Chapter Twelve
~On the Run~
If it were possible, Laura would have said Logan turned even paler than usual. Suddenly, the confident young man she knew looked very frightened.
“Are you sure?” he asked her.
“Yes!” she practically screamed. “Would I come here like this, in the middle of class, if I wasn’t?” Everybody was still looking. The teacher started making her way over. “Miss,” the teacher began, but Laura ignored it. She had eyes only for Logan.
“You’re right,” he nodded. “We have to go.” And, taking her hand, he led her into the hall.
“Logan, wait,” she said outside the classroom. “Where are we going?”
“We have to get away,” he answered, continuing down the hall. His hand gripping hers gave her strength, made her feel stronger. Less scared.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll tell you. Later. But right now, we need to get out of the school.” The hall forked into two, and he looked down both ways, seeming uncharacteristically unsure of himself. Finally, settling on a direction, he led her that way.
They came up to an exit door, and he opened it for her. Before she stepped through, though, he stopped her.
“Your bag,” he said, “where is it?”
“I left it in my other class.”
“There’s no time to get it, now,” he mumbled to himself. “Do you have anything important in there?”
“Notebooks, school notes, that type of thing.”
“What about your cell phone?”
“It’s in my pocket.”
Logan nodded. “Good.” And he ran out the school with her trailing. Outside, Laura realized where he was headed: towards the parking lot, where he presumably had his car.
Sure enough, Laura picked it out, standing in that same far corner as before. Logan was at a dead-run, now, and Laura struggled to keep up. He got to the car way before her, and was already in the driver’s seat with the engine on when Laura opened the door.
As soon as Laura clicked on her seatbelt, he gunned the engine, and sped out of the lot. When they were on the road, he started checking his back mirror every few seconds. Obsessively. There was an obvious tension he was feeling, and the silence that stretched between them didn’t help.
“What do you keep looking for?” Laura asked suddenly.
“If they’re coming,” he replied distractedly.
“The men from the office?” Laura asked. Logan nodded quickly in reply. “But how would they even know that we left?”
“Trust me. They know.”
There was such conviction in his words, that Laura started looking over her shoulder, too. Everything seemed fine at first – there weren’t many cars on the road this close to the school at this hour – and nobody appeared to be coming after them. Just as Laura started to relax slightly, a black car appeared far behind them. Laura squinted her eyes. It appeared to be getting larger, getting closer to them, very quickly.
“Logan, the black car,” Laura said.
“I see it.” His face was the picture of concentration. Laura looked back again. And was shocked to see the black car almost right behind them. The windows were tinted, so she couldn’t see inside, but she could make out the model. They were being chased by a black Cadillac.
“Hold on,” Logan muttered, and hit the accelerator. Hard.
Laura cried out at the sudden acceleration, and flew back against her seat. Logan was doing fifty, sixty, seventy miles on the small road. Parked cars flashed by the sides, and Logan swerved left and right to pass other vehicles on the road. Laura gripped the bottom of her seat so tightly she thought she’d never be able to let go.
Laura knew this stretch of road, knew that it would narrow into one lane each way quickly. And she saw a car not far in front of them. There was no way to pass it in this section. Looking back, Laura saw that the Cadillac was still on their tail.
Suddenly Logan switched into the oncoming lane. A yellow school bus came hurtling towards them. It sounded its horn, loudly, urgently. Laura could see a small gap on her right, where the car that had been in front of them slowed down. The bus kept coming, the horn got louder as it came closer, and Laura screamed as they were about to hit it.
At the last moment, Logan veered back into the right lane, just in front of that car. The bus passed by, the reverberations from its passing shaking the Volvo. Laura’s breath caught. She stared at Logan in amazement, but he didn’t look the least bit anxious. At least, not anxious about driving. All he did was keep checking the mirror, continuing to monitor the progression of the black car.
Laura saw an intersection far ahead of them. With a stale green light. She gripped her seat tighter as Logan sped up. He was going to try to make it. As they raced closer, Laura watched in horror as the light turned amber. They were too far to make it. But Logan didn’t let up, didn’t slow down. If anything, he went even faster.
The light turned red, and time slowed for Laura. She watched, paralyzed, as the cars lined up at the light started inching forward, ever so slowly, in the perpendicular direction. And Logan kept going. The other cars started accelerating too, moving further into the intersection. Laura felt their car going faster. The gap between them and the intersection closed. Cars were coming from left and right. And Logan wasn’t slowing down. He was going to go through.
Laura shut her eyes and prayed for nothing to happen. Just at that moment, the loud blare of angry horns from all directions sounded. She felt the vibrations of cars passing in front and behind them, heard the swerving of tires, and was sure she was going to die.
Suddenly, all was quiet. The sound of horns was coming from behind them. She opened her eyes. They were driving on the other side of the crossing. They had made it!
An ear-shattering crash sounded from behind her. She spun around, looking out the back window of the Volvo. And, back in the distance of the intersection, she saw the black Cadillac smashed against the side of an orange truck.
She looked to Logan, who let up on the accelerator. Slightly. He stared straight ahead, now. And he was tense. His jaw was tense, his posture was tense; everything about him was tense.
“Logan, we made it,” she said, “they got hit.”
“Not for long,” he answered. But then she saw him relax. Just a little.
“Logan, you have to tell me what’s going on. Who were those people?”
“I didn’t want to bring you into this,” he answered.
“You have to tell me!”
“It wasn’t meant to be like this.”
“Logan, you have to tell me!”
“I’m sorry, Maria.” He said that in the barest whisper, so quiet that Laura thought she misheard the words.
“What? Logan, what is going on, tell me!” Laura felt herself on the verge of tears. She was scared, emotionally drained. Terrified, really. And uncertain. “Who are you?”
He looked at her. His eyes were red, too. “I’m sorry, Laura. You deserve to know the truth. And you will. I’m going to tell you everything.”