The Darkest Minds
Page 31

“No, but I can’t—I didn’t mean to drag you into—I mean, I did mean to, but…”
I saw Zu move out of the corner of my eye, reaching for me. I jerked away, sucking in a harsh breath. A hurt expression crossed her face, staying long enough for me to feel guilty about it. She had been trying to help me—to be kind to me. She didn’t know what kind of monster she had saved.
If she had, she would never have unlocked the door.
“Do you want to go back to them?”
Chubs was looking at Liam, and Liam was looking at me. He had caught me again with his eyes, and I hadn’t even realized it.
“No,” I said, and it was the truth. “I don’t.”
He didn’t say anything, only shifted the minivan out of park. The van rolled forward.
What are you doing, Ruby? I willed my hand to reach for the door, but it seemed too far and my hand too heavy. Get out. Get out now.
“Lee, don’t you dare,” Chubs began. “If the League comes after us…”
“It’ll be okay,” Liam said. “We’re just taking her to the nearest bus station.”
I blinked. That was more than even I was expecting. “You don’t have to.”
Liam waved me off. “It’s fine. Sorry we can’t do more. Can’t risk it.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Chubs said. “So explain to me why we aren’t taking her to one of the train stations, which are closer?”
When I looked back up, Liam was studying me, his light eyebrows pulled tight together by some unspoken thought. I tried not to squirm under his gaze. “Remind me again—Ruby, right? I’m sure you’ve caught on by now, but I’m Liam, the lovely lady behind me is Suzume.”
She smiled shyly. I turned and raised a brow in the direction of the other boy. “I’m guessing your name isn’t actually Chubs?”
“No,” he sniffed. “Liam gave me that name at camp.”
“He was a bit of a porker.” Liam had a small smile on his face. “Turns out field labor and a restricted diet are better than fat camp. Zu can back me up on this one.”
But Zu wasn’t paying attention, not to any of us. She had pulled her hoodie up over her ears and twisted around in her seat so that she was staring over the top of it, out the back window. Her lips were parted, but she couldn’t bring the words to them. The color drained from her round face.
“Zu?” Liam said. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t need to point. Even if we hadn’t seen the tan SUV speeding straight for us, it would have been impossible to miss the bullet that blew through the back window and shattered it.
NINE
THE SINGLE BULLET CUT A PATH straight down the center of the minivan, exiting out through the windshield. For a moment, none of us did anything but stare at the hole and the spreading spiderweb of cracks radiating out from it.
“Holy sh—!” Liam threw the car into forward, slamming his foot down all the way on the gas. He seemed to have forgotten that we were in a Dodge Caravan and not a BMW, because it went from zero to sixty in what felt like thirty minutes. Black Betty’s body began to shake, rattling from more than just the holes and cracks in the road.
I whirled around, searching for Rob’s SUV, but the car behind us was a bright red pickup truck, and the man leaning out of the passenger window of the truck, rifle in hand, was not Rob.
“I told you!” Chubs yelled. “I told you they were skip tracers!”
“Yes, you were right,” Liam yelled right back. “But could you try to be useful, too?”
He jerked the car left, just as the man fired off another shot. It must have gone wide, because it never hit the car, not that I could tell. He fired again, and that bullet had far better luck; it slammed into Black Betty’s bumper. We felt the hit like a brick to the back; every single one of us let out a sharp gasp. In Chubs’s case, he moaned and crossed himself.
Zu was slouched down in her seat, her chest pressed against her knees. Her hood hid her face, but it couldn’t mask the way her entire body shook. I put a hand on her back, holding her down.
Another bang sounded behind us, but this time, it wasn’t a gunshot.
“What in the…” Liam risked a look back over his shoulder. “Are you kidding me?”
My heart fell like a stone into my stomach. The red truck jolted forward, and I saw the driver—a dark haired woman with glasses—tug the wheel to the side, trying to shake the truck free from the tan SUV that had rammed into it. I didn’t need to see who was driving it to know who that vehicle belonged to: Cate and Rob. But, then, who was in the pickup truck?
“It is her!” Chubs cried. “I told you! She found us!”
“Then who’s the guy with the gun?” Liam cried. “Her boyfriend?”
The man who had fired at us turned his attention to taking out the SUV behind him, twisting around in the window. He lasted half a breath. A gunshot from the SUV clipped him in the chest and sent an explosive spray of blood into the air. The crack of the next bullet sent the shooter’s lifeless body sliding out of the passenger window of the truck. The driver—the woman—didn’t so much as look back at him.
I watched the red truck finally break away from the SUV’s front bumper. With both of its back tires blown out, it swerved into the other lane, spinning out, until it came to a jolting stop on the shoulder of the highway.