Page 88 of Montana Silence
Panic crashed down on me. What if she was never in the car and we’d been chasing the wrong target the whole time? What if I’d already lost her?
A scream shattered the air.
Every hair stood on end, because I knew the voice. It was Mara. I’d never heard Mara scream, and I never wanted to hear the sound ever again.
“Liam!”
I turned and found her.
Despite everything happening, the world slowed, and pride filled my chest. Mara had found her voice, and she was using it.
She screamed my name again, and everything snapped into focus. Neil was dragging her away, handcuffed, toward the stalled traffic.
I sprinted across the asphalt toward them, only for him to turn, shoving Mara back, and raise the gun toward me. The air moved by me as I dropped to the ground, a bullet coming far too close. Mara was still screaming. Neil stared me down. I tensed, ready to throw myself in either direction to avoid getting shot.
The man smiled. The same insanity that had been in Malcolm’s eyes lived in Neil’s. Maybe it was the same because they both clung to the same sick ideals. Or maybe Neil was even further gone, trying to become the man he’d been mentored by all those years ago.
He turned away and pointed the gun at the nearest car. “Get out.” He bellowed the words so loudly they echoed beneath the bridge. The gun now swung between me and the shaky driver of the car, who got out with her hands raised.
“Mara,” I called. “It’s going to be fine.”
Neil shoved her into the car through the driver’s seat and over to the passenger seat. Mara stared at me through the window, tears streaming down her face. The gun was still pointed at me, and I didn’t step forward. But I raised my hand to my chest and tapped three times.
Her handcuffed hands pressed against the window, and I ensured the agony in my chest wasn’t reflected on my face. She needed strength right now. I would always be that for her.
Neil got behind the wheel and gunned the engine, burning rubber and speeding straight into the empty highway in front of him.
As soon as he cleared me and I wasn’t in danger of being shot, my phone was in my hand and dialing. “Follow that car. She and Neil are inside it.”
“Blockade is locked and loaded,” Daniel said. “A bit far, but they’ve got cops on the exits too.”
I spun, looking around.
“Hey!” a voice yelled at me, a man waving his hand from the front row of cars. He gestured to me, and I ran. “That your girl?”
“Yes.”
“Take the car.”
I didn’t hesitate or question him. “Thank you.”
Flipping the phone to speaker, I tossed it on the passenger seat. “I have a vehicle, and I’m in pursuit.”
My heart was calm now, because I knew something Neil didn’t know.
Mara and I were part of a family, too. And they would do anything for us. Not because they were forced to, or brainwashed. But because they loved us. The men on the other end of the line were just as much on the edge of their seat as I was.
No matter the planning he’d done for this day, no matter how many surgeries he’d had to make himself look like Malcolm, and no matter what sacrifices he’d made for this win…he’d already lost.
I gunned the engine, taking off after the car. They were heading directly into a blockade. There was nowhere for him to go, and I wanted to make sure he couldn’t go backward either.
“Daniel,” I called. “They know she’s in the car?”
“Police?”
“Yeah.”
“They know.”