Page 41 of Broken

“Did you destroy most of their weapons?” I asked. “I don’t want them to go after the Cobras.”

“Everything that was in that truck, yeah, but I’m sure they have more stashed away somewhere.”

“At least they won’t be ready to attack immediately. We should get rid of them and go to the Cobras’ territory so we can warn them.” I didn’tthink that going in the opposite direction and away from the Cobras would stop the Spiders from attacking them too. “Do you think they recognized us? They might think it’s the Cobras trying to sabotage them and they won’t wait to retaliate.”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you see Walter anywhere?”

“No.”

“I can’t just take us straight into the Cobras’ territory,” I said, and barely avoidedcolliding with an oncoming car.

“You’re really good at this,” Theo said as I managed to put some distance between the Spiders and us, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Thanks.” I quickly wiped my eyes. “I just wish we had a windshield because my eyes and my face don’t like this at all.”

He glanced over his shoulder again. “It’s still just two cars.”

“They’ll expect us to go to theCobras’ territory, so they might try to set up some kind of a trap for us.” The car jumped over something as we whizzed through an alley full of trash, and I was glad it was still running.

“We can try to lose them.”

“Like the last time when they were chasing us?”

“Yeah.”

“We can’t go to another shopping mall. The Spiders are serious about this now and they won’t care about anything.Someone could get hurt in the crossfire.” A garage would be full of people, and I didn’t want the Spiders to shoot anyone.

“I wasn’t exactly thinking about a shopping mall,” he said, and I glanced at him.

“Then what are you thinking?”

“We have to do something the Spiders won’t see coming.”

“Well, yeah, but...” Cars honked as I ignored a red light, almost grazing one of them, butthe Spiders were right behind us.

“We have to get them to crash,” Theo said.

“And how are we going to do that?” We were going toward a less busy street, and I didn’t have to dodge as many cars, but that also meant it would be easier for the Spiders to follow us.

He held up his guns. “Keeping going until there’s no one around, then hit the brakes.”

“What?” I gave him a quick lookfull of incredulity.

“They have to be close enough for me to be able to hit their tires. Right now, they’re speeding after us, and we’re too far away for them to try to shoot at us, so they’re waiting and saving their bullets. So if we suddenly stop, it’ll take them some time to react.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

Once the road was mostly straight and clear, I glanced in the rearviewmirror and realized the two cars were now side-by-side and they were getting closer. And their cars were a bit better than ours. This was our opportunity, so I gave Theo a small nod before hitting the brakes.

“Be ready,” he said, turning in his seat and aiming his guns at the cars that were approaching at great speed. A moment later, he fired in rapid succession, and a few bullets hit theback of our car too. “Go!”

He didn’t have to tell me twice, and I stepped on the gas pedal again, hoping the car wasn’t too damaged. Our tires screeched, and a loud crashing sound echoed behind us, but we were moving and getting away from there. I didn’t have time to look back, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see Theo’s smile.

“They’re down,” he said.

“Good.” Now all we hadto do was make sure no one else was following us and reach the Cobras as soon as possible.