As soon as Sarah takes a few steps to the side and stops, I press the damn button.
I see her drop just as a hiss sounds from the van.
Drake screams, Maya screams, and I scream a little, when the van suddenly shoots out fireworks like it’s the Fourth of July. I watch in fascinated horror as they zip horizontally toward the vehicles to the front and back of us. Screams sound out as they explode, and it takes me a minute to realize that the eruption of beautiful colors is also a catalyst for sending out knives.
A few of the fireworks are apparently actually fucking explosives, because a few of the cars blow up.
Drake, Maya, and I all roll out of the van when gunfire starts pelting us. The fireworks have stirred up the desert enough to create the illusion of a sand storm, when coupled with the still wind and smoke.
Fires blaze from beside us as a SUV crashes into the back of the van, the entire carload of people already dead.
Maya is practically dragging me through the thick cloak of sand and smoke. Several patches of dead brush are blazing beside us, and I squeal a little when I almost run into one.
“What the hell did she put in all that shit? Smoke bombs?” Drake asks so quietly I almost don’t hear him over all the chaos, gunfire, and a few squeaky fireworks.
It takes me until this moment to realize I’m squeezing a gun in my hand that I don’t even remember picking up. It’s the uniquely altered one Sarah dropped to her seat.
My survival instincts are pumping so much that my head almost feels like it’s in a fog.
I finally get my feet fully under me, catch up to the situation, and start running toward the back of where I last noticed that encroaching convoy.
Something else explodes, and a flaming clown horn lands right in front of us as it dies. We all stumble to a stop and stare down at it as it makes a disturbing sound that will be in all my clown nightmares from now on.
I’m the first to start running again.
I really hope this gun isn’t on safety, because I don’t even know where the safety is.
The sparks from multiple gun muzzles gets closer, and the smoke thins enough for me to see the three men taking cover and firing from behind the doors of a black SUV.
Without hesitating, I make two quick headshots, and I gut-shoot the third guy before clipping his hand enough to disarm him as well.
“Now she seems more like Drex’s sister,” Drake states very quietly, shooting me some side-eye like now he doesn’t trust me.
“The smoke is thinning,” Maya says as she quickly goes to the Suv.
Both she and Drake start dragging one of the guys to the rear, and I glance up to see the smoke definitely clearing quicker and quicker.
But everyone’s attention is on the blonde who is grinning wickedly as she casually puts her hands on her head, dropping her knife as she does so.
There’s a lot of dead men, and half of them look like they’ve shot each other in their vain attempts to shoot her.
“So you got me. Now what will you do with me?” she goads, keeping all the attention trained on her.
I very discreetly start dragging the third man toward the driver’s seat, using every dormant, untrained muscle in my body to do it. The struggle is freaking real.
“We’re all going to die,” Drake says as the back hatch closes and he starts sneaking around to the back seat.
I take the driver’s seat, pulling the thin—but incredibly heavy man—into my lap. I’ll thank the adrenaline for that burst of strength later.
A team of men rush her to start chaining her up, taking one cheap shot that knocks her out cold.
Maya climbs into the back, and I glance over my shoulder to see her staring incredulously at me.
“Why have you got a dead guy in your lap?” she asks like I’m insane.
“It really is like Men In Black. The second movie now. You know…when the inflatable guy pops up to drive the car?” Drake rambles nervously.
I look back around the dead guy’s shoulder as Sarah gets dragged away in chains, and tossed into the back.
A few hand gestures are given in the air, and suddenly the convoy starts moving. No one ever glances toward the back of the line.
“Why are we following them?” Drake hisses when I pull out onto the road.
“Because that’s what the crazy, lethal chick said to do. I’m sure she has another fucked up phase two to her plan,” I answer as I adjust the dead guy in my lap, letting the seatbelt do most of the work to hold him up, as I peer around to drive.
We pass the smoldering remnants of the clown van that is nothing more than a piece of scrap metal at this point. Weirdly, I notice three charred bodies hanging out of it, and wonder if Sarah had something to do with that in an effort to disguise our escape.