No one replied.
Pulling herself up, Allie saw the driver wrestling with the steering wheel. The guard was talking into a microphone, his voice low but tense.
She looked around to try and see what had happened but all she could see was darkness and headlights.
The driver swore and spun the wheel. ‘Goddammit. Where are they coming from?’
Allie was clinging to the door handle, but the sheer force of the turn threw her against the door so hard her breath hissed through her teeth from the pain.
‘What is going on?’ she demanded again, louder this time.
Without waiting for an answer, she reached over her shoulder for the seatbelt and strapped herself in, latching it with a metallic click.
Then she turned to look out the back window. What she saw made her breath catch in her throat. There weren’t four vehicles anymore.
There were ten.
‘Are those ours?’ she asked, her voice faint.
No one replied to that question, either. But they didn’t have to. She knew the answer already.
A large, tank-like vehicle swung up next to them, revving its engine. Suddenly the Land Rover seemed small.
Allie stared at the monstrous thing, her heart contracting. Its windows were tinted – she couldn’t see who was inside.
Without warning it gunned the engine and swerved sharply towards them.
‘Look out!’ she cried, ducking low.
The driver yanked the wheel. The Land Rover swung right, so sharply Allie’s stomach dropped.
They dodged the collision but the car wobbled wildly and the driver struggled to keep control. He clung to the wheel, muscles bulging from the effort as the tyres squealed and they swung across two lanes.
‘Six to seven vehicles, affirmative,’ the guard in the passenger seat said into his microphone. He was clutching the safety handle above his door to try and hold himself steady as another massive machine swung towards them with an angry roar.
‘Convoy disrupted and separated. Other vehicles using diversionary tactics… Look to your left!’
He shouted the last words at the driver, who saw the car heading straight towards them at the last minute and wrenched the wheel hard. Too hard.
The Land Rover spun sickeningly. Allie couldn’t feel the road beneath their tyres anymore. They seemed to be flying.
The scene took on a dream-like feel. The world outside blurred. They swirled in a deadly dance towards the flimsy guardrail.
Allie closed her eyes.
Nathaniel had found them.
2
Inside the Land Rover, the noise was deafening. The driver and guard shouted orders at each other. The engine roared. Tyres shrieked.
It sounded like war.
Clinging to the door handle, Allie bit her lip to stifle a scream. Ahead of her, the driver fought the steering wheel, sweat beading his forehead from the effort, tendons in his neck cording as he struggled to regain control of the wildly spinning vehicle.
‘Pull out!’ The guard kept saying. ‘Pull out!’
‘It’s not…’ the driver replied through gritted teeth ‘… responding.’
The acrid scent of burning rubber filled the air as they neared the edge.
‘We’re going to hit!’ the guard shouted.
The Land Rover struck the guardrail with an awful, crunching thud.
Allie gave a frightened cry as she was thrown forward against the seatbelt.
The guardrail bent but didn’t give way. The force of the impact broke their spin. The vehicle swerved left, then right, and then the driver had control at last.
‘We’re good,’ he announced, relief evident in his voice.
With her heart still thudding in her ears, Allie sagged back in her seat. But Nathaniel’s cars were still all around them.
The guard pointed to the left. ‘There! Take that exit.’
Looking where he indicated, Allie saw an exit ramp looming.
‘Roger that,’ the driver muttered.
He waited until the last second, then turned the wheel and accelerated hard. They hurtled off the motorway at incredible speed.
Craning her neck, Allie looked through the rear window. Nathaniel’s cars had overshot the exit. It would cost them valuable seconds to backtrack and follow.
The driver must have thought the same thing, because he sped through a red light and tore around a roundabout before turning on to a dark country road. Allie kept her eyes on the road behind them – no headlights followed. With an audible exhale, she turned to the front.
The lane was so narrow and winding, it was impossible to get up much speed but the driver did the best he could.
From the passenger seat, the guard relayed the directions coming through his earpiece. ‘Left. Right at the next exit. Here. NO! Here. Down that lane…’
Clearly, someone was tracking their progress by satellite and providing a safe route. Allie found this oddly comforting. They weren’t entirely alone out here in the dark.