“Melina, just take it,” he said. We passed a semi that blared its air horn, rattling my teeth in my head at how loud it felt even over the screaming engine of Cam's truck. Cam jerked the wheel over and we swerved in front of the semi, jamming on the brakes almost immediately. My seatbelt bit deeply into my chest, and I was sure I was going to have a case of whiplash afterward, but it still wasn't fast enough. The car that had been pursuing us clipped the back of Cam's truck, and suddenly we were spinning, Cam gritting his teeth while I screamed. We hit the dirt, a cloud of dust surrounding us and obliterating everything outside the cab of the truck.
I could hear Cam muttering under his breath, and I was pretty sure he was telling his truck not to flip, but I couldn't be certain. We spun around once and a bit more, the truck coming to a stop with the nose pointed back toward the highway. Cam reached across me and opened the glove box. "Now we find out if they're ours or theirs."
“Huh?” I gasped, confused, scared, and nearly out of my mind.
"The car. If they're ours, they'll drive on, not wanting to be identified. If they're not . . .” Cam pulled out a pistol that looked sleek and deadly, jacking the slide and staring out the window of the truck. "If they're not, we're going to have to fight."
I gaped at him, unsure if I was seeing correctly, or if the combination of fear and pain was causing me to hallucinate. My seatbelt still bit deeply into my chest and I pushed at it, struggling for a moment before remembering something a friend who had been a volunteer firefighter in Ohio taught me. Seat belts work on momentum and pull, kind of like Venetian blinds. As long as the belt pulls slowly in one direction or another, it flows easily. However, once the friction lock kicks in, all the yanking for slack in the world isn't going to do a damn thing. Instead, the trick is to try and give the belt a little bit of slack. Once the tension is off the friction lock should disengage unless the belt's been damaged in some way. Since Cam's truck hadn't flipped, I hoped the belt wasn't damaged.
Exhaling as hard as I could, I sucked in my belly like I was trying to jam myself into jeans that were two sizes too small, and pushed on the belt, feeding it back into the slot on the door post. I actually heard a light chunk as the lock let go, and suddenly the belt was loose and floppy in my hands again, allowing me to unlatch the belt and breathe again. "Fuck."
In the amount of time I'd been struggling with my belt, Cam was already out of the truck, kneeling in the dirt near the nose of his truck, his pistol out and pointing toward the road. The dust had settled some, and I could see nothing of the car that had been pursuing us. I could see the semi we'd passed had stopped, and I could see the driver waddling his way down the breakdown lane toward us. I opened my door and got out, looking around. There was nobody else, except for a car that passed us as I went around the back of the truck. It looked like most our stuff was somehow still in the back, although I guess it wasn't too outlandish considering they were heavy.
Cam got off his knee and lowered his pistol, still keeping it at his side. He turned, and while most of the dangerous look was off of his face, the ghost of it was still there. "Are you all right?"
"What the fuck was that?" I asked, anger replacing my fear. "What the hell are you involved in?"
"I hoped it wouldn't happen anymore, not after last time and my warning," Cam said, still looking at the approaching truck driver. He seemed to make a decision internally and stepped back, looking at me for the first time. He sighed and looked down. "Remember the other day, along the Rio Grande, when we talked about regrets? This was part of it."
"Part of what?" I yelled, pushing him in the chest. "Nearly getting us killed? Packing heat? Is that thing even legal?"
"It is, and I have a totally legit concealed carry license as well," Cam said, ignoring my hands and going back to the truck, putting the pistol in the driver's seat. "And I never tried to get you killed."
"Well, what do you call this?!” I screamed, shoving him again. I raised my hand to smack him, expecting him to block it or try and grab my wrist. Instead, I slapped him across the face as hard as I could, rocking his head to the left and sending a final crack across the desert that was quickly swallowed by the wind.
Cam turned his face to look at me again, and I blanched. My fingernails had torn two furrows in his cheek, the blood already welling up to drip down his cheek. I could also see the pain in his eyes, but it wasn't from the slap itself, but at how upset I was. "Melina, I promise you I'll explain all of this, but now’s not the time. The driver's nearly here."
His quiet, plaintive voice doused my anger in a splash of icy water. I nodded and broke down, sobbing as Cam wrapped his arms around me. "What is going on?"
"I promise, I'll tell you. But I can't right now. The less you know for the next day, the better. It'll protect you."
The truck driver came up, huffing from the shuffling run he'd been doing. "Gawddam," he drawled in what had to be the world's most perfect country-western accent. "You two okay?"
"We're not hurt,” Cam said. “Where’s the car that hit us?”