Chapter 7 - THE HIGHWAY OF BLOODThe impact was catastrophic.
The heavy ambulance tilted violently onto two wheels, skidding sideways across three lanes of the rain-slicked highway before flipping completely onto its side with a deafening crunch of twisting metal and shattering glass.
Inside the rear cabin, equipment, medical supplies, and bodies were thrown around like toys. I was tossed violently against the steel wall, my head slamming against a oxygen tank before I collapsed onto the floor, covered in broken glass and medical tubing.
"Mark!" I coughed, wiping blood from my mouth.
Mark was slumped against the ruined back doors, unconscious, a deep gash across his forehead. In the front cab, the driver was unmoving, pinned beneath the crushed steering wheel.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but they were too far away.
Outside, the heavy rumble of the black pickup truck’s engine idle cut through the sound of the rain.
I heard heavy boots walking toward the overturned ambulance.
CLANG. CLANG.
Someone was hammering on the lock of the rear doors with a crowbar.
I scrambled frantically through the wreckage on my knees, my breath coming in ragged, desperate gasps. I found the laptop—its screen was cracked, but the power light was still flickering green. The external hard drive was still securely plugged in.
The rear doors bowed outward under the force of the crowbar, then slammed open with a metallic screech.
A tall man in a dark trench coat stepped into the frame, holding a silenced pistol. Behind him stood two other armed men.
"Where's the drive?" the leader demanded, his voice devoid of emotion.
I shrank back into the corner of the overturned vehicle, holding the laptop tightly against my chest. "If you kill me, you'll never get the encryption keys! The files will automatically broadcast to the Department of Justice in ten minutes!"
The leader raised his silenced pistol, utterly unbothered by my threat. "We don't care about the DOJ, kid. We just need to make sure you aren't alive to testify in court. Dead witnesses don't sign affidavits."
He raised the weapon, taking slow, precise aim at my head.
Suddenly, a gunshot echoed through the night.
BANG!
The leader’s chest erupted in a spray of red, and he collapsed forward into the ambulance.
The two men behind him turned in surprise, opening fire into the darkness of the highway.
Out from behind a highway barrier stepped Victor.
He was a terrifying sight. His jaw was mangled and crooked, his face covered in dried blood, his eyes wide and insane. He was firing a stolen shotgun he had taken from a police cruiser, pumping shell after shell into the hitmen.
"NOBODY KILLS HER BUT ME!" Victor roared through his shattered mouth, his voice a hideous, monstrous gurgle. "SHE’S MINE!"
A brutal firefight erupted in the middle of the rain-drenched highway. The two hitmen traded shots with Victor, bullets ripping through the air and punching holes through the sheet metal of the ambulance.
I didn't wait to see who would win.
I dragged myself out of the broken windshield of the ambulance's cab, crawling out onto the cold, wet asphalt of the highway. I held the hard drive tightly in my pocket, leaving the ruined laptop behind.
I scrambled over the concrete median barrier into the dark, wooded median separating the northbound and southbound lanes.
Behind me, the gunfire suddenly stopped.
A thick, suffocating silence fell over the highway, broken only by the patter of rain on the leaves.
May you like
I collapsed onto my hands and knees in the mud, gasping for air.
Then, I heard the crunch of wet leaves behind me.
