to the end of the warehouse, feeling our way for the door to the other storage room.
“Here,” Dani said.
We pushed open the door. Courtney’s small figure was curled on the floor, a lantern beside her. She was naked.
Dani picked her up, gripping her under her arms, and dragged her to her feet. Courtney leaned against Dani, her arm over Dani’s shoulder, whimpering in pain.
I grabbed Courtney’s dress off the floor and we ran toward the doorway out of the warehouse. Dani was still supporting Courtney’s weight, her arm wrapped tight around her waist, me leading the way, the gun against my shoulder.
Where was Gavin? Had I killed him?
We were in the hallway, moving fast for the door. Dani was breathing hard behind me. We got to the truck. I prayed the keys were still in it.
Dani lifted Courtney into the passenger’s side. I kept the gun pointed at the exit, glancing around. Was he in the bushes? Could he circle behind us?
Dani climbed in the driver’s side. “Get in, Jess!”
I raced to the passenger side, jumped inside.
The keys were still dangling from the ignition. Dani started the truck, turned on the headlights. Gavin came running out of the building, his shoulder soaked with blood. Brian was behind him.
Dani threw the truck in reverse, backed up a few feet, then jammed it into gear and pounded on the gas as she spun it around, doing a one-eighty and almost hitting one of them. Brian clung to the side window. We were all screaming.
I hit at his hands until he finally let go and fell to the ground.
*
We raced down the dirt road, gravel shooting out from behind us, the truck fishtailing on corners.
“I don’t know which way to go!” Dani yelled. “I don’t know where we are.”
“Just keep going until we get to a house,” I said.
“We can’t go to a house. We can’t get help,” she said.
“I don’t want to see anyone!” Courtney was finally talking—and crying hysterically. “I don’t want anyone to know,” she said between sobs. “No one can know.” She yanked the dress out of my hands and pulled it down over her head.
“The police will want our names,” Dani said. “They’ll figure out who we are.” We all knew what might happen after that. I thought of Dad’s body under the pigs, his truck in the quarry.
“But they’re going to get away with it,” I said.
“I don’t want anyone to know,” Courtney insisted again.
“What are we going to do?” I was frantic with fear, desperate to get far away from Brian and Gavin. “We can’t take their truck into town. People will recognize it. Can we just drive it to Vancouver?”
Dani glanced down at the gauges. “The assholes are almost out of gas.”
“Should we try to steal another truck?” I said.
“That’ll just send the cops after us. We need to get our truck back.”
“From the garage?” I said.
“Yeah, we’ll ditch this truck in town—it’s late, not many people will be out on the streets. We can leave it at the bar, then we’ll steal ours back. We have the shop keys. They said our truck was fixed—and we know it’s got gas. Our rifle is probably still under the seat or they would’ve bragged about finding it.”
“They might’ve been lying—they could’ve gotten rid of the truck,” I said.
“No, I’m betting they kept it.”
A souvenir.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
We followed the road for a while, unsure if we were heading away from town or closer.
“What if we’re going the wrong way and they’re already in town?” I said.
“They’re hurt. They have to come up with a plan too.”
“They might say we attacked them—that we stole their stuff.”
“They don’t want the cops asking questions either,” Dani said.
I glanced over at Courtney, who hadn’t said anything since we’d escaped. She was staring out the window. Once in a while she would look over her shoulder at the road behind us. I grabbed her hand and held it, but hers felt limp.
Finally we started seeing houses, then we crossed a bridge. The tires hummed on the surface.
“That sounds familiar. I think we crossed over this bridge that night!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Dani said.
“We’re almost there, Courtney,” I said. “We made it.”