Highway To Armageddon (32 page)

           
At first I’m not sure where Boom Boom could have gone, but then I notice a
trail of footprints leading up the side of the hill that the cave is part of. I
follow the trail up the hill and immediately find her. She’s leaning against a
tree stump, facing me, but she doesn’t say anything. Her goggles are still on,
so I can’t tell from her eyes, but I’m almost positive she’s asleep. I can tell
from her slowed breathing and the fact she’s not hurling insults at me.

           
I go to carry her back inside the cave. That turns out to be a horrible
mistake. As soon as I touch her, Boom Boom jumps up and punches me in the face.
I fall flat on my butt and clutch my nose. Blood trickles through my fingers.

           
Boom Boom kneels beside me. “Lance, I’m so sorry! You startled me.”

           
“It’s my fault,” I say in a nasally voice. “I should know better than to wake
up a hormonal teen girl who knows karate and Kung Fu.”

           
Boom Boom plops down next to me. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep out here. I just
had to get out of that dark, rat-infested cave. My claustrophobia was off the
charts.”

           
I nod but don’t say anything. We both sit there for quite some time, neither of
us saying a word. I find the silence unsettling. Usually we talk to each other
nonstop. (Most of the time we bicker, but we we’re still talking.) Boom Boom
puts her head in between her knees and starts shaking again. She’s in rough
shape.

           
I open my mouth to say something when Boom Boom blurts, “Do you love her?”

           
I’m taken aback by the question. “Who?” I ask, even though I know precisely
what she’s talking about.

           
Boom Boom glares at me over the edges of her shades. “Dorothy. Do you love
her?”

           
“I haven’t known her long enough to
love
her.” I pause for a moment, not
sure if I should tell Boom Boom how I really feel. I finally decide there’s no
sense in lying. Boom Boom can read me like a book anyway.

           
“I do like her, though. A lot.”

           
“Hmph. Well, I hope you two have a happy life together.”

           
I frown. Boom Boom’s addiction is messing with her head. She’s never this
petty.

           
“You know it never works out when we get together, Firecracker,” I say quietly.

           
Boom Boom sniffles and adjusts her goggles. She doesn’t want me to see her
tears. “I know. I didn’t mean to snap. I just wish I could find someone I could
trust… someone I can fall in love with. I actually began to think Arrow might
be that person. Last night he was saying all the right things. Now I realize he
was playing me like a fiddle. What irks me more than anything is that you’re
the only guy I’ve ever been able to trust. That’s why it hurts when I see other
women clinging to you. It’s petty, I know, but…”

           
Boom Boom sniffles again. I grab her hands and say, “Things never work out
between us because our personalities clash. We’re like water and oil… fire and
ice. We’re terrific friends… best friends, even… but we were never meant to be
a couple. That doesn’t mean you won’t eventually find someone you can love and
trust. You’re smart, beautiful, a good, decent person… you deserve way better
than that ass-clown, Arrow. Hell, you deserve way better than
me
.”

           
Boom Boom chuckles. “That’s one thing I love most about you… your
self-deprecating humor. You really are too hard on yourself. You’re a great
guy, Lance. Dorothy is lucky to have you. She deserves some happiness.”

           
“So do you, Firecracker,” I say, kissing her hand. “I will always be here for
you. We may never end up as a couple, but I still l… I still lo…”

           
I shake my head and sigh. I don’t know why I can’t spit it out. Maybe it’s
because I really don’t love Boom Boom. That shocks me. I thought I always did.

           
Boom Boom yanks her hands from mine. “Don’t hurt yourself, Lance.”

           
She then moans and grabs her head again.

           
“Alright, Boom Boom, I’m done pretending nothing’s wrong with you.” I pop open
my belt buckle.

           
“What are you talking about?” Boom Boom asks.

           
I pull out a small bag of pills and dangle them in her face. She gasps when she
sees them.

           
“You’re obviously going through withdrawal. I don’t like that you’re addicted
to these things, just like you hate that I smoke pot, but you can’t just quit
your addiction cold turkey, especially when we’re on a dangerous mission. We
need you at your best. Blade and Harpoon are counting on us to get back to take
care of them.”

           
I place the pills in Boom Boom’s palm. “Take them. Please.”

           
Boom Boom falters. “I… I don’t know what to say. I mean, how did you know? I
was so careful. I never bought pills while you were around. I certainly never
took them in front of you.”

           
“You obviously weren’t too careful. I’ve known for about a year. I never gave
you a hard time, even when you kept harassing me about my pot, because we all
need a little something to help numb the pain.”

           
“So you take pills, too?” Boom Boom asks.

           
“No. I just bring them with me in case you need them. Like I said, I need you
at your best.”

           
Boom Boom continues staring at the pills. I can tell she really wants them…
that she
needs
them. So I’m shocked when she crumples the bag in her
hands and tosses it into the flattened forest.

           
“Hey, those were expensive,” I gripe.

           
“Sorry Lance, but I decided I don’t want to be a pill head anymore. I decided
to stop when Sally got shot and I actually considered not giving her my pills,
even as she lay there in horrible agony. I didn’t like what I was becoming… a
soulless monster. I may be hurting now, but in the long run I’m saving my
soul.”

           
“I know exactly what you mean.” I grab my few remaining joints from my utility
belt and hold them up in the air.

           
“If you’re quitting cold turkey, then so am I.”

           
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Boom Boom asks.

           
“I never have any good ideas,” I say with a smirk. I crumple the joints in my
palm and toss them into the forest with Boom Boom’s pills. “There, now we can
be miserable together.”

           
Boom Boom smiles. “You really are a good guy, Lance.”

           
“I always suspected I was, but I wasn’t completely sure,” I say, cracking a
grin.    

           
A branch behind us suddenly snaps. Boom Boom and I spin around and aim our guns
at…

           
“Arrow?” Boom Boom cries.

           
“What the hell are you doing here?” I growl, cocking my gun.

           
Arrow approaches us with his hands up. Even in the darkness I can see he
doesn’t look too hot. He has bruises and cuts all along his arms and face, and
his quiver only has a few arrows in it. It looks like he’s been through a
bloody war. Unfortunately for him, I’m not feeling too compassionate.

           
I begin applying pressure on my trigger when Arrow reaches for an arrow.

           
“We’re not fooling around,” I warn him. “Stay back and drop your bow.”

           
“How about we all remain calm?” he says, notching an arrow on his bow.

           
“Arrow, for God’s sake, stand down!” Boom Boom shouts.

           
“I will if you guys do,” Arrow says, still walking toward us. “Let’s all drop
our weapons and…”

           
BLAM!

           
Arrow ducks to the ground as my bullet whizzes over his head.

           
“Lance!” Boom Boom shrieks.

           
“I’m sorry, my finger slipped!” I cry.

           
That’s partially true. I didn’t mean to pull the trigger just
yet
. I got
a little trigger happy because Arrow kept coming toward us.

           
Boom Boom kicks my gun out of my hand. I yelp and clutch my throbbing wrist.

           
“What are you doing?” I holler. “Arrow’s the bad guy here!”

           
“I’m making sure you don’t shoot him again!” Boom Boom shouts.

           
I’m about to give Boom Boom a piece of my mind when one of Arrow’s poisoned
missiles shoots past my right ear, nearly grazing it.

           
“You son of a bitch!”

           
I charge toward Arrow as he tries to reload his bow. I tackle him before he can
fire and toss him to the ground. We roll back and forth in the mud, trading
blows. I pop him good in the nose and mouth while he slugs me in my right eye.
Before I know it, though, Arrow is on top of me with a blade nestled against my
neck. I stop struggling as the cold blade digs into my jugular. Not enough to
penetrate my skin, but enough to let me know I’m one false move from soaking
the countryside with my blood.

           
“Get off of him!” Boom Boom screams.

           
I see some movement out of my peripheral vision, then Arrow falls off of me. I
scramble to my feet and watch as Boom Boom straddles Arrow’s body and nestles a
dagger against
his
neck. How the tables have turned.

           
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your miserable existence right
now,” Boom Boom growls. She presses the dagger so deep into Arrow’s throat that
a small trickle of blood leaks over the edge.

           
“I’m sorry, Red,” Arrow groans. “I didn’t mean…”

           
“Don’t!” Boom Boom snaps. “Don’t you
ever
call me that again!”

           
I snatch my gun off the ground and point it at Arrow’s head. “You’ve got a lot
of nerve showing your face around here after what you pulled.”

           
“I’m sorry,” Arrow says again, gritting his teeth as Boom Boom presses the
blade even deeper. Hell hath no fury like a betrayed woman clutching a knife.
Arrow is suffering the worst nightmare of any man who’s ever wronged a woman.

           
“Machete and I left you guys for your own good!”

           
“
For our own good?
” Boom Boom cries.

           
“Yes, we were protecting you from what’s bound to be a dangerous mission. But
first I needed to gain access to your database, so we could narrow down
Mikhail’s hiding places. And you guys kept getting tracked down by Pitbull and
those ninja freaks, which kept setting us back.”

           
“So far you haven’t said anything that’s made me reconsider slitting your
throat,” Boom Boom snarls.

           
Arrow’s eyes widen when Boom Boom digs in even deeper. “After we caught Mikhail
we were going to give you some of the money! I promise!”

           
I scoff. “You expect us to believe that?”

           
“I’m sorry, guys, I really am! But we don’t have time for this! My mom was
kidnapped!”

           
Boom Boom removes her blade from Arrow’s throat. “Wait, what?”

           
Arrow scoots away from Boom Boom and wipes his bleeding neck with his sleeve.
The cut isn’t too deep; it should heal pretty quickly (unfortunately).

           
I shrug. “So Machete got kidnapped. How is that our problem?”

           
“Lance,” Boom Boom snaps. She turns back to Arrow and cautiously asks, “What
happened?”

           
Still nursing his neck wound, Arrow says, “We were flying toward Alaska, but we
must have gotten a little too close to Dresden because a bunch of Neo-Nazis
blasted us out of the sky with energy blasters. The blasters fried our car
engine and we crashed into the ground. Mom and I jumped out and exchanged fire
with the Neo-Nazis, but there were too many of them. They zapped my mom with a
stun gun and nearly got me as well. I was going to stay and help her, but she
shouted for me to get out of there, to go get help. Some of the Neo-Nazis
chased after me, but I was way too fast. I eventually lost them in the woods.

           
“I kept running until I found some other white supremacists camping out a few
miles away. I stole their car while they weren’t paying attention and flew back
to find you guys. I had to stop for a while and hide in a cave while a bad
storm passed through. Then I kept flying until I found you all here.”

           
“You still have the car?” I ask, since that’s what we really need.

           
“Yeah, I parked behind the cave,” Arrow says, pointing off into the distance.

           
“Wait a minute,” Boom Boom says, shaking her head so ferociously that her hair
swings back and forth, giving the illusion of lapping flames. “How did you find
us in the first place?”

           
Arrow looks down at the ground and says, “Well, a while back I stuck a GPS chip
into the floor of your boot. I put it there so it would never fall out. That’s
how my mom and I have been tracking you guys.”