She’s in the driver’s seat and Howard is next to her.
“Get in,” she says, indicating the back.
“Do you know how to drive?” I say.
“Did you seriously just ask me that?”
I climb in.
Tires squeal as Tanya guns the engine, spinning the Accord in a 180-degree arc in the parking lot, until it’s dead aimed for the front gate.
She jams the accelerator and makes a run for the exit. Before we can get out, a cloud of dust rises from the road in front of the institute, and a large black Yukon rams the wooden barrier at the front gate as the guards scurry to safety.
The Yukon stops just inside the facility, blocking the only exit.
Tanya slams on the brakes, and we skid to a stop a hundred feet away, facing the gate, head-to-head with the Yukon.
The Yukon’s engine revs hard, a V-8 roar that rumbles across the parking lot.
“Who the hell is that?” Howard says.
“That son of a bitch,” Tanya says. She says it as if she knows him.
“What do we do?” Howard says.
“We take him on,” Tanya says.
“His vehicle outweighs ours by about a ton,” I say.
“That just means we’re more agile.”
She revs the Honda’s engine.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” I say.
“Not a chance,” she says.
She pops us into gear, roaring toward the Yukon. Mike does the same, racing forward toward a head-on collision.
“You can’t knock him out like this,” I say.
“I know what I can and can’t do,” she says, annoyed with me.
She doesn’t flinch, heading straight at Mike as he does the same.
I make sure my seat belt is buckled and I brace for impact. Howard screams—
Tanya swerves hard at the last second, and the front end of the Yukon misses our rear bumper by inches.
Mike roars by, smoke pouring from his wheel wells when he realizes he’s missed. He tries to bring the big truck around.
Tanya has a clear shot to the exit now, but she doesn’t take it. She turns in the opposite direction, back toward the Yukon.
“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.
“We have to cripple him.”
“What if he cripples us?” Howard says.
“Unlikely,” she says, her voice cool.
She weaves forward in a tight serpentine pattern. Mike comes at us, trying to match Tanya’s moves, but the physics of his heavy vehicle don’t allow him to drive in the same way. His speed drops as he loses forward momentum. Tanya guns the engine and turns hard at the last moment, and our rear bumper clips the front wheel of the Yukon, shredding it to pieces. Shards of metal and rubber fly into the air, and an enormous hubcap rolls past us across the parking lot.
“I guess the second time’s the charm,” she says, pleased with herself.
“I’m guessing you two have history,” I say.
“Everyone has history with Mike,” she says.
I want to ask more, but I drop it for the time being.
With Mike’s Yukon crippled behind us, Tanya drives unhindered through the front gate. She pulls out of the research institute and swerves onto the open road.
We are free.