“You see, I’m not here for the ransom money, Joie. No, no, no.” He shook his head. “I believe Hawkins might have mentioned his brother was dead. How it was so tragic for
him
,” he said grimly. “How he allowed his brother to drive home drunk.” His jaw clenched. “He
knowingly
let his brother drive home drunk,” he leaned in to whisper with his hand cupped over his mouth. “That’s not going to do well for his ratings.
“He could have stopped his brother, but he didn’t,” he glared ahead. “And now my wife and daughter are dead too.” He turned to look at me intently. “He took the ones I loved from me and now I’m going to take the one he loves from him.”
Jerking my head towards him, I saw him looking at the dashboard. Knowing that he must have done something to the van, yet still not understanding, I followed his gaze. “Oh yes, you’re going to be reunited with your dead dad sooner than you thought.” He smiled sickly. “A happy little family reunion.
“It’s happening a little later then I originally planned.” He glared over at me. “Since someone had to be a hero the other night in the Escalade. You were so brave then. Are you feeling brave now?” He glanced down at dashboard again. “It’s funny how the brakes aren’t working anymore.”
Instinctively, I tapped on the brakes, but the van didn’t slow down.
Trying again, this time I rammed the breaks when Cyrus cried out, “WEEEE!” He held his arms up like he was on a rollercoaster ride. “It’s amazing how fast that brake fluid can leak. This is going to be so much fun now!”
“You’re going to willingly kill yourself?” I shot a look over at him.
“No, I have some friends waiting to pick me up.” He patted his belly while stealing a glance through the side window.
What did that mean, pick him up? “You’re just after me, right?” Oh, my god, what if he could reach Hawkins.
“Now, Joie, I don’t want to ruin the surprise for America.”
“Is Hawkins safe?!” I shouted again.
“Well, ask yourself this.” He smiled crookedly again. “How safe could he be when he has me as a member of his crew?”
“You’re a crew member?” The pieces were all starting to fall into place. “So Riley was right,” I whispered to myself.
“Of course I’m on the crew, but I’m not the only one involved,” he toyed with me. “I couldn’t have killed Monroe and planted his body all on my own, you know.”
Swerving around a few cars that had slowed down, I started to really panic. God, any minute we could crash into another car!
“So, who’s helping you?”
“Oh, goodie!” He clapped his hands together. “That sounds like a great game question! Don’t you think, America?” He looked down at the opened laptop. “Why don’t we phone a friend? Oh, I know, how about…Lizzie.” His face brightened. “Ah, Joie, try to focus on the road.” He pointed ahead.
Snapping my head forward, I swerved over before barely colliding into the back of an SUV. Gulping, I tried to take a deep breath and eased back for a moment in the seat. If I didn’t hold it together, I was going to end up killing myself.
“Oh, Lizzie,” Cyrus cooed as the image of Lizzie came up on the laptop again. “We have another question.”
Lizzie looked wild with fear as a gun caressed her face. “Who do you think helped me from within Hawkins’ staff?”
“Is it Hampton?” My eyes darted from the road over to him.
“You and your nicknames,” he said happily. “I’m not much of a football fan, but I have watched a few Steelers’ games to see if they really resemble these guys.” He laughed. “Somewhere the real Casey Hampton is wondering why there’s a cop car outside his house.” He turned back to the image on the laptop. “No one knows these ridiculous nicknames besides you and your stupid friends.”
“Lizzie?” Cyrus prompted her.
She looked through her cards on her lap while whimpering. She held up a sign that read, “Woodley.”
“Oh no, I’m sorry.” He mockingly winced. “Let me tell you what you’ve won,” he announced in his game show voice. “A trip of eternal bliss, in heaven.”
“It’s Harrison.” It suddenly dawned on me. “That’s why he gave Lizzie such a hard time about her social. He wanted to leave her vulnerable with us in the van rather than safe with Warren.”
“Ohh, very good.” Cyrus grinned a flash of yellow teeth. “We need a tie breaker.”
Sighing in relief, Hawkins would at least find out the truth, even if I didn’t survive this nightmare. Now I needed to focus on helping Lizzie stay alive as I glared ahead at a sharp bend in the road up ahead.
Looking through my rearview mirror, I realized that the same semi-truck had been tagging us for the last several minutes. Was it behind us at the exit?
When I started to change lanes, Cyrus laughed out, “Faster, faster!” The semi had to swerve to keep up with us. The driver’s face was hidden by the rim of a low ball cap. The passenger wasn’t identifiable either, but the camera in his hand was.
I searched the image of Lizzie on the laptop. “You might not want to take your eyes off the road,” Cyrus warned. Looking up, I just had time to jerk the steering wheel from going over into a side ditch. Glancing over at the monitor, I had just enough time to catch Lizzie being jerked over by the sharp turn of the road too. She was behind me in the semi-truck! I refocused my attention back to the road when I felt Cyrus’s cold eyes sear into the side of my head. Had he noticed the double take?
A slow Honda caused me to have to jerk the van over into the passing lane. Looking in the rearview mirror, I noticed a side door had been pulled back along the truck. He had said that his friends were going to “pick” him up. Realizing they were going to pull him to safety, I couldn’t let Cyrus get away.
“What’s the tie breaker?” I asked while shock started to take over.
“Oh, we have a live one,” he exclaimed. “This next question is for you just to ponder. Do you think Hawkins kept the real Lizzie to himself because he wanted to protect her secret or because he was ashamed of her?”
Fuming, I just ignored the side comment.
“This may hurt your feelings a little bit.” He made a smidge mark. “As much as I’ve enjoyed our little talk, it’s time for me to go,” he pursed his lips together, “and for you to die.” The truck drove so close to the back of the van that all I could see was its silver grill in the rearview mirror. I threw a look over my shoulder when Cyrus looked back as well.
“That would be for me.” Cyrus perked up in his seat. “Could you be a dear and pull into the passing lane?”
Although I didn’t want to be helpful, he aimed the gun at me. “I asked nicely,” he said.
I pulled the van over into the passing lane and the truck sped up beside us. Cyrus went to prop open the door when I caught a glimpse of the driver. Kosic! I couldn’t believe he would help Cyrus kill me! Startled, I nearly ran us off the road into the grass divider between the highways. Cyrus leaned over so that our faces were barely inches apart.
“I will rip,” he said, losing all his psycho playfulness, “you to shreds if you do that again! Do we understand each other?” His eyes were threatening and I nodded to show I understood.
“Now, pull up beside the truck!” he yelled.
Wrapping my hands around the wheel, I tried to stay even with the truck. A side door was pulled back along the white rig. The inside was empty. Where was Lizzie? The equipment cases that Riley and I saw this morning were gone, too. This meant the stage was already assembled, I realized with a feeling of dread. Cyrus propped open the door to the van again. A strong muscular man, probably from the crew, motioned for Cyrus to come to him. With Cyrus’s hand on the handle, he balanced himself on the edge of the van.
He was getting ready to jump. Taking a quick glimpse out at the road again, I noticed we were quickly approaching the car in front of us. Obviously, I couldn’t slow down without brakes as the space between my van and the car became smaller and smaller.
The man from the rig held his arms out preparing to catch him. Cyrus was going to be freed just in time for my death. There was a patch of grass in between the two highways. I could pull away just in time or make my own lane, but an overpass was coming up ahead. The concrete support pillars of the bridge were blocking my path. I was going to wreck into something eventually.
Wrapping my hands around the steering wheel, I thought, if I had to lose it all so would Cyrus. He rocked his body back and forth, but before I could reach the overpass he pushed off the ledge and jumped towards the crew member. The man caught him with a firm grip under his armpits. He was being pulled into the rig when Kosic suddenly slammed on his breaks. The van rushed forward, but I kept my eyes on the truck through the rearview mirror.
As the momentum of the rig jerked, the crew member who was helping Cyrus fell forward onto his knees. He was still in the process of pulling him in, but lost his grip when he fell. Cyrus’s arms and chest were hanging on the ledge of the truck’s floor, but his legs and lower torso were hanging outside. Cyrus panicked and grabbed onto the crew member. The man hadn’t yet regained his balance and when Cyrus pulled on him and the momentum carried them both over the edge. Just like that, they were both sucked under the truck. The semi bounced up and down while crushing them both under its tires. I snapped my eyes back to the road in front of me.
“AHHH!” I screamed out while almost driving up on top of the car’s bumper in front of me. I quickly swerved out around the slow line of cars. Looking back in the rearview mirror, Kosic waved and I exhaled in relief. He had killed Cyrus to save me.
The relief of Cyrus’s death would have felt better if I wasn’t going seventy miles an hour without brakes. Where were those emergency pull offs when you needed them. Kosic merged over into the passing lane and around the sluggish cars behind me and sped up the truck alongside of me. The passenger side window was now sprayed with blood. I guess whoever was “documenting” the show from the front of the truck was dead now, too. The truck continued to steadily pass me by before it pulled over into the lane in front of my van. The red tail lights flashed as he tapped the brakes again and again. The van came dangerously close to the back of the semi when I understood that he was attempting to slow down the van by using the truck as a buffer.
If I was scared before, then I was terrified now since I could easily lose control of the van in the dangerous stunt. Kosic tapped the breaks again. Grinding my teeth, I cocked my head back. Saying a silent prayer, I let the van ram hard into the back of the truck. Our vehicles broke away for a second and I fought the van’s wheel from fishtailing into the oncoming traffic behind us. The rig swerved from side to side a little from the collision. We both gained control again before he started to tap his breaks again. The bright red tail lights made me feel anxious as we made contact again. Sparks flew from the front of the van as I fought for control over the steering wheel, but this time the van had considerably slowed down. We broke away again, but I hit a deep pot hole and the van swerved over to the warning tracks.
My eyes flashed up to the small hill of the next exit. Going thirty miles an hour now, I turned the wheel up the ramp and into the grass. The resistance continued to slow the van down, but I was heading straight for a patch of trees. Propping the side door open, I watched the blur of grass below. It was still too fast for me to jump. At the last minute, I jerked the steering wheel and held on to my seat belt as the van lost some more momentum before ramming into a tree. The seat belt dug into me, saving my life. Lifting my head, I realized that I had a serious case of whiplash. I’d definitely be feeling that in the morning.
Frantically, I looked out the window at the semi-truck that had pulled off on the side of the highway. Forcing myself, I unfastened my seat belt to retrieve Cyrus’s gun that had skidded to the floor. I waited to catch my breath with the gun in my hand since I didn’t know if there were any more unwanted survivors left in the semi-truck.
After taking a moment to catch my breath, I hobbled out of the van wincing in pain. Tears welled up in my eyes at the sight of my van destroyed by the tree. Judging by the damage to the van, I was just lucky to be alive. Limping my way down to the semi, I staggered with the gun in my hand. A tall figure with dark hair and green eyes came around the side and smiled at me.
“Nathan Kosic,” I said in a rush of relief and lowered the gun. Before he could answer, Lizzie popped up behind him with mascara running down her face.
“Hawkins over me, really?” Lizzie tried to make a joke out of the near death experience.
“Oh, thank god.” I grabbed my side, to catch my breath. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah, but if we don’t hurry the band might not be so lucky,” Kosic said grimly while slamming the other side of the truck shut before coming closer.
“What do you mean?” Instant terror froze me to the spot. Lizzie looked at Kosic then started to cry again.
“Warren’s in danger,” she confessed.
“What?” I wrapped an arm around her as she trembled beside me.
“We don’t have time to explain.” Kosic swiftly walked towards the front of the truck.
“We’re not going anywhere with you, until you start doing some explaining.” I tightened my grip around Lizzie. “Like for starters, what are you doing here in the first place?”
“They knew that I was close to you. They thought I would be helpful,” he said as his face fell. “So when I accidentally saw them move Monroe’s body, they threatened to kill me if I didn’t help them.” He pleaded for me to understand. “I was at the wrong frigging place at the wrong frigging time,” he confessed.
“Please, Joie, we don’t have a lot of time to talk,” he muttered while opening the side door. I gasped when a body fell out of the passenger side seat and into Kosic’s arms. Lizzie turned to bury her face in my shoulder while crying even harder. He quickly dragged the body down to the side of the truck.