They hadn’t been back on the road for long but Louise could feel her eyes heavy, so she allowed them to fall shut while Tam tried to get them to a safe place. She had just begun dozing off when she felt the van jolt forward, and Tam cried out.
‘What was that?’
‘Bastards have a fucking tracking device on the van under my seat. They’ve found us.’
Louise sat forward in her seat and peered into the side mirror. A car behind them, its full beam shining onto the van.
‘Is that Donnie?’ Louise cried. ‘What the hell are we going to do, Tam?’
‘I don’t know. It could be Steff, his brother. Look in that glove compartment. There might be something we can use to threaten him.’
Louise rummaged inside the compartment and pulled out a screwdriver, a lighter and an empty cigarette pack. She handed the screwdriver to Tam and glanced back in the mirror. The lights were flashing wildly now, and Louise started to sob.
‘It’s going to be all right, Lou. I’ll drive us to the nearest police station.’
That didn’t help to ease her fear, but she had to trust Tam. He was her brother, was trying to get her out of this nightmare situation.
Then, without warning, the van jolted again and it careered off the road onto the hard shoulder before coming to an abrupt stop. Tam’s head collided with the steering wheel, and Louise put her hands out, braced herself against the dashboard.
She screamed for him to wait as he unclicked the seatbelt and pulled at the door handle. He didn’t have to throw himself out of the van. She could have made it, could have got them away from the car that was following them. Driving was the one thing Tam had taught her, even though she didn’t actually have a licence.
The door swung backwards and forwards as she slammed on the brakes. Getting out of the van, she ran towards where he’d landed on the road. She knelt down beside him and all she could see was the blood pouring from the wound in his shoulder. It was impossible to stop the panic as it clawed its way up from inside her. Their assailants wouldn’t be far behind and if they were to survive, she had to get him back in the van.
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ She placed her hand on the wound where he’d been shot and applied pressure. But it didn’t work this time; the blood oozed quickly through her fingers, staining her clothes. ‘Why the fuck did you do that? We can get away; we still have time.’
Glancing into his eyes, she could see death was upon him. His laboured breaths scared her. ‘Come on, you need to get back in the van.’
‘Take it,’ he gasped. He gripped her hand. It felt wet and sticky. The metallic smell which hovered between them was so strong it made her feel sick. ‘Just take the van and go, get rid of that tracker. If I have to die here to keep you safe then I will.’
She could see he was beginning to fall in and out of consciousness. They were running out of time.
A voice in the distance made her look up. She couldn’t make out the words, but they were frantic. Shadows darted around in the street lights down the road. The people who did this to him were on the run, but not in the opposite direction. They were coming to finish the job and to take her away.
‘Go. Now!’ he hissed, pulling his hand away. She let go and looked down at him. His eyes were full of terror, fear. ‘If they catch you, we’re both dead. If you go, at least one of us has a chance.’
‘I’m not leaving you, Tam.’
‘Just do what I fucking say, Lou. Please.’
She hesitated before getting to her feet. Then she ran so fast her legs immediately began to burn. Reaching the van, she jumped into the driver’s seat and didn’t bother to put her seatbelt on.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Louise sobbed loudly. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a nightmare that she was going to wake up from. Leaning forward, she reached under the driver seat and felt something alien underneath. Her fingers brushed against a small box attached to the underside of the seat. Ripping it from the fabric, she glared at it before tossing it out of the window. She started the engine and glanced up at the mirror. The rear window had been shattered in the hit. That was why she could hear everything. Donnie’s voice in the distance, shouting and bawling, incomprehensible words. Tam was bellowing back but she couldn’t make it out, even though the voices got louder. Her heart hammered in her chest as she forced the van into gear, released the clutch and pulled away as quickly as she could, all the while sobbing loudly at the very realisation that she was leaving her brother to die.
Then she heard a shot, and everything inside her stilled before she let out a sound she didn’t think she was capable of.
A guttural roar left her throat as her blood ran cold. Her brother was dead, likely killed by Donnie. The man who claimed to want to be with her, and yet had orchestrated for her to be kidnapped and had who the hell knew what planned for her.
Her bloodstained hands gripped the steering wheel and tears streamed down from her eyes. Angrily wiping them away, she glared at her reflection in the mirror to see his blood smeared across her cheeks.
Then she turned her eyes to the road and kept driving. There was no going back now. She had no choice but to keep going and hope that, whatever happened, Donnie wouldn’t find her.