I slept in the passenger seat for a few hours and then woke up to Ali singing in the driver’s seat as we pulled into a gas station. She has the most beautiful singing voice. I could also be biased, though. “Where are we at?” I ask her, rubbing the sleepiness from my eyes. I look at my reflection in the window and see that my makeup is running down my eyes.
“We’re somewhere south of Cincinnati. I’m pretty sure we’re getting close to Lexington. We’ve only been gone for a few hours though,” she said like she knew where we were headed to. We had decided, before I fell asleep, that we’d just head south and see where that takes us. She adds, “According to the map on my phone, I-75 takes us all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Florida it is then. It’s my turn to drive. Take a break,” I say as we both open the car doors to get out and stretch. “Do you want coffee or anything from inside?” I ask as I shrug towards the gas station. “I’m going to get myself some caffeine. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night.”
“French vanilla, please. Could you grab me a bag of chips, too?” She asks, batting her eyelashes at me. She always knows just what to do to make me melt. Ali is a Funyuns fanatic even though I don’t think the taste goes well with vanilla coffee.
“Of course,” I say. I flash a smirk and a quick heart shape with my fingers across my chest. “I love you,” I think to myself. I wish I had the courage to tell her how I really feel. I’m not sure it’s much of a secret, though. I don’t think it’s ever been a secret. She has to know, right?
Back in the car, I set our coffees in the cup holders. A little French vanilla spills out onto the black plastic of the middle console where the emergency break is. Ali grabs her cup and takes a swig. She swallows it quickly and then opens her mouth to say that it’s hot, but she doesn’t make a sound. She waves her hands around her mouth frantically trying to cool her burning tongue.
And then, her arms drop to her sides and her eyes fly wide open. The coffee spills all over the seat and the floorboards at our feet. The hot coffee scalds my toes and I jump back from her side of the car.
“Fuck!” I yell. I don’t mean to yell at her, but the stinging won’t go away. After calming myself for a split-second I take a quick breath. “Are you okay?” I ask her. “The coffee is hot. That’s kind of why they put the label on the side of the cup.”
“Put the car in gear! Put the freaking car in reverse, now!” She screams at me, her eyes gaping straight forward through the windshield.
A black Escalade flies into the gas station straight towards the nose of our car. I put the car into reverse and drive backwards as fast as I can almost hitting the gas pump behind us. I do take out a trashcan, though. I curse under my breath and secretly wish Ali was driving the car.
After a quick donut behind the gas station, I put the Focus in drive and haul ass down the street. The SUV sails after us as I push the limits of the puny car. We wouldn’t have this problem in my BMW. Why doesn’t this thing have turbo-mode or something?
Ali keeps a look out through the back window, eyes locked on the SUV targeting us. “They’re gaining speed. I don’t think this piece of shit can outrun that thing,” she says with tears streaming down her eyes. “What’re we going to do?”
I don’t even have a second to think. I have nearly zero time to react. I can’t waste any more time. I fly back on I-75 and push towards Lexington. According to the signs, we’re only about thirty minutes away. If we can just keep ourselves engulfed in enough traffic, our small car should be able to lose the massive SUV. “I think I have a plan,” I tell Ali, trying to calm her down. I’m not too confident about it, though.
“You think you have a plan? There’s no time to think!” Ali screams. Her stream of tears has turned into a river and she’s sobbing. “We’ve got to get out of here. Who knows who the hell they are! Get us out of here!”
“Don’t worry, Ali. Everything’s going to be okay,” I lie with a grim smile. I hate lying to her, but I don’t have a choice. I’m not sure that everything is ever going to be okay at all. Obviously not buying what I’m trying to sell her with words, she keeps yelling at me.
Just as I finish my sentence, the Escalade collides into the trunk of the car sending Ali and I crashing forward. From the corner of my eye, I see her head whip towards the dashboard. My face slams onto the steering wheel. I can only see the crimson canal washing through my eyes. I hear the crack of my nose before I feel it. The blood gushes heavily from my nose. Ali dangles loose at the restraint of her seat belt. She’s nothing but a ragdoll.
I scream for Ali to wake up and try to watch the road at the same time. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt furiously but nothing gives. All I can see is red. The driver of the black SUV steers the monstrous vehicle into the driver’s side of our petite car. Everything is moving in slow motion. Our small, dingy-black heap of metal—crushed in on the side and rear end—careens through the guard rail and flips into the ditch between the interstate and the woods around us.
My body is jolted out of the seat and up against the seatbelt that’s doing its best to hold me safely in the car. Glass smashes and shatters all around me. I see Ali’s body loose and her arms flying around the passenger side. Once the car comes to a stop upside down, I grab Ali’s hand to make sure I can still feel her heart beating. There’s a pulse but it’s weak.
“Hang on, Ali. You have to stay with me,” I say knowing she won’t be able to hear me. I unbuckle myself from the seat and fall to the roof of the car. I kick out what is left of the window on my side of the hunk of smoking scrap.
Ali’s face has blood flowing down from her once flaxen hairline. Her eyes are squeezed shut, but she’s slowly coming to. “Ali, we have to get out of here,” I whisper quietly, trying to be as silent as possible so that nobody could hear that we are still alive. “Ali, come on. We need to get into the woods!”
Just then, from the direction we crashed from, I hear a car door slam and two men talking amongst themselves. “There’s no way anyone could have survived that crash,” One says to the other. I can’t see who they are from inside the car. They stop at the top of the ditch and continue talking about the wreckage they must see below.
“Ali, they’re coming! We have to move to the trees. Now!” I’m no longer whispering at this point.
“I hear voices down there. Come on,” the other man says to the guy that was previously talking. I hear their heavy footsteps coming down the side of the ditch. They’re approach is faster that I would prefer. There’s no chance for us to make our escape into the woods. Ali is still coming back from unconsciousness when the two men show up here at the debris.
“Is anyone in there? We need to get you out of the smoke. Say something.”
“I really don’t think you heard anything, Randy. There’s no way that anyone could have survived this. They tumbled at least three times. Everything’s shattered. I can’t even tell what kind of car this was,” the man says back to the other guys. He looks down into the over-turned car and I catch his eyes through the busted glass.
“Please don’t kill us,” I say, clenching my eyes closed. I’m hoping that they’ll either make it quick for both of us or, at the very least, let Ali go. I have a funny feeling that I’m not going to get off as easy as Ali might.
“Why would we kill you? We saw you crash and just want to help.”
Once Randy and Russell, brothers from Lexington, pulled me out of the car, I rushed over to try and get Ali out. There’s no way that I’m leaving Ali in there any longer than I have to.
We got Ali out, somewhat safely, and laid her on the grass near the edge of the woods. She points a trembling hand back up the hill to the interstate and starts to moan out some imperceptible words. The man in the black Escalade was standing next to his vehicle on the side of the road. When he noticed that he was spotted, he climbed back into the SUV and sped off down the Interstate. “I have a funny feeling that’s not going to be the last of him,” I say to nobody in particular.
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“Do you guys know him?” Randy asks.
“I have no idea who that guy is. He chased us from a few exits back and rammed us from behind. Then he hit us from the side and we flipped into the ditch,” I said to Randy while Russell was calling for emergency services.
The ambulance and police arrive on the scene shortly after Russell hung up his phone. “They’re going to want to know everything,” Russell says to me, looking at Ali’s near lifeless body.
What am I going to tell these people? I’m never going to be able to tell them the truth. My entire life is spiraling down around me and I still have to keep up this game of charades. Does anything ever get easier?
“Ali, you have to stay awake. Stay with me, Ali.” I slap her on the cheeks and shake her a little bit by the shoulders. The paramedics run down the hill towards us with a gurney for Ali. “Everything is going to be okay, Ali. You have to wake up.” The paramedic and EMT take her body from my arms. The police bring me a blanket and Randy and Russell help me up to the rescue vehicle.
“Thank you, guys,” I say unsteadily. My voice cracks and trembles as the words flow from my mouth. I don’t even feel like I’m the one talking. I almost feel like I’m watching myself speak to these men from above.
They nod and return to their lives and the road knowing they saved two young women from a car accident. What they don’t seem to realize is that they may have just saved us from being murdered.
Who was that guy and what did he want with us, anyway?
CHAPTER 8
He Knows, Ali. He knows.