As Rebekah approached the Ram, neither man seemed to be aware of her.
Hain’s head was still down, eyes on the steering column that had shifted towards him. Lima had a hand on the crushed dash, trying to swivel his legs to the door. The cellphone was between them, in a charging slot at the midway point of the centre console. To get it out, she’d have to lean over Hain. What if he grabbed her? What if Lima had his gun close by?
She stopped dead, but then forced herself forward again. They still didn’t seem to have noticed her – but, with every attempt to exit the vehicle, Lima was getting stronger. After a while, he switched tactics: he leaned back and kicked at the passenger door with both feet.
She hurried towards the bed of the Ram, so that she’d be approaching Hain’s open window from the rear of the vehicle. She could see him in the side mirror, head still down. He looked as if he’d slipped back into unconsciousness: his eyes were closed and blood was leaking from his shaved head, a perpetual drip, drip, drip that carried threads of it down the side of the car.
She’d almost got level with Hain’s shoulder when Lima sprang his door. As it came back at him, he stopped it with his boot. The second he did, it was like something changed: he seemed to become aware of where he was and how he’d ended up here. He started looking at the damage around him, at Hain, then out at the Cherokee.
He’s searching for me.
Rebekah dropped to her haunches.
Below the level of the windows, she was blind. She could only hear: he was shifting inside the car again, probably trying to haul himself out. She looked both ways along the Loop – all she wanted was to see another car now – then towards the sawmill, knowing help wasn’t going to come from there. Further out there was a tangle of buildings, grey at this distance. They were a mile away at least. Could there be someone in them?
Lima was outside the car, in front of the trees.
If she was going to grab the phone, she had to do it now.
She crab-walked the rest of the way to Hain’s smashed window and peered through. She had a clear view of Lima’s midriff on the other side of the pickup. He was moving, shifting from one foot to the other, as if he was trying to get a better view of the Cherokee and of Rebekah. When he moved to his right, she could hear a slight drag of the foot. He’d damaged it.
She turned her head, double-checking on Hain. He was in exactly the same position as before.
Except his eyes were open.
It took her breath away and – as she froze – his arm came up from his lap and tried to grab her by the neck. She managed to lean away from him, hitting her head on the top of the window, but avoided his grasp, then jammed the flat of her palm into his face.
The impact vibrated through her wrist.
‘Hain?’
Lima ducked, looking through the passenger door.
His eyes met Rebekah’s.
‘You bitch!’
He couldn’t get around the front of the car without weaving through a knot of pine trees, so he started hobbling towards the back, dragging his foot.
Quickly, Rebekah leaned inside and tried to grab the cell.
It didn’t move.
She tried again, realizing there were identical buttons on either side of the slot that the phone was clipped into. She pressed the buttons and pawed at the cell for a second time.
It still wouldn’t come out.
Checking on Hain, she saw he was coming round again. She leaned even further in, her heart pounding inside her chest, and as she got her fingers around the phone, as she popped it from its station, she started to wriggle back out.
Hain tried to grab her again.
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Let go of me!’
‘Don’t let that bitch go!’ Lima shouted from her right. He was at the back of the car somewhere. She could hear his foot dragging.
Rebekah thrashed at Hain with her spare hand, trying to hit his face, his throat, anything, and as she did, he jerked, avoiding her attempted blows.
He gripped tighter.
‘No!’ she screamed again, lashing out with her elbow – and, this time, she caught him in the throat. He instantly released her, his body pivoting sideways – but as his arms went with him, they connected with her hand, and the cell spun out of her grip. She watched it hit the wheel, bounce off the dash and exit through the open passenger door.
No.
It came to rest outside among the pines.
No, no, no.
She pulled herself out of the pickup, across Hain’s slouched body, and searched for Lima. He was in view of her now, teeth gritted, at the tailgate of the car. In his hand was the gun.
She turned on her heel and looked at the Jeep. It was too far away. She would have covered barely half the distance between her and the Cherokee before Lima was all the way around the pickup. By then, she’d have a bullet in her back.
That meant there was only one option left.
Run.