Page 15

She smirked. “’Cause I’m a fighter.”
Toth didn’t reply, just steered onto the interstate, and as Seattle faded behind them, Savannah’s anxiety eased. Darkness was pushing away the pinky-gray hue of the dusky sky.
After another thirty minutes or so, the interstate turned into a single lane. Toth drove them farther and farther from home and deeper into the mountains. Pine trees walled one side of the road as they traveled higher. The stretch of thousands, no, millions, of trees laid out below and as far as her eye could see always filled Savannah with wonder. She’d lived here her whole life and its beauty still took her breath away.
As she gazed out of the window, tasks pinged around in her head, but thinking about work was useless. There was very little she could do with a pen and paper. When she got home next week, she’d have a pile of—
Lights flashed. Headlights.
A vehicle erupted from the wall of trees at the left side of the road. It didn’t slow.
Savannah straightened in her seat as fear gripped her spine. “Toth!”
“Shit!” Toth gunned the vehicle forward, but there was no way to escape the truck closing in on them.
Crash!
The vehicle slammed into the driver’s side of the car. Savannah’s body whipped to the right.
A scream tore from her throat. Toth’s shouts reverberated off the windows, but not a single word sunk into her brain. She gripped the back of the seat in front of her and turned her head away from the blast of headlights.
“Get down, dammit!”
Toth rolled down his window and took aim with his gun.
Crack! Crack!
As Savannah ducked low, her gaze flitted to the window. The edge of the mountain loomed. Any second and they’d tumble over the side.
Searing-hot fear touched her palate, too dry to let out another scream. The vehicle pushing them reversed.
Oh god. Oh thank god.
Savannah’s chest heaved. Had Toth shot the driver? Killed him? She lifted her head. Their attacker was still reversing.
“Hang on!” Toth shouted.
The truck gunned forward.
Smash!
Savannah’s body jerked. The sickening crunch of metal on metal screeched in her eardrums.
A weightlessness took over her limbs and her stomach lifted to her throat as the vehicle rolled over the escarpment. Savannah covered her head and screamed as they barreled into the treetops. Her head connected sharply with the window. A screeching noise filled Savannah’s eardrums. She fought to hang on to consciousness, but darkness kept pulling her down, down, down...
A husky, anxious voice cut through the screeching inside her head. She squeezed her eyes shut against the invasion. An icy-cold sheen coated every bit of her skin except for one spot on the back of her neck. It was warm there.
“Savannah!”
She flinched. The movement awakened her muscles. Pain pulsed throughout her body.
The heat on the back of her neck shook lightly, and she was injected with a heavy dose of reality.
Toth driving.
The skyline dark.
Screams...Herscreams.