“No,” she said, not just giving him that, but putting her words into a full sentence, too. “They did not hurt me. Nor did they tell me what they wanted or why they... you know...”
“How exactly did you get away?” he asked, because this was still not making any sense to him. He found her slippers—neon and hard to miss, fuzzy was an understatement—and pulled them on, too. They were vaguely reminiscent of tube socks, with no real heel, so one size truly did fit all.
“I pretended I was helpless,” she told him. “And they believed it. They left me in the car—in the back. They also left the keys in the ignition, so...”
Damn, that did not make sense. Go to all that trouble to grab Tasha—a roadblock, all those men, all those weapons—and then just leave her in the car, with the keys right there, no less...?
Unless...
“Stop the car,” Thomas ordered.
“What?” She looked at him in disbelief. “No!”
“Stop,” Thomas said. “The car.”
Chapter Five
“They let you go,” Thomas told Tasha grimly from the passenger seat of the SUV. “I need you to pull over. Now.”
“They didn’t let me go,” she argued, but as the words came out of her mouth, she realized she didn’t quite believe them herself. Leaving the keys in the ignition like that? Guard standing with his back to her, practically singing La la la, I can’t see you...?
“No one’s following you. Why? Can’t answer that, can you?”
“They’re... busy...?” Okay, now she just sounded flat-out stupid.
“Pull. Over,” Thomas insisted, pointing toward one of the runaway truck ramps that they’d been passing every now and then, meant for trucks heading down the mountain. “There.” They, however, were still steadily climbing upwards. Her ears popped again as if in emphasis. “Tasha, do it. Now.”
She took her foot off the accelerator as she released her exasperation through her clenched teeth. “If they catch us because we stop—” Oh, shit! As she tapped the brake pedal, there was no resistance and her foot went right to the floor. “The brakes are out! Thomas, hold on.”
“Down shift,” he told her, leaning toward her and doing the exact opposite of hold on, reaching for the gear shift, his hand over hers as she jammed it into second and then first gear.
They weren’t moving that fast. They’d been heading uphill, and lifting her foot off the gas had already slowed them down. And now the engine worked to slow them even more. But momentum kept the big SUV’s tires rolling, and she tried to make the sharp left turn up the ramp.
Tried and failed. Almost in slow-mo, the right front of the SUV headed directly toward a concrete barricade as Thomas, too, tried to wrestle the steering wheel even further to the left. But then he gave up, and put his left arm across her chest, holding her in place against the back of her seat as he used his right hand to brace them both against the dashboard.
They hit going maybe twenty-five miles an hour—and it was still enough to give them a jolt and to make the car screech with the sound of bending metal.
The airbags didn’t go off, but she was glad for that because the one in the steering wheel would’ve hit Thomas directly in his already-bruised head.
“You okay?” he asked, his face inches from hers.
Tasha nodded, wide-eyed.
“Get out of the car, fast,” he ordered, and his tone allowed no room for argument.
So she opened the driver’s side and slid out—he was right behind her, vaulting over the center console.
“What—” she said, but then didn’t have time to ask the rest of her question, which was a colorful variation on are we doing, because he’d grabbed her hand and was running, pulling her with him. He headed away from the SUV, up and across the loose stones of the truck ramp that she hadn’t quite managed to pull onto, and down over the side of the ramp into the brush that covered the steep mountainside.
He yanked her down, then, onto the wet ground, where he shielded her with his body as if he expected...
Boom!
With a tremendous roar, the SUV exploded, and the world around her seemed to melt into a blazing hot wind as she heard herself scream. “Oh my God! Oh my God!”
Flames shot up into the sky and pieces of both metal and the rubble of the road rained down around them.
“You’re okay,” Thomas murmured—although he was probably really shouting over the noise. Still, his voice sounded distant, tinny. “We’re okay.”
She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that the brakes had failed, and yes, Thomas had been so completely right—whoever it was who’d left him for dead and kidnapped her had, absolutely, let her get away.
With the intention that she die in a literal fiery crash.
Tasha flashed both hot and cold as she lifted her head and watched the SUV burn. If they hadn’t gotten out when they did, there was no way they would’ve survived that.
“How did you know?” she asked.
Thomas shook his head as he helped her to her feet. “I didn’t,” he said. “Not for sure, but... I guessed.”
Tasha nodded. “Good guess,” she said as she looked up at him. His face was streaked by blood still oozing from the injury he'd suffered. His powerful body was covered by random pieces of her clothing, each more ridiculous than the next. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been able to keep from laughing. But they’d left normal behind a long time ago.
They were standing on the side of a desolate mountain in the rapidly fading daylight, with the temperature dropping—a handcuffed, pathetic princess-to-be, and a clown-costumed Navy SEAL who probably had a concussion.
Her own head was still ringing and pounding—and by covering her, Thomas had taken the brunt of the blast. It was amazing he was still standing upright.
Do we need to find a hospital, she’d asked him just moments earlier. She realized with another flash of hot and cold that she might as well have asked if he wanted her to find him a talking unicorn.
“Are you really okay?” she asked him now, her mouth suddenly dry as she imagined having to carry him the rest of the way across this desolate mountain range to the Ustanzian ski lodge—assuming that the road they were on led directly there, with no forks or turnoffs. If she had to, she would, but God, that was going to be hard.
“Bit of a headache,” he said, “but yeah. Things are looking up.”
She laughed at that. “Our car just exploded. We almost died.”
“But we didn’t. And I can cross Find you, Break you free from a compound of armed guards, and Cover my bare ass off my to-do list,” he told her, “so I’m happy enough to surrender the SUV to the Gods of Holy-Crap, and instead stroll the rest of the way to Ted’s mom’s house.”
Stroll.
She looked at the mountains around them.
Right.
“We gotta move now, as fast as we can, while we can,” Thomas said. “Whoever wants you dead is gonna come looking. And when they don’t find your charred remains in that fire, or my body back where they left me...? They’re gonna realize they screwed up, and then they’re gonna try to hunt us down.”